TheBrownBottle

Newcastle was the county town of Northumberland as well as being a county corporate town (‘county and town of’). All the large cities and towns (as well as militarily important ones) outside of London were granted that status. This is why Moot Hall was an exclave within the county corporate - Newcastle still served as the county town, but had a separate sheriff. It doesn’t mean that Newcastle wasn’t in Northumberland, whatever a copy-and-pasted Facebook post says.

A bit harsh on their support I reckon their average has only dipped a little below 20k twice this century despite not being in the top flight, and they were a top flight mainstay for most of their history prior to 2000. I’m not sure our average would be much better than theirs if we’d had the same spell they have.

Wallace Mercer says ‘hi’

Hey, than can happen when you’re playing Europe’s best team at home. Oh, it was PSV not PSG? Aye, that’s embarrassing

He should start playing well and maybe Liverpool will tap him up too and he can be reunited with him

Feels like it might be Pope at LB and Burn in goal at the moment

Yeah, I heard that interview, and it was basically ‘Eddie, your keeper had been shit again, and probably cost you a result again - do you fancy kicking the fucker under the bus when he’s at his lowest ebb? You probably will cause a bit of dressing room unrest but you’ll help us get a few extra eyes on our social media account for a day or two’

They’re a grand old club, but - unpopular opinion coming - I don’t think Ashley would be a disastrous fit, given what the last quarter of a century has been like for them. There’s no way Ashley buys the club to potter around the lower leagues - he knows the money is in the PL. So you buy a club as a big as Sheff Wed for a bargain £20m, and maybe you spend £100m to get them up - they’re instantly worth double that in the top flight. And if you’re a Sheff Wed supporter, you’re back in the top flight. Of course, Ashley is venal and incompetent, so it could all go wrong - but it’s been going badly wrong there for a long time. Sheff Wed are still a bigger club in my mind than half the PL teams.

We’re £5m off Villa re wage bill. Agreed - which is what defines good management.

I can remember yonks ago Peter Schmeichel saying that goalkeepers are defined by their mistakes - and he wasn’t wrong.

No, they’re nowhere near. Villa are the closest, and our squad cost £130m more than theirs. After that it’s West Ham, and our squad cost £190m than theirs. For point of comparison, Liverpool’s squad cost about £215m more than ours. So we’re in a strange spot where we massively outstrip the other 13 clubs, but lag well behind the ‘big six’. edit: our squad cost £300m more than Palace’s - who also won a trophy last season, and have European football this season. And are doing pretty ok so far.

Yep, the second was 100% the defender allowing PEA to get across

I’ve just rewatched the goals after getting home and the first just gets worse every time l rewatch it. How many brain farts does the lad get to have before he’s dropped?

It didn’t look like that to me either - we lost control of the game for the last 20 mins of the first half and a goal looked inevitable. Marseille aren’t any great shakes, either - but once again away from home the same old, same old.

There’s plenty of time for the lad to come good - we’re only three months into his NUFC career. But Christ the lad needs a performance desperately.

Yeah, fair enough. I didn’t check but could remember a lot of talk like that - it’s been a long day and couldn’t be arsed to check

Minimum allowable damages

At the risk of pelters, didn’t latter stage Howe at Bournemouth make similar signings? Paying megabucks for talents below that value.

I don’t think Ramsay has done owt wrong tbh, but I think it’s probably the fee (hardly his fault) which is raising the ire of some. The 2025 version of Willock starting ahead of will definitely lead to questions as to why Howe bought him - again, a ‘PL-ready’ signing. I’m playing devils advocate on this one - I still think the lad is a good player.

The performances by him being put in wouldn’t have been acceptable at any point under any manager or regime

Of all the Mackem myths, I think ‘a rivalry that goes back to the English civil war’ is my favourite of all. It’s such complete and utter bollocks and an obvious fiction - what rivalry would a walled town have with a fishing village? ‘Sunderland supported the parliamentarians’ - tricky to do it when neither Sunderland (nor the whole of modern County Durham) actually had a single MP, unlike Newcastle.

I’d rather just invite every country to a WC and have a few more games there. Just seed it like the FA Cup so that some countries join in prelim rounds, some in early rounds, some in final rounds. So if Andorra win it they’ve played say 13 games, if Serbia win it they’ve played sat 10 games, if Brazil win it they’ve played 7 or 8 games. Once every four years the domestic season would need to finish a couple of weeks earlier, but you’d have zero mid season international match disruption.

My search parameters were too narrow I think

I searched for ‘1.01 - Eddie Howe is a Cunt’ but couldn’t find a law school with it on the syllabus. So I’m still unsure.

15th highest average crowds in English football historically, despite having spent more of their history outside of the top flight than in it, never finishing higher than 6th and with only two LCs to shout about. A successful BC could be a big club.