OpenC

They haven't looked out of place in this league at all the three games I've watched. I don't think the consolidation is that necessary in all honesty, particularly if they can just buy who they like in a way that the blokes can't. This league is definitely a step up and they don't look as comfortable as they did but if they can do it this season I'll not be too concerned for them.

They keep playing each other into trouble, balls to feet they would have got away with last year but this league is a step up

Jas McQuade is fucking great like

Fucking get in Beth

Seagulls are in

Looks like more there than the blokes get

I'm not sure there's a way to blend a tens-of-thousands seater on the top of a hill into its environment. Make it an unashamedly gigantic statement of intent, if it's going to happen

And Alnwick, in hail so hard I couldn't lift my head to look at the pitch

Allardyce

Alnwick Town draw NUFC u23s in the Senior Cup. Will be an Alnwick fan on the day but looks like the Senior Cup will continue to be the only local trophy we haven't won

There's something being dug out behind the west stand at Kingston Park, but I suspect it's not the foundations for a stand that'll hold 40,000

What was the attendance?

Would be blood money marra, they'd be incandescent at having to give up their fake moral high ground

Should just go to Dudley or Cramlington and build a 200k place, think of the porples we'll magically be able to afford for a month or two until the league find another way to stop us spending anything after SJP has been bulldozed and turned into glass 'n chrome student accommodation. Nile Ranger House and the Boumsong Building

Honestly nowhere which is sort of the point. Hanging onto the city limits thing, but also thinking that the arena site constitutes that, doesn't make sense to me as I've said I personally would rather stay smaller and hypothetically struggle until PSR gets fired into the sun. Happily it's not up to me

It's a fucking wank location for a football stadium when the one we have is where it is, in my humble opinion

It could be worse, definitely, but the area is just so out of keeping with what we really want.

I just don't think there's an approach to the Arena that equals virtually any of the approaches to SJP from the city. IMO you'd just end up with hundreds of billions of cars parked on all those derelict little streets, people going straight to the game and people going straight home. It's far enough away and through a dismal enough part of town to make people think, "I'll just go to the game" I reckon. Once you get to that mindset, you might as well put it out at Callerton Parkway

Aye but the principle is the same like There is a clear town centre and the stadium feels like it's miles away, out into residential and light industry zone although it's not actually that far. Arena site would be exactly the same. Amazing new stadium will honestly not be so amazing imo, when your viewpoints are the Tsang Foods car park and looking over the garages from the college. The Gallowgate Pigeon doesn't compare to those bridges around Railway Street

Stadium of Light is only a ten minute walk and feels like it's on a building site

Also requires passing through a completely soulless and pretty dead part of town, although some folk appear convinced that bars and cafes and shops will spring up magically with the maybe-once-a-fortnight footfall that it will bring, just like it has in Sunderland

Because it's miles away from the centre of town. Elswick riverside would be a better choice than that for me. Additionally, honestly not to be down on anybody who's genuinely excited by this prospect because your opinion is worth as much as mine, but how good something will look to people coming in on a train, or from a drone shot with the river behind it shouldn't be anywhere near our thinking, like I keep reading this as a reason for the arena site, "because it'll look good for people who aren't there and most of them won't go / will look good on the telly". Complete non-issues imo

Not sure what to make of the team, a lot of unknown quantities in there playing together. We'll see

Unusually harsh boot put in by the BBC here a nice partisan "your support is fucking shit" there, absolutely no need for it at all