AJ9

Same situation here. I was thinking next season too. My wee one is 4 in December so maybe a cup game if we get a home tie

Zaha does not strike me as the kind of personality we will look for. Also got a feeling he wouldn’t enjoy the move out of London up here.

I have to say like, as much as I dislike their club and love to hate their sad arse fans on match days, I have nothing personal against mackems. I know a fair few and most are absolutely fine lads until you get them on the chat about NUFC.

????? How have others missed this?

I’m glad he’s come good. I always felt he would be a good signing tbh, had no doubt he would be a huge upgrade on what we had. It’s not silly to say that without him on the left and instead continuing with Ritchie or Dummett, we would be looking at a very different situation

So glad I was wrong about him. Love him.

He looks immense.

Really chuffed for him. He’s worked his arse off for us since he’s arrived and now has two huge goals. Couple more I reckon before the season’s done

Absolutely agree

Is there an in form defender that should be taking Maguire’s place? Dan Burn? I must be missing all these wonderfully in-form centre backs we have in England.

This England team is actually really good. We work the ball, keep possession, press as a team, create chances through patterns of attacking play, and never really look flustered. I know I’ve said this already, but so much of that is down to southgate’s management. I’m old enough to remember us losing to absolute no hopers while hoping for a bit of magic from Rooney or Beckham.

Or…adding nothing of value to a “debate” that is currently running at the level of a taxi driver and his passenger. Same old tired arguments on repeat. Anyway, I’ll do my bit to make sure this discussion gets back on track and pipe down.

Exactly. They’ve done well because he’s done lots with them as a collective, as opposed to the years of relying on a saviour player to bend football to their will which was what England/the press was all about before.

Fair points. I’m just a bit tired of the debate around him, which seem to be driven a bit by our country’s need to criticise. Seems like an endless stream of “why isn’t x player playing” or “why are we playing three at the back” every time we get to a tournament. He’s gone closer than anyone else in most people’s lifetime, and is a genuinely decent guy too.

Are we officially starting the cycle of Southgate is shit/boring/clueless now then? Can we not just save the gnashing of teeth and frustration and accept that he’s not an amazing manager, but he’s the best one we’ve had for a while. He may not win us a World Cup, but we have no right to do that, and newsflash, there are other pretty good teams out there too.

We were shit today tbh. Seemed more interested in the scrap than playing football and got sucked into a horrible niggly game. We were really poor on the ball.

Shite from him two games in a row but we should have taken better care of the ball

Snap!

We need Wilson back asap

If you’re sensible, you’d have to think it’s still City’s league. Even if it goes down to the head to head tie between them. City can win the league with two possible outcomes from that match and Liverpool just one. However…the Achilles heel is obviously Pep. He will undoubtedly pull some mad shit in that game and end up losing. An all or nothing game suits Liverpool much more I think.

Hmmm. Except sports journalism is entirely complicit in sportswashing and none of them have the self-awareness to really acknowledge that. You buy a sport, you buy fans, you do wonderful things in a sport that reporters then write or broadcast about. On the same pages there will be some article about how bad it is. I’m not saying they should stop reporting, I just think that they need to acknowledge that they are as complicit in this (if not more so) than the fans of the club. They could for instance take an ethical stance and refuse to report on us, or elevate the reporting of clubs/sports that do not have an association to these regimes, but they don’t. Edit - Ronay actually acknowledged this recently in an article about Russia and football, to his credit. Second edit - see the athletic as an example. Loads of articles about human rights, the plight of LGBTQ community in SA, and then more recent articles about how great Bruno is, positive interviews with owners and Eddie Howe. All of this bought by the same money.

Somewhere, in another timeline, we are still talking about the horrendous performances of Jeff fucking Hendrick. So I think maybe we can lay off Bruno for a bit and just fucking enjoy having a quality midfielder. Honestly, you people.

Interesting about the Man U thing though. I remember a few kids in the mid 90s liking Man U and almost supporting them…until parents, peer pressure and us being good turned them. I guess it’s kind of less of a thing now as kids wear strips of all teams

My first proper game I remember was a 1-1 with Blackburn in the cup in 1995, Rob Lee scoring. My dad took me - wasn’t too long after my mum and dad had split up and he was doing special dad days for us all at weekend. My special day was going to the match (and McDonalds). I remember just being so excited even before the day. I was obviously aware of the club as there’s loads of pictures of me as a kid wearing the strips, with NUFC annuals and all that, but that was when the whole thing came together around an actual match. Was absolutely buzzing. From then on it was about selling my soul to get any kind of ticket for European games, cup matches etc. Eventually went to sell the Mag and got tickets through that…and then had a season ticket for a while. Some memories. I wasn’t always like the happiest kid, but football/Nufc was pure escapism and continues to be today.

It absolutely is. "What do you think about the polo neck, balls out of the bath on this one"