Abacus

I thought it was interesting hearing Shelvey talk about his fitness levels already being up by 5%. I'd say it's more than that, but even so, tiny margins make a huge difference in the game. And he looks interested again, taking a few shots putting himself about. He's the first player I'd have dropped and called a waste of space before Howe came in, so I'm glad to eat my words so far. He's on my own team sheet again now.

It's been about 3 out of 4 games now since Howe took over where he's been excellent. I'm really rooting for him. If only he hadn't been managed by a big fat cunt.

I've no idea, but as a player who gets all over the pitch and never stops running, it's maybe worth a try!

Can you imagine a Joelinton chant? As redemption stories go, that would take the cake.

If that guy is the same Chris as Chris Weatherspoon, he was bang on the money last time when he said the chancers had bought Sunderland with their own money. Grumpy Narcissistic Old Fool said he was wrong, and Sunderland fans piled on to abuse him. In fact Methven, one of their chancer owners, encouraged this. He was essentially right, though. And now he is simply asking who owns the club, because it seems like ownership has gone to an offshore company whose ownership is murky / hard to work out. And might mean that Donald and Methven still own quite a lot of the club. Haven't looked it up myself, but that's what they're arguing about from what I can gather.

Avoiding technicalities, to me it's a bit weird how they've treated this. Anyhow, no interest on the loans or dates or conditions on the repayment date. Utimately, he could just write it off and not require the club to repay it because of how it's treated. It's described as a loan but not treated as a debt - it's been treated as equity, somehow. That being the case it means it's likely to be the owner who stands to lose rather than the club. I reckon. What can't be changed either way is their annual losses, which is what has stopped them spending more and probably will do for a while. Next accounts (to June 21) are due out this month. Would be amazed if it wasn't just as bad.

I just spent a few minutes scanning their 19-20 accounts (which run to June 2020). Holy cow they are a mess. Over the two years covered by that, they made a combined loss of c.£250m, their net assets more than halved to £70m, their short term borrowings shot up as well. The way I see it, they have essentially been propped up by interest free loans from the owner of about £350m.

Doubt it's a popular view, but one thing that's hard to deny about the apparently meticulous Benitez is that his decision making is pretty poor or under-thought when it comes to the jobs he takes on. Going to China was a daft choice. Fine that wasn't why he left Newcastle, and so that's not my problem with it at all. Going there can only have been about the money and can't have been well researched. Oh but Covid! Nah. Always excuses for him. It was a shit choice even at the time. Going to Everton was presumably as much about being near his family home as it was fixing a squad with no money, so presumably he didn't either understand the problems there to start with or isn't good enough to fix them. The point being, neither being nearer to home nor just money aren't great reasons for joining either of those two clubs if you're still ambitious, for all of his talk of 'projects'. Likewise, Newcastle was a terrible career choice for him. He can't have understood how much trouble we were in or the state of that squad when he took over in that relegation season. And he can't have done his research on the owner if he actually believed Ashley would stick to his word or have a single shred of ambition when he did stay on and get us promoted. Nor can he have any people skills to imagine that playing power games with Ashley was going to work or would end in any other way than it did. Before even that, Real Madrid was the wrong choice and arguably Chelsea too - prestigious jobs, but both short term and never the long term project he claims to crave. I'm grateful for the job he did at Newcastle, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's sacked from Everton and I couldn't blame them if he was. If they did, which other PL club would take him on now? His stock has fallen quite far and that's all due to his own decisions about who to join the first place.

Liverpool could be 2 or 3 up. At the minute, Benitez looks defeated on the touchline to me.

I think just kick it to the big man, whilst the crowd make air raid siren noises. (I actually do idly wonder that, because I don't know what other team does it now. If everyone is passing like Pep or pressing like Klopp then you can't do the same or they'll win since their players are better man for man at doing the same thing. I still remember how prime Stoke used to constantly rattle Wenger by sticking ten big men on the pitch, hoofing in corners and doing long throws. It's often the team that does something different that means the rest don't know how to react. Like how Japan played in the Rugby World Cup a few years back, by inventing a completely different style that nullified their opponents' strengths. That's the longest thing I've ever written in brackets.)

Shearer's man of the match on Prime, and too right at well. So many tackles, always running and making himself an option. Without him we lose that game. Good on him.

