NWMag

Most of my opinions on this have already been stated, but for me we aren’t a million miles away ‘on our day’; the challenge is the consistency to do it every 3 days. we have made huge progress to be able to make 8 changes on Wednesday and still have a strong team out, we couldn’t do this 18 months ago. As has been said, revenue is the key so consistent CL qualifying is a no brainer, this also increases our reputation among footballers; we could have all the money in the world but some other clubs are just a bigger draw than us currently. the key focus is to increase what we are allowed to spend but also reduce what we need to spend. This is where the academy is key, as is our policy of signing younger players. take a look at our back 4 for example. Once all fit, Hall, Botman, Thiaw, Tino could be our back line for at least 5 years. That means minimal investment needed in that area of the pitch, allowing us to focus on the other areas. Eventually we will get to a point where we only need 2/3 additions per year, tying into the “reduce what we need to spend” above. I could see us putting serious pressure on the league leaders within 2/3 years, but I’d say closer to 5 years until we mount a serious challenge for the title itself whilst remaining competitive in other completions. I would not be surprised if we win more trophies before then though, especially domestically, as the cups benefit us as we can match anyone in a one off game if we are on it.

He was on his unfamiliar side tonight too in fairness to him, and he was still great overall

He’s unbelievable. i don’t think he will be as prolific a scorer as the last guy, but he is certainly a more all round footballer and I think we will be better off as a team, based on this early showing

Silky

That’s fucking beautiful

The one which hit the bar would likely have been disallowed any way as it seemed to hit his hand prior to the shot.

In his defence there has been multiple occasions each game where has made good runs and a ball over the top could be played, but it hasn’t. I think it’s still a case of him getting used to us and vice versa, I’m confident it’s a chemistry issue more so than ability.

15m

Yeah I didn’t mean to knock Pope, he pulls off some great saves and 4 clean sheets from 5, impressive stuff.

My main takeaway from him playing was this too. It allows us to play further up the pitch and is a genuine option rather than Pope, who we can only really pass to out of sheer necessity and it gets pumped into the stands. Even if Ramsdale is a slightly worse shot stopper than Pope, it’s a trade off worth making in my opinion.

Completely on board with resting him. after Bradford, we have Arsenal, Union SG away and then Forest at home. We will want him to play all 3 of those (in 7 days) so it makes sense to rest him for this, and also presumably Bradford too.

He’s definitely our best player, awesome

It doesn’t make sense to bang on about squad depth if we aren’t going to make many changes in a 3 game week, if Burn and/or Schar start both then it seems daft to me.

With 3 games in 8 days you’d imagine he’s starting one of the next 2. Likewise with Botman, Thiaw, Elanga etc

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/newcastle-united-cancels-champions-league-32456827 Dundee school tickets cancelled, the season ticket holders who sold them cancelled too. 4,500 memberships being monitored for suspicious activity, apparently.

It’s interesting. city have the Etihad and the Co-op arena next door, the quayside space certainly seems big enough to house both, if that is something PIF wanted to do.

Article here

Was it the appointment? Or something else coming?

Agree, Gordon is as good up top as you are going to get for a 3rd choice

That’s crazy, we have been much better sellers this summer,

Least it will be on Sky now I guess

Love how this has just broke out of nowhere like the Isak deal did, poetic.

To be fair the 23 million Wolves paid was agreed as part of his loan, prior to him playing in the PL, so at that stage he was an unknown