Kid Icarus

Villa are hardly understrength here like. An eye on the Europa no doubt but the line up itself isn't weak.

Is it really that out of the realms of possibility that some of the players we got last summer hugely improve next season? I totally understand not seeing it happening, but surely at some point not seeing it in players and then them turning it around happens enough times to think, hold on, maybe chucking them out and getting new players isn't the answer? Obviously there are exceptions like, mainly with our 'keepers.

Ornstein said the same about Isak at the end of last season so I'm dubious, but hopefully it's true.

I'll set my stall out and say tgat if he's here next season and is injury free he'll turn it around. The fundamentals of his game in terms of position are there and it looks like he just needs to get up to speed. Imo he's the easiest of the big signings to hang your hat on.

We've actually done 1 quite a lot, but agree with pretty much everything else you've said there, especially the streetwise bit, which is exactly what came to mind for me in the better parts of the second half.

The reaction to the starting line up is one of those moments you'd love to be a time traveller and just post this

Another good example of how quickly and hugely players can turn things around.

Think it was brought up a while back and thought it was canny funny that getting a red for it was the thing seen as utter woke nonsense and not...pulling someone's hair.

What a joy for the senses

Teams in poor form and low in confidence rarely get results by suddenly playing good football out of nowhere. There has to be something that goes into the cycle: a result, an improvement, a new player, something that gives the players some self-belief in order for the football to improve with it.

Maybe I missed bits when I lost connection but apart from that dodgy touch when Hall played it back to him I thought he played well in terms of saves and cross claims. Sad to see his decline though, his 22/23 was up there as the best I've seen from a Newcastle 'keeper and it's really only this season that I think the decline has been really noticeable. Saying that, I'd still have him over Ramsdale every day of the week.

@Curva Sud Milano any good?

Should probably give yourself a bit more time to come to conclusions then tbf.

Thought he was better again (from a low bar) even if that miss was bad.

I know we won against the in form team in the league after an improved performance last week against the 2nd most in form, the almost universally criticised team selection proved successful and confidence breeds confidence breeds performances breeds results, but starting Burn and doing a team photo is unforgivable. Nah but seriously, delighted with that, I think we've played miles better than that against worse opposition and come away with nothing, so it felt like just desserts to get a positive result we can reverse engineer the performance from. Mainly chuffed that even with our customary needless shitting of the bed, even at 2 nil, we didn't conspire to throw it away. Crawling, to small steps, to walking, to running and all that.

You're welcome.

Let's hope so. I'm more confident in the result than I was simply by looking at the line-up, but I'm still miles away, so until then: Just swap out Jordan's involvement for out own self-destruction.

You all wanted a line up change. Can't say Howe hasn't delivered.

Ironic considering who you all think you know better than.

A distinction without a difference then. This is different, there's no denying that, but as you yourself say, people don't just want different, they want different on their terms.

It's actually incredibly easy when you can see it for what it is. People don't just want 'different', they want different on their terms.

It's very clear now that when a lot of people were saying we need to try something different, what they actually meant is the line up that they already had in their heads, or close to it.

Into these derelict pier photographing, lane dwelling, SEO presenting, pavilion prancing shit hippies.

Newcastle winning at half time, Brighton win at full time is 25/1. Draw then Brighton win is 6/1. Both feel very generous.