Kid Icarus

Despite the noise about how bad he is, he's been a totally different player under Howe and I think it's taken a while for me to fully accept that.

I think both teams can feel hard done by like. Them for the offside (it was, but howeh) us for getting a pen turned into a free kick and them constantly giving them free kicks over nothing.

His best performance today I thought. Broke down play regularly and had some lovely moments of getting past his marker with a touch. If he can be a bit more ruthless with his shots he'll be class.

Where are all the Weghorst posters now then? Looks every inch the donkey they're all desperate to post about Wood being.

The drop in quality on MOTD from Lineker, Shearer, Wright is unreal like.

Reading the opening posts to this thinking it was a brand new thread was mad. I'm a 4. Nowhere near fully feeling it, whether that's Long Ashley, the owners, or my age or something I don't know. Definitely more interested, just not really feeling it yet.

Down to a 4.5 from a 7. Why not lower? - Only 3 from 4, possibly 5 teams - We've had our 'easier' home fixtures with the teams around us and we still have to go away and do the business Get a result at Brentford and I'll be down to a 2.

Whatever it is, he's got it like

Probably some unfair ones here, but initial reactions: Dubravka - 7 Trippier - 8 Krafth - 7 Schar - 8 Burn - 8.5 Manquillo - 8 Dummett - 7.5 Joelinton - 8 Shelvey - 8 Willock - 8.5 ASM - 6 Wood - 6.5 Fraser - 7.5

Cannot believe we won that. Feels massive and like one of those cliché ground out results you need to survive. Would have snapped your hand off for a draw after their disallowed goal. Second half we went from lucky to pretty solid though and even though it was nervous, really they had no chances whatsoever.

I'd still be bringing Bruno on. Take ASM off and move Joelinton to the left

Oh. Fuck

Definitely needs to walk before he runs. Play that ball into Fraser and it's a notch in confidence, miss badly without hitting the target and it's probably a notch down in confidence.

Nice that we had a good half with ASM barely featuring, showing that there's more to our set up. Been impressed with Trippier obviously,Willock, and Fraser down the right. Joelinton yet again playing well. Tactics overall are spot on, just need to keep an eye on us getting leggy late on. Villa will get better imo, so that could be when it's ideal for Bruno to come on.

I was thinking this after reading that Athletic article about how Howe's revitalised the club. I feel like stuff like that tends to come out before losing a match. I'm sure as we hopefully get better we'll get more and more confident of our chances.

All about who's playing for me. If Trippier's in and Bruno gets a good amount of time I'd be happy with a win and okay with a draw. Without Trippier and I'm probably happy with a draw.

I wouldn't ever defend the indefensible with our club's owners, yet I still think Holt's completely full of shit and that that's the same 'whataboutery' he and others have already said either isn't an argument or is deflecting the issue.

Can still see Leeds beating Man United.

I'm sticking with the relegation battle being 3 from 4, with the outside chance of Brentford getting dragged into it. Both of these have enough to stay up.

Nah. I'd have Beye and Jose Enrique ahead of both. Some prefer Beresford or even Bernard over Enrique, but Barton shouldn't be in there imo. Even at the time, plenty preferred Steve Watson. Also, obvious why he's not there, but Beardsley not being there is a joke really.

I've been listening to it again recently and it's not great like. Marcus and Jim are still decent and I quite like Jules Breach, but the rest of them, even including Pete, are miles removed from what made it so popular in the first place.

Aye, they all sort of have that feel to them now and I can't get away from that point Disco made about James Horncastle being Gog from Peep Show . I actually don't mind Horncastle, but it feels true with some of the others on Tifo and TFS like. The attempts at humour are excrutiating, their analogies and insight are either forced or terrible, and it's all done with this air of superiority and sense that what they're saying is profound and important. Despite all that I still like James Richardson and I get the impression sometimes that he can't be arsed with the way they go on either.

Exactly that. It was a perfect demostration of how these things spread as well. One of them said it, then the other goes 'and you're right, people did question the price tag' not wanting to sound stupid and just assuming he knew what he was talking about. Surely even non-Newcastle fans listening must have been like 'wasn't he only £12m?' Fucking 'Asprilla wasn't at fault, unless he was Darren Peacock's defensive coach' ffs. All laughing over their chardonays about it. Them thinking they were dispelling a myth by just bringing up another one was perfect.

Two perfect Newcastle-based examples of this on The Totally Football Show this week, one of which was in a 'dispelling myths' section. Absolute chancers.

Shame you can't filter those stats to since Howe's come in instead of the full last year under Bruce when Joelinton was also a CF and Willock was a supersub AM. Even if you compare them this season, which includes 11 non-Howe games, it suggests that Shelvey's getting more out of less, whereas Joelinton and Willock are getting very little out of plenty of opportunities. https://fbref.com/tiny/zhYVR