Thiago

The last shirt I bought was his. A diamond. The away performance against Swansea had him as a more mobile Busquets.

By that rationale I'd have supported Washington Colliery

I mean, I had no concept of Newcastle at the time I was 4 I saw a top I liked, I asked for it.

Several members of the squad could apply for a young person's rail card. Also, just get them to pay for it I've never understood that. Either value your time or your money. It's the same reason I've taken cabs when trains are on offer and vice versa.

Wilson is quick and loves to run off the shoulder. The thought of Bruno having Wilson as a passing option makes us considerably more dangerous.

I don't get why they wouldn't just get the train and send the gear up in the bus.

It's funny how that works. I remember watching Spurs v Man Utd and asking my dad for a Man Utd top (I can't have been older than 4/5). Not long after I found one of his Newcastle sweatshirts in the tumble dryer and from there it was in my blood. Like many kids I knew I loved football but often it's your first exposure that dictates your journey.

I'm pretty sure Howe said Joelinton just missed out on Chelsea so I'd imagine he'll be ok for this.

The fact Tuchel is deemed 'statesmen like' for saying war is bad when he knew who he was working with when he joined the club speaks strongly to how performative a lot of this is. If Eddie Howe simply said 'killing people is bad' they'd call him Churchill.

The optics of the UK forcing a major trade partner to sell would be terrible. You'd be naive to rule it out for good, but as MPs have said, PIF invests in multiple UK sectors. Fancing off sport won't look good.

It's going to be a difficult summer in many ways. There's a World Cup coming and some players won't want to risk their international chances. Right now I'd say you could pitch Trippier, Bruno, and ASM as definite starters but the rest are kind of up for grabs. As I said, there's basically a sliding scale of players to shift so I'll be curious to see what we go for.

Neville is very good at saying a lot that highlights problems but rarely if ever providing actual solutions. Talk of regulators is fanciful as it's almost impossible to enforce. FFP stops you doing what Chelsea did and just buy up a boat load of talent - we know because we were told that when PIF took over. You can try to legitimise sponsorships if you want but again, good luck getting that to pass the courts because you can't dictate what a company deems fair value. The chance to stop all this was when Abramovich came in and we didn't. The only reason we even saw him stopped was because he had ties to someone attacking a fellow European country. We're not going to suddenly start removing owners tied to fighting wars in the middle east. I'd like us to have more of a conscious with this stuff, but the sad truth is our governments do too many deals with these types to make such a thing possible. The place we're at now - as a society - means simply expelling them won't achieve anything. You're going to have drag them towards our way of thinking (if such a thing is even possible).

Any update on injuries and the like?

Rudiger is also massively overrated FWIW.

Amazing what a few goals for a homegrown player can do - talk of £40m valuation was ridiculous.

Right, apologies, to clarify, we're all hypocrites on something is what I'm saying. We all have our double standard for something.

It was such an emotionally fucked time in our history. We definitely didn't have the worst because I consider clubs that went bust or into administration as top of that list, but a bit like them I just couldn't look to the future and get excited. As bad as the relegations were I do think the period under Bruce was the nadir. The first time we got relegated I was very young and devastated, but the season after was fun and so too were our first few seasons after promotion. Even the second relegation was comforted by knowing we had an incredibly good manager steering the ship, but by the time Bruce rocked up I was already questioning which manager in their right mind would take the job after him. The football was awful, the results never felt repeatable, and he was just the perfect embodiment of the era. Even Pardew, for all his misgivings, had ambition. I never saw that in Steve, he was so terrified of losing what he had in this job that he never wanted to rock the boat.

That's kind of my problem in all this. I have no issue asking these questions if you must, but the fact a few of them refuse to acknowledge pieces they've written in support of engaging with Saudi is rank. I totally understand the 'we have to cover World Cups' etc so I'm not putting those people in that basket, but Holt in particular has changed his tune without ever acknowledging it.

I think what makes this relegation battle so interesting is the difference between those trying to escape. I'd say Burnley and Watford are there because they can't really create chances with any great quality or consistency. If Watford could have found a goal in four of their games under Hodgson they'd be 8 points better off. Burnley would be 13 points better off if you added a goal to everyone one of their games since January. It really is fine margins. Leeds and Everton are more defined by their inability to defend. You could add a goal and a lot of their results would remain. I think Norwich are already gone, personally. They simply don't have the quality at either end. Even Pukki is just Dwight Gayle with a Finnish passport. So then it becomes a case of who finds a way to cover themselves quickest? I'm not sure but it's going to be great to watch. If I had a pound to put on it I'd say Norwich, Burnley, and Leeds.

Aye, he was ok. His technique is quite odd looking to watch. It's almost like hitting a golf ball one handed standing up straight. He'd be fine for a team in the PL in the bottom half - Burnley would love him - but I can see this being his last season here. Time for all he moved on.

It's a 1-2 blow that changes the fortunes of the game drastically. If Burn does that on Havertz I think he goes. That said, aye, a yellow is about tolerable. The problem I have is, after that you think 'aye ok, they've won the coin toss there, but the next one is surely ours'. And it comes, and we don't get it. Not only do we not get it, but the thing isn't even flagged by the video assistant referee. The official on the pitch was awful, he's been awful for us before, he'll be awful again. I can also acknowledge that where he's stood it's probably very hard to see with bodies in the way, a ball to watch, and a possible corner/goalkick situation. Therefore I can forgive him. Who I can't forgive is the VAR. It's not a corner because Murphy touches it last - that's error one. He then doesn't even flag it to the ref so he can see it from a different view to make his own decision - error two. Then about two minutes later Werner runs offside and is tripped and he suddenly someone puts 20p in the VAR machine and we're having a check. I'm not here for conspiracies about big teams and all that, but what chance have teams in our boat got when you go away to Stamford Bridge and have two game defining decisions go against you? I'm also not buying the 'well that would have made it 1-1' because we would have defended far differently at 1-0 than 0-0. It's just beggars belief how hard it is for these guys to do the job even reasonably well.

Aye, we needed more from him today in possession. Ah well.

Watched it again on MOTD and got annoyed again. It's one thing jumping with your arm, it's another to lead with it.

Here's the sad truth - we're all hypocrites. Glendennig works for Talksport. They're owned by Rupert Murdoch. Is that aspiring to journalistic integrity? When Murdoch took over Colin Murray resigned out of principle, and yet there was Glendennig to fill the void and cash the cheque. At least I was supporting this team when it was owned by Sir John Hall and not PIF. He took a job knowing who he was climbing into bed with. Delaney's newspaper is owned by Saudi and Russian money. And yet, apparently it's all good because he writes a few critical op-eds now and again. He - along with his colleagues - will also pitch up at Old Trafford or Stamford Bridge, and play in these media games. Is that journalistic integrity? I remember learning that you're not supposed to take any gifts to maintain your objectivity. Did they ask Steve Bruce or Rafa Benitez what he thought about Mike Ashley running sweat shops? I will never ever attempt to justify Saudi Arabia, its regime, or its human rights atrocities. We need that conversation, we need it regularly, and we need to have our decision makers involved to find a genuine solution because the horse has escaped the paddock here. Saudi and countries like it are involved in business and we need to figure out what we as a country do about that and accept. What I'm fast tiring of is this performative bullshit. You're not Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein when you ask Eddie Howe why he took a job. He took the job the same reason you did, because you had bills to pay and you didn't feel it was your responsibility.

We're due a massive decision after today