TheBrownBottle

Never felt luckier to be born and raised in Newcastle - if I’d been born south of the Tyne I’d have been playing County Durham Risk with our favourite friends 😁 Maybe we’re fortunate that South Shields / Gateshead AFC was booted out of the FL in 1960, because it would be a postcode %-based bloodbath

They we signing those players and spending that money to try and do this years ago - this hasn’t been a considered build. This is more like Perez’s ‘Galacticos’ horseshit at R Madrid a couple of decades ago

Without the away goals rule, 3-1 is a massive deficit to overturn.

It pours more money into their coffers and makes them more attractive than us - I’d happily see them out asap

Murphy has had a cracking season, but I’d still not be surprised if a bidding club offered half that figure - which will help keep him here. I can’t see anyone offering close to £30m.

The FA created that issue in fairness - they insisted that Man Utd go to Brazil for that daft World Club Cup shite, and then refused Man Utd permission to play a reserve team in the third round. Which of course they’d start doing regularly after the competition had been undermined so thoroughly by the holders not being in it. The FA wanted shot with shit for doing that - the Cup should’ve been absolutely sacrosanct; who gives a shite about hosting a World Cup next to damaging the FA Cup? Never made any sense to me.

He was mostly a midfielder for us in the PL after we went up - he didn’t start playing RB again until late in 95/96. We usually played him RW or CM in the PL in the two and a half seasons before that. The lad was incredibly versatile.

A couple of my favourites:

Which was a beaut - but if I remember right, he was playing CF that night (probably the most versatile player in our history)

In all honesty, I don’t remember that being the case - but at the same time, it would ring true in terms of the mess the club was in. Benitez was always a world class coach, but there is a reasonable argument that his transfer nous wasn’t always the greatest before coming to NUFC. He basically wasn’t backed once we went up, though.

I’d add Muto to the ‘not good’ list edit: apologies; I can see that Muto was discussed - though I would say that he was Benitez’s signing.

He’s our David May

Still feels like the oddest signing we’ve made under Howe (we know that the Greek bloke was a bit of PSR chicanery). Hope the lad kicks on, but he just looks miles away to me. His stats look worse than they are due to the limited mins (31 PL appearances, 0 goals - but he’s only played the equivalent of ten games). But if anyone can turn a big, strong centre forward who doesn’t look likely to find the net into a much better player in another role, it’s Howe. Ask Joelinton.

I’d be astonished if they did - we’re unlikely to sell at a loss, so they’d likely need to cough up over £40m, and none of them actually need a right back (if anything they’re all well stocked there). Porro, Timber, Gray, White, Lewis, Gusto, Dalot, Mazrouai, James, Bradley, etc etc

It did Anderson good going to Bristol Rovers - that’s the level this lad should be tried at.

I mean, he didn’t like - he came off the bench for the ‘A League All Stars’ and spaffed a chance to score, hit the bar, and Xavi gave him some praise after the game. This is the ‘A League All Stars’ that NUFC took so seriously that we played our kids against them. It’s a training match which European sides do for daft money - no-one should take any part of it seriously. The lad couldn’t get a regular start for the Mariners, and couldn’t step up to the Dutch or Scottish leagues. Obviously I’d like to see it work out for him, but the truth is that the lad would’ve been better off staying at CCM and seeing if he could develop rather than being shipped off to England far too early on in his development. He was raw and he’s been hopelessly mishandled by Ameobi; it’s now a couple of years since he was last selected for Australia, and I’d have thought if he’d stayed he’d have added a few more caps. If anything NUFC - if they wanted him - would’ve been better off loaning him back to the A-League. He’s still reasonably young and there’s time yet - but I wouldn’t be loaning him to the ‘Championship’ at this point; it’s still too high a level based upon past experience. He needs a loan to a third or fourth tier club for a short time to see if he has the talent.

Tim Flowers was the most expensive keeper in English football history at that point (£2.4m); I think the world record at the time was Pagliuca (£7m). But you’re right, Hislop was expensive in 1995 (from memory it was the highest fee paid in world football for a keeper that summer). Even Mike Hooper was a decent fee for the time. KK never did get it right - I still think if we’d went to Palace (who’d just been relegated) and offered a couple of million for Nigel Martyn, then we win the title in 1996.

He absolutely was for me - if KK had spent proper money on a GK we win the title in one of those seasons. It was always such a strange Achilles heel - a good keeper is worth their weight in gold; I’ve always found it odd that they don’t command close to the fees that great centre forwards do. It’s the second-most important position on the pitch IMO.

An opponent which took 97 points in their division last season

Because ‘Black Cats’ is weird and embarrassing and so obviously a recent neologism, ‘Mackems’ was meant as an pisstake of their accent (and older folks from Sunderland may still take umbrage at its use), and ‘Rokerites’ is no longer applicable. They’re a club without a nickname.

Champion - I’ll take that any time

Good ball that by Krafth

Leicester could’ve saved us all by simply forfeiting the game beforehand and giving us an automatic 3-0

Haha

Wilson’s legs do look like they’ve gone - that old burst of pace over five yards isn’t there