Minor quibble, my memory is that we sort of fluked that championship title since Brighton went on holiday for the last few games, having already been promoted themselves. It certainly never felt as easy as the Hughton promotion. But in either case, it's no easy job to turn around a team in freefall. I actually think Hughton's promotion was better, since there were so many stinking attitudes in the squad he inherited. But then again, maybe he had a better squad to start a rebuild with as well.

I'm not sure that I quite follow the point? That all the players are shit and everything is shit, so there's no point discussing any of it? But if so, that's where we are, unfortunately. So, I'd say it's exactly why it is worth discussing, because the cavalry aren't arriving till January and we need the best chance of getting a few points up till then, with what we've already got, to give ourselves a fighting chance. More than that, we need to try them all out so we know which are the most urgent to replace under an actual coach and with a defined system of play. So, it's about making the most of the players we have until then. And of a limited set of defenders I think it's odd that Fernandez isn't given a chance or even in the squad. He's not exactly great, but of what we've got left he's surely a better bet than Clark, Krafth or Lascelles. It was still a crime shipping out Lejeune out of all of them, but hey, we are where we are. I can only guess there are some big player influences behind the scenes re who gets selected, since there has been a managerial vacuum for over 2 years. Instead of...you know, objectively picking the best actual players from what we've got to work with now.

Still, he waxes lyrical about how the feeling of being at a FA cup final is absolutely magical and never to be forgotten for fans! Before not mentioning making sure we'd been knocked by the 4th round every year, including losing 3-1 to Stevenage.

Susan? Oh, hi. Can you make pornography come on my telly please?

In fairness most of them are normal and wishing him all the best. But somehow, it already seems to be derailed by one or two blaming the Covid vaccine.

They would have no basis to deny it. Integrity? That's not a legal concept. Basically, the argument was that to deny the takeover you would have to go above and beyond company law, and if you're going to do that and make moral judgements, then who should be the arbiter of that? An independent regulator would be better than a stitch up by vested interests, as everyone would be under the same rules.

It's worth noting that it's generally recognised even under any new regulator, the Newcastle takeover was still likely to go ahead. So this would likely be cleaner than the previous system. What it would stop would be scandals like Bury and Blackpool etc, plus unnecessary influence by the likes of the ESL 6. Henry Winter has, as usual, an excellent article on this in the Times. I'm all for most things in that report - I think it's just being reported this way on the BBC (i.e. being all about stopping the Saudi takeover, which it really isn't) is because Manchester is where the BBC's sports HQ is based.

There's no new £77m and it has nothing to do with the loan. It's just a misunderstanding of what these filings mean, I think. Newcastle United Football Club Limited (NUFCL) own Newcastle United Limited (NUL). They aren't two separate companies getting separate amounts of extra money. You put £38.5m into NUFCL, and then it flows down into NUL. Twitter just then double counted it and made it £77m. That £38.5m was all to do with running costs, and it was something reported on a few weeks ago already. I might be wrong, and I certainly don't know the distance between Wrexham and Halifax so you're free to doubt me. But it would otherwise be a bit of a coincidence that the consortium can only work in multiples of £38.5m. All it is, is companies house filings catching up to stuff related to a few weeks ago. I reckon.

I would like to retract this, and say that it's a 25 hour walk. Just a minor correction It didn't even seem right as I was saying it.

Well, one is a five minute walk. The other is a 4 hour drive, a 6 hour train journey, or a 62 hour walk. Midweek against Shrewsbury. I'm as disappointed to be giving the Mackems a break on this one as anyone.

Pleasepleaseplease!

It's so impressive if he really has tried to work on his game like this. That attitude makes me really warm to him and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he gets a chance and then takes it to prove himself. Yes, it's only one game. But it's still exciting to see what some of these players might be capable of when they're not being coached by a completely and utterly incompetent lazy hopeless dunce.

Of course, it's nothing but a magical dream. But it's been reported they're after an interim manager till the end of the season. Also that Bruce has expressed an interest in the job (and if true, the sheer brass neck and vanity of that is astounding). Anyhow, I'm doing my bit by furiously liking any post on any media which suggests him.

I'd love it if Bruce went there. Imagine the scrutiny he'd face and how he'd be unable to answer even the most basic of questions, then to watch the Man U loving media finally turn against him. Then of course he'd leave them in a complete mess, like he does to every club, everywhere.