TheBrownBottle

‘Assists’ are a weird old metric, though. They’re a pretty recent introduction, and are borderline meaningless - they imply that the last pass before a goal is the one which creates a goal.

Plenty of room, too. I had a few ‘routes’ over the years - don’t know how that happens, but groups of mates seem to have regular routes then somehow it all changes. Pre-match it was the Empress - Beehive - Vault - Idols when I first started. Then that changed to Union Rooms - the Pink Lane pubs. Then the Adelphi - Bar Oz - Percy - Three Bulls. And I have no idea when or how the routes changed!

Fair enough Hank - but I’d still advise being more careful in one of those wank bars on Collingwood St than in the Garter

Used to drink in the Garter with my uncle sometimes post match. For several years I drank in the Adelphi pre and post match when Tess Mann ran it. I never had my post graduate analysis in there lead to getting me a slap, either. In all honesty, you just seem desperate to think that casual violence for overhearing people say something negative is par for the course in Newcastle’s less shiny pubs. In two decades drinking in those places I can honestly say I saw less pagga and aggro than in the shit plastic Bigg Market bars of my yoof. Listing ‘hard bars’ in Newcastle and fantasising that a bloke you’ve never met will get beaten up in it for saying that John Hall is a cunt is an interesting use of imaginative thought, even if it is borderline ‘my dad is harder than your dad’ crack.

I used to head to the Quayside post match - to get as far away from the crowd as possible to avoid exactly this

I agree, it would be hard to do it. Which means that it is harder to assess performance of your own squad. I still think the final count will show that we’ve got a decent squad with some superb players, but some pretty gaping holes in it too. GK, RCB, RW, CF are not well stocked (allowing for CF having one elite player in it).

Yeah, The Percy and The Three Bulls were always on my route on a matchday Try not to call someone’s pint a John Hall when you’re in there, mind

Which only works if you analyse the other squads around us in the same manner. Our squad is better than that of Bournemouth, Fulham or Forest for starters.

Tbf I’d watch local news if that was what they did for vox pops.

Southgate picked Pope, Wilson, Gordon, Trippier. Carsley capped Hall and Livramento. The bias was always more around top teams (which we are now) having their players picked even if they were completely out of form rather than geographical.

I hope so, but if not they will forever live in my memory. Actually, I don’t remember them all that well …

As a former regular in The Percy, I can confidently say that no collar would be felt for saying that John Hall is a cunt. Not sure where all this working class army ready to spring to defend the honour of a rich old man - who financially supported the govt which shut down working class jobs in the area - comes from other than a complete figment of your imagination. Mind you, in the post-match Toon Disco upstairs in the Percy you’d hardly be able to hear any say anything. And RIP Leo Sayer - Percy legend.

He didn't - but the OP was asking which NUFC players had been called up without winning a cap. Taylor is a good call as from memory he made the squad a couple of times.

Honestly, fuck me ragged, what has the man been watching. He should at least give the press pause for thought before their inevitable xenophobic attacks after next summer's failure

The one that sticks in my head is John Beresford vs Turkey (I think). Just because I was a kid.

Jordan Henderson? I revoke my previous comments. Useless cunt.

Tuchel making me glad I voted remain, before fleeing into self-imposed exile

Sorry to bother a sick person - but how are the rankings looking so far based on the players rated to date?

I think I might be one of Murphy’s biggest defenders on N-O - but he’s still a D for me on the basis of how the rankings work. I’ll happily state that as a pro and as a bloke he’s an A, mind - and it is all credit to him and Howe just how well he’s performed in this side. He’s a PL quality player, but only as a squad member

100% mate - you still have to spend it wisely, and Howe mostly did; he has a better transfer success rate than any previous NUFC manager IMO. Just trying to be fair to previous managers - and I’m thinking of the likes of Rafa rather than Bruce (edit: though oddly enough it could be argued that Bruce’s transfers weren’t all that terrible in the long run - and Rafa made some right bollocks-ups! )

It’s all context, of course - other managers haven’t exactly had the budget either. But my view remains that (for me) Howe performed a borderline miracle in 21/22, did a superb job in 22/23, did a good job in 23/24, and has done a very good job this season (with caveats around some of the performances early on and recently). We’re 6th and in a cup final - we have to be happy with that is my view (I always get really fucked off when we lose in the FA Cup, so I was annoyed the other week) - the league is so tight that this time next month we could easily be 3rd, or we could be in 10th. I can’t understand any calls for his head tbh - the bloke clearly has a lot of ‘credit in the bank’. When things were looking grim earlier in the season, I was posting in this thread that if it carried on until the end of the season that might be as far as he goes. Barring a major drop in form, we should be ok - and if we win on Sunday, I frankly don’t give two hoots what happens until May. The man will be able to coast on it for some time for me

Don’t get me wrong - playing a beautiful attacking style and blowing Liverpool off the park wouldn’t meet with any complaints from me. But an 90th minute calamitous OG by their keeper to win it after we’ve spent the previous 89 having 20% possession and zero shots on goals would meet with no complaints from me either

Dolly’s Friends of Leazes Park looks like they’ll get their signatures from their previous sources:

England’s Big Dan Burn I think Tuchel is actually trying to make me watch an England qualifier for the first time in about a decade

Apropos of nothing, I hear we’ve got a cup final this weekend?