nbthree3

https://twitter.com/jchaytor16/status/1313547505729179656?s=20 We go again hahaha

https://twitter.com/MoneyMikeAshley/status/1313432939837960193?s=20

Was close enough, he was telling us all to ignore the 'second bid', not the American bit. Still, must've been another bidder not Mauriss.

With the Mauriss bid, I swear Luke said a few days before it was out that there 'was an unnamed American involved' but it was all lies anyway so there wasn't any point reporting on it. Spent since November apparently with knowledge of that bid to come out saying it's false before it was reported by I think the Sun. Must have been the other unnamed Americans which we still don't know about

Mid-September (like 6 games in) Bournemouth were 6th. They ended up relegated, so if it's alright I'll keep cautious and not overreact (though it is very easy to, whatever result)

Turns out it was for the match programme

"So all of a sudden we have to think we're Liverpool, do we? The style is we've gone from a back five to a back four," he said." I reckon a back four

Despite the flurry of headlines around the mysterious Bellagraph Nova Group on Friday there remains one game in town when it comes to the Newcastle takeover: the consortium backed by the Saudi Public Investment Fund. It's understood that they are now preparing for the long haul with Mike Ashley's legal action against the Premier League still in the preparatory stage. But a source re-stated commitment to the project this week, with PIF - who have made no public comment - maintaining a watching brief. It's nearly a month since Newcastle's explosive statement, which came after a week in which the group hoped to have done enough to overcome the hurdles which stopped the deal being done in the summer. The Premier League have yet to reject or approve the bid, which is partly what the legal action is centring on. A rejection could lead to a successful appeal. There is heavyweight political support for the bid. The Saudi side have attracted plenty of interest from intermediaries and football clubs since their interest in Newcastle became public. But all tentative approaches have been dismissed with United still the focus - even if it's now very apparent there will be no resolution in days or weeks. Instead it looks as if Ashley's tenure will continue into 2021 - with the caveat that the legal action he is funding is at least proof of his willingness to sell. Alternative buyers - including Henry Mauriss and the BNG Group - are not being taken seriously and while there has been expressions of interest from other groups the commitment to the Saudi-backed project has - in the words of one takeover intermediary - "put them off the scent".

In many ways Bruce's decision to make the hot-headed, yellow card-prone Lee Cattermole his captain proved emblematic of a rather gung-ho reign during which players such as David Meyler were rushed back from serious injuries only to suffer further complications, the idea of hiring a sports psychologist was dismissed and the manager boasted about his inability to send an email. While Bruce – who did finally learn how to log on last summer when the club issued him with an iPad – may well argue this lack of computer literacy was hardly relevant, many of his peers spend countless hours checking out the latest sports science innovations, researching transfer targets and analysing Prozone statistics on their increasingly indispensable laptops. Unashamedly old school, Bruce believed that motivation was the key to management but the influx of overseas coaches has raised the Premier League's technical bar and despite his relative youth, he has begun to look suspiciously like a man whose era has passed. Unlike many modern managers he did not coach the team himself, delegating that job to his assistant, Eric Black. While Bruce's undoubtedly engaging, humour-suffused, personality had a broad appeal, he fell out with quite a few players, most notably Kenwyne Jones, now at Stoke, and Anton Ferdinand, now at QPR and who had by common consensus finally emerged as Sunderland's outstanding defender when he was sold in August. Is it the top bit of this, from the 2011 piece? Mentions his computer illiteracy

On Sky's very own website https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11678/5365179/bruce-toon-not-my-dream-job

(not forgetting in 2009 he said Newcastle was never his dream job)

Other way round sorry, Bruce over Rafa. .3% though

Can't vouch for its accuracy but the pro-Bruce lot are using this as an argument why he should remain (though to me it looks like putting Rafa over Bruce which is irrelevant, what Rafa has done isn't important to how Bruce is doing)

https://www.nufc.co.uk/nufc-tv/latest-videos/bruce-pre-burnley-h-media-briefing-20-21/ The full briefing, have fun!

"I've been going 20-odd years and I look at the clubs I've managed - Sunderland, Hull, Birmingham - and think they were in a far healthier state than they are now. "To say that I'm lucky, I just find it a little bit insulting but I'll keep trying to try and improve us, try and get better and try and make us play better and that will take a bit of time unfortunately because we're trying to implement change. "So all of a sudden we have to think we're Liverpool, do we? The style is we've gone from a back five to a back four," he said. "Hang on a minute, we've only lost one out of six. We've won four," he added. "We're trying to change something a little bit to try and go with a back four if we can. "Now I'm lucky, am I? Lucky? Wow. I just find it frustrating and deeply disappointing because this thing of direction or a lack of tactics...what do you not understand? "If you watched us, I grant you, we have not played well enough. But we've played with one up and one off the front and a back four now in six of the seven games and we did it out of lockdown as well apart from the last two or three games when we went to a back three against Tottenham and Liverpool. What do we not understand? "So I'm going to question you lot to say: 'Do you not understand what we're trying to do?' You can tell the supporters and explain to them. I find it the frustrating part. Where has that come from all of a sudden?" Wow.