OpenC

Well, because that's how football works. The other teams that routinely qualify for the Champions League aren't subject to the same anticompetitive restrictions that we are. Everybody is in the Premier League because they're pretty good at football. I don't expect to beat anybody, least of all the fucking mackems

Well aye, of course. It's the blind expecting to that gets on my tits

We've been a bang average laughing stock of a club for fucking decades. The best we ever got labelled was 'sleeping giant', based on pretty much nowt except a passionate fanbase and being everybody's second favourite team years, decades ago. I don't know what some of you lads and lasses have been watching all this time that makes you feel we can and should expect continuous year on year improvement, in a 'sporting' environment that goes out of its way to nullify in every way it can the one advantage we have, rich ownership. I agree the 433 is infuriating. I agree the subs are Bobby Robson level predictable. I don't agree with sacking your manager due to one disappointing domestic campaign after he's saved us from relegation then routinely outperformed expectations in the league and gone deep into cup competitions pretty much every year. Also agree that he's carrying the can pretty much single handedly for the ownership's complete lack of interest last summer and He Got Exactly The Players That He Wanted, which is patently not the case, is just the accepted narrative now. We've changed, like. Got our club back and lost our sense of perspective all at the same time.

FT, pretty dismal aal round

Is that the fucking Vengaboys they play?

I keep telling the two libpewl fans I work with that this is what happens next, they don't believe me

Alnwick Town says hi Manager is leaving at the end of the season after two league cups and promotion back to the Northern League. Canny knock in five years. We can only finish 8th or 9th and it's been a frustrating season with a lot of points dropped to shit teams who are going to get relegated but from the point of view that we were playing in the Alliance two years ago I can't object too much. Signed off at home with a 3-1 over a shit Darlington team with only 3 subs, last game is at Chester le Street next week, a ground I haven't been to. Morpeth looking in trouble now as well.

Them grabbing a priceless away point on a Thursday night at Zport Klubb Arschenspittel who finished fourth in the Moldovan Divizia Națională wouldn't get me down too much I don't think. You might see a mackem in Milena, but you're still not going to see one in Milan I would have to weigh it carefully if consigning spurs to being cut adrift was the sweetener

I don't see that the current crop are really that much of an improvement, if any, on your Kacie Elsons or Katie Barkers. They were raw as fuck but they had a spark and a bit of passion and the fans absolutely loved them. The wholesale changes were bound to flatten everybody who was there at the time and it was just really badly handled and implemented imo. Jas McQuade being shoehorned into a weird holding role that doesn't suit her one bit is just sad to see. The two lasses that did play that role in the past who are still there, Boddy and Kelly, seem to be permacrocked or just out of favour now. Hannah Greenwood was a brilliant and dependable little utility payer who was probably not far off the quality of what was signed to replace her. What happened to Pottsy? All this said, I'm a big fan of just natural progression and gradual evolution and giving people a chance to perform rather than wholesale changing of teams, as people might remember me posting at the time, so my expectations are probably different to others'.

Blown it then, barring an epic collapse at palace and an unanticipated last two games from us. They're nowhere near good enough to compete in the WSL though, and there doesn't appear to be a lot of ambition, so probably for the best all things considered. Have to wonder whether it was really worth losing the good will that they did booting out the local lasses and the ones who had come through the divisions. The buzz around the women's team is much reduced from two years ago (fully accept that by the end they were big and well paid fish in a small and generally amateur pond in the National League mind).

Sunderland West End winding up apparently so that's a start - a team that only existed to play at a terrible 3G hub they didn't own and with, as far as I could see, no actual fans at all.

Aye, just through the sports centre and out the back. It's like a horse field, probably was one not too long ago. Only access to two sides, not much hard stand, not really even up to NL standards. I mean, not everyone can have an old ground with a bit of character like Seaham, Tow Law, Alnwick or Sunderland RCA but I can't believe the ground hop day organisers picked that one like

500 there to watch a bad tempered 1-1 between Newbiggin and Alnwick on Groundhopper Day. Terrible ground for the organisers to choose but all the hoppers seemed to have a nice day anyway (until it started to rain and they all fucked off)

Will work for chocolate

Fucking Chelsea fans bouncing up and down in glee when they put their seventh past Port Vale about 600 places below them in the league but otherwise sitting in silence

Aye I don't think Newcastle fans are in any position to criticise any team's managerial appointments since 2008 like

With everything that's gone on since we became The Richest Club In The World but couldn't do anything because of hurriedly put together new rules that keep the drawbridge up, I don't know what people are seeing in the wider picture that makes them think a roll of the dice is going to improve matters one bit. If they get rid of Howe and appoint somebody new, it's not going to be another go at that October 21 optimism. It won't get anybody any closer to a new stadium or training ground. We've been put back in our box and everybody knows it by now. The lad deserves scrutiny when we're not playing well, and the sort of pressure he's been under and the story we saw yesterday have to be accepted working at this level, but at the end of the day all of the great things that have happened since the takeover are because of him, not despite him, imo. Staveley was a great figure to have around the place, someone to coalesce around, but not part of the sporting success. He's a class act who has had his hands tied at all levels. They could appoint Pep or Klopp tomorrow and players still wouldn't come because they'd still get paid more elsewhere - in 2026 no fucker is signing for a club because they want to work with a particular manager when they can get literally £5m more a year somewhere that's allowed to pay it tl;dr I just don't see that replacing him is going to clear all the other logjams and embuggerances that are conspiring to keep us where we are. We can't go back to 2021 and have another go at being Biggest In The World. I hate the ownership thing and what modern football has become but progress has been pretty amazing in the grand scheme of things and a lot of us have forgotten where we came from I reckon.

Absolute belter from Elanga as well

Yeah I don't think there's really anything in there that any premier league manager wouldn't expect. Just strikes me as a bit of a Remember Who's In Charge cock wave, maybe to try to put to bed the power struggle tales we've read for the last few years.

Louise Taylor loving this in The Guardian, can't link it from work

votes of confidence are bad enough, this isn't even one of them

Hughton is a lovely lad but he had no real control over a dressing room full of powerful characters, which I suspect is half of spurs' problem

Got to be honest, in a purely vindictive way and in the spirit of complete retribution and nothing else, I would love to see Spartans go down after depriving us of all our goals at Alnwick this year. My sympathy for them is limited can't see it happening now mind

Alnwick beaten two nowt by a team of moaning grafters who wanted it more. Probably a decent advert for the division but a disappointing result for Alnwick whose playoff chances are now pretty much gone. Worst red card call I have ever seen in my life as well, referee let everything flow quite well until about ten minutes from time when he sent off an Alnwick midfielder with a straight red for shirt pulling literally on the half way line, played advantage then gave the red when Alnwick's next defender won the ball back. Goal scoring opportunity

Courtesy of Sunlun AFC