Armchair Pundit

Sense of untouchable entitlement from young lads who have stupid amounts of money and no decent moral guidance of any sort from anywhere, it corrupts.

Utter scumbag, hope he gets nailed by the police. edit - Greenwood that is, not Burnsie (Burnsie's just a knob)

Christ on a bike, the bloke's even a liability in friendlies! Incredible, he really needs shipping out asap.

Brilliant memories these

See now Jimbo's here, we'll know when transfers are really happening

Trying to remember anyone else that I've not seen mentioned, what about that bloody hippy Tom? Or Parky and his conspiracy theory stuff? Wasn't there some bloke called Dogmeatman or something too? Was a bit mental I think. (I've skipped a couple of pages so you've probably mentioned them already)

If @Tooj can bring his Viva La Keegan vid with him and that one about Bobby Robson Who Wants to Live Forever, that'll be grand.

Urgh fecking hell, not this lot, thought I left them behind ages ago!

Linguard, Deli Ali, Ramsey, Wiltshere, would definitely bolster the British core of the squad, if we wanted to go down that route. (Just to be clear, I'm not saying we need a British core necessarily)

I wonder how many of the new signings that come in this month will have a relegation release clause.

I think the club, owners, fans, probably the manager and coaches are essentially united - far more than we have been for many years... the players on the other hand... Would I take Rafa back? Yes, in a heart beat. However, I think Howe deserves a crack of the whip with a rejuvenated side of his own signings. I think any manager will struggle to get a tune out of some of the shite in the current squad and the problem players would continue to poison the rest of the squad. We need shot of the likes of Shelvey, Gayle, half the defence and get in replacements who are more than the Championship players we brought up from our last promotion. The only reason Rafa managed to get anything out of the current defence was because he had them solidly drilled into playing exactly how he wanted so they didn't have to think for themselves, Bruce relied on that initially but as it became a distant memory under his 'coaching' the defence fell apart. Now we're left with a dogshit defence who don't know what they're doing, a midfield who are weak and uninspiring and strikers who have so little confidence or end product they're completely ineffective. I honestly don't think there's enough time to get the team's mentality in order, even with any new players we bring in. The squad is so ridiculously lacking in quality, leadership and drive that I'm 99% sure we're going down again this season - Mike Ashley's final insult and curse on us after his departure. My biggest concern is not going to be getting promoted back from the Championship, every time it's happened previously there's been worriers who's fretted over a supposed increase in whatever level they think the Championship is at. The thing we should be most worried about is whether the Prem (and so-called big six) will find some other way to hamstring us while we're out of the picture, whether they'll make enough changes to the rules of the league to stop us competing on return. That of course then leads to the train of thought, would our new owners feel that such a fight was worth the bother, would they just up sticks and invest in a different league instead.

I suspect Rafa becoming available will now put added pressure on Howe to succeed, perhaps from a section of the fans but also from Mandy who wanted Rafa from the start of their involvement. I'd like us to give Howe a chance tbh, I do like the idea of having an attacking team, the new entertainers, very much... but I also loved Rafa's approach to running the club while he was here, I always felt like we had a chance of getting something, even with the dross players and complete lack of investment he was restricted to, his involvement in everything, including the community.

Could they bring him in as a consultant to oversee the new training ground/base of operations at the club? Keep him close, then if things with Howe don't work out we can bring him straight back in. ... though that sad, would any involvement undermine any potential success for Howe?

Howe has been a vast improvement on Bruce, I think the issue has been more with the players not having been properly coached for so long, not being fit enough, not having had decent fresh recruits amongst them since we came up from the Championship and a general acceptance of our predicament. That said, I can't help feeling Howe's methods probably only work sufficiently if he has decent defenders who don't need as much direction as our current crop.

If only he could see that he doesn't need to be the biggest fish in the pond to be loved by the fans, he's turned in to a stereotypical lazy French player since his pal Bruce left and he was only happy with Bruce because he let him do as he pleased. I still think Saint Max could be outstanding for us, but he's another who needs to change his attitude on the pitch.

Shelvey's a twat, he's been a twat for a long time and I don't think he'll ever change. He's a typical example of a footballer who could be a lot better but choses to waste his ability and employing a shit attitude, he should never be in the first team again.

What worries me most isn't the actual relegation, it's what the Premier League will put in place while we're in the Championship to stop our owners from being successful on our return.

Not entirely true, at least we're drawing some matches rather than losing all of them... but I get your point

I don't know if Howe is a problem tbh, I feel like it wouldn't matter who we have as manager. The players seem to have forgotten how to play, their confidence is shot to shit, we look like a side that's accepted it's fate. I'm starting to wonder if we actually need relegation to clear out some deadwood, play at a lower level to build ourselves back up from scratch in an environment that would give us time to gel a better team together and build a winning mentality. Maybe it's what's been scripted all along, both us and Rafa need to hit the reset button, fall in love with it all again... I just hope that if it takes a relegation to do that then the owners will bear with it and see the potential of the bigger picture.

That's that then, I think we're done.

Lazy looking fucker but he's done it again, cracking goal!

We... are... turd

I foresee a repeat of the the Norwich match - six pointer we should win at home, but some twat gets sent off.

Fucking Shelvey, he's the one, ready to fuck up the game for all of us and doom us to relegation.

Bloody radio stream from the official NUFC site is pants for me today