Mazzy

What worries me is this Howe version of Newcastle still got beat by Cambridge and Sheff Wed in the FA Cup.

Fuck sake. Villa and Liverpool both losing until the 88th minute. This league man.

These last couple of games for him really shows why he was such a flop at CF. Other than being in a much worse team ofcourse. He actually excels at doing a bit of everything,being involved in as much as possible and I feel he improves with every touch of the ball he gets during a game. Clearly when playing as CF, you don't get that opportunity.

Did it after scoring his first.

Only Longstaff likely to be back for this then? And even then he'd only be on the bench. It's going to be the same team again isn't it, aside from Pope ofcourse.

Excellent result against a terrible team. How it finished only 1 nil I'm still surprised, they didn't deserve anything more than they got in the end. Pope missing now is a huge blow but luckily Dubravka is more than capable. Better with his feet atleast.

Man Utd have got to be the luckiest bastards in the league. They should be 3 down here but they'll end up winning this 1 nil in the 89th minute.

As expected. Same again line up again.

How do you figure that? Isak - 22 apps , 11 G/A Martial 21 apps , 8 G/A

I think they could start with both of them and 12 men on the pitch and neither would score anyway. Much of a muchness those two.

It's a tough ask to be the worst game of the weekend when Burnley vs Shef Utd is one of the other games, but they're managing it so far. This is like watching two average Championship teams.

Evans and Martinez both injured so I'm wouldn't be surprised. Seems like Varane has fallen out of favour maybe?

That's an alright group considering what we could've potentially had and how difficult Germany, Spain and Frances groups are. Denmark are the big problem obviously but I can see Slovenia and Serbia being incredibly tough to score against.

Poor Albania

Really hope Italy go into pot D, that would be lovely.

Could've been much worse. All these groups are tough though, no easy ones at all. Glad we missed Hungary but Denmark is almost as bad.

Really don't want to see Ashley Young get a booking today. He'll miss the match against us if so. Gordon against Young would be such a mismatch down that side.

No guarantee he wins that or performs the way he did at that tournament without moving to Newcastle though. The Anthony Gordon Paradox.

You're listing all these players from however many years ago. It's not the same now. Those clubs in the bottom half of the league won't be taken for mugs anymore. There's no way we rock up to Forrest or Palace and take Gibbs-White or Eze off them for anything under £60M (and that's if we're lucky). Half of those ones you listed also prove my point about players leaving because they are surplus to requirements at their current clubs. In January (usually) you either pay way over the odds for players or you have to set your sights on player who are out of favour at the clubs. I'm not saying January transfers don't happen, because obviously they do. They are just so much harder to get right. We need players who are better than what we have right now, are capable of getting straight into the team and those aren't easy or cheap to get in January. I think that's universally accepted.

I know it's always different when you're actually there on the pitch, so the players can probably see alright but this is almost unwatchable.

We paid what was considered at the time to be "well over the odds" for Gordon, obviously we know now it wasn't but plenty laughed at us for that price. He'd have gone for £10/15M less if we waited till the Summer. As for the others, Burn was surplus to requirements at Brighton/wanted to leave and we had to pay Woods extortionate release fee to get him, so Burnley had no choice. Targett was on loan in January so doesn't have any relevance to this. My point is proven by all those signings I'd day. We were struggling at the foot of the table and took what we were able to get. That's very different from now whereby the players we want to bring in are on another level to all of those signings you mentioned.

2 signings needed. Ideally Prem proven but that's almost impossible in January. Todibo and Philips would be my choices. Bringing Minteh back should be a last resort IMO, he's doing exactly what he should be at Feyenoord and needs to be allowed to carry on

Feels like people are getting overly emotional about this result. We all know why this is happening and its quite frankly incredible that it hasn't happened before now. Too many players unavailable and the players that are available are running on empty. Give them a break

Would be harsh to say yes. Why does it even matter if it is. I think we as fans need this break as much as the players do.

There's injuries and then there's injuries. Having 12/13 out for months at a time isn't normal. It's certainly more than enough to use as an excuse.