TheBrownBottle

He’s a solid B, assuming that we have the power to rebuild him

That doesn’t seem to matter for the US presidency these days - so you keep your xhamster bookmarks mate. I’ll vote for you 👍

Absolutely. There isn't a good argument that he's in the top handful (as in top 3/4/5) of midfielders in the world - but he's clearly an elite PL midfielder.

Germany added in that way is a bit cheeky - it was two separate countries, so had more European slots available for more sides for quite some time as a result of them acting the cunt in the mid-C20th.

Always worth remembering that we’ve played exactly thirty-five times the number of games in Europe that Sunderland has. As the kids say, there’s levels to this game.

They beat Barca in the QF. You're right though - Dundee Utd hasn't won a European trophy.

Both Dundee clubs have made the semis of the European Cup

Fair dos - my OG post re that one was a throwaway comment about there being only one NUFC player who meets the ‘A’ categorisation

Trippier was a solid ‘B’; he’s now a ‘D’

No, he isn’t an ‘A’ - as in walks into any team in the world. The list suggested that ‘A’ is ‘world class’. Isak is the only player we have who is in that bracket. Tonali would be a ‘B’ for me - ie an ‘elite’ PL player, but not (yet) a ‘world class’ one.

Not for me. GK has always been a troubled position for NUFC. If Keegan had spent 4m on Nigel Martyn instead of Warren Barton, NUFC wins at least one league title under him - and Martyn wasn't a world class keeper by any stretch, just a good one. Given was a good shot stopper, but his distribution and positioning on crosses (and ability against them) was mediocre to poor. Harper was as bog standard a GK as you're likely to see. Darlow was a million miles away from being good. Krul looked like he could be, but ultimately he hasn't proved to be. Dubravka was an ok PL keeper, and is not that these days - Pope is patently a better keeper, but he's on the wane too. Neither are close to good enough for next season. Given would be most people's best NUFC GK, but that doesn't mean he was a great keeper. If at some point we'd actually signed a genuine high calibre keeper, we wouldn't be hoping that next month we end a 70 year trophy drought. I'm sure we will sign one soon - and when we do, the difference will be very, very noticable.

All opinion, but not for me at the moment

likewise. Neither me nor my mates ever called it anything but 'the ground'. And if anyone amongst my mates ever called it 'the cathedral on the hill' the soppy cunt would've had the piss taken mercilessly.

It is a lot of money they're talking about, so I don't imagine that the decision will be taken quickly or lightly - particularly given the inefficient govt (sorry, company) we're talking about. We're an investment, not a sportswashing exercise - they aren't going to just hoy insane money around like they have with the Saudi League. The Saudi League is for the direct 'benefit' of KSA. So is putting on boxing, F1, WWF etc etc. So there'll be cost benefits analysis and all those other fun things happening first. I know that plenty fantasised about the money they'd happily chuck around the club, but I've never believed that would be the case - while I think they definitely would've spent more in the transfer market without FFP/PSR, I don't think it would have been blank chequebook Man City / PSG stuff. They'll want to know what the likely return on investment is - both in income and in club value terms. It would substantively increase both, which makes investment in a new ground more likely.

D on a good day, E on a bad day. Anyone giving any member of our team an A other than Isak has B&W specs on, mind. Nothing wrong with E, mind

Mind, I do agree with one of the posters talking about Sheff Utd being a potentially more winnable game for them than Burnley. I reckon Burnley would be a nightmare to face in a playoff - they’re really tough to beat (at that level) and are good at the back.

Just following the reported number. I know that there was a claim that the figure included pay, severance AND compen to NUFC - this strikes as being fantastically unlikely.

This line isn't great, either: the city's high rates of deprivation played a key role Call me a humourless old fucker, but I can't bring myself to laugh at poverty-driven deaths from alcohol. It is fucking awful and its not exactly as if Newcastle is a utopia of full employment with all earning more than a living wage. The NE is desperately poor in relation to most of the UK, the result of neglect and the (sometimes deliberate) destruction of local industry. All are in the same bucket. More than happy to laugh at their football team and their delusions of grandeur, mind.

His 4.1m severance package for about two months work suggests he made the best decision he could ever make

It’s always been the case - you’re playing downhill. I’d guess that it’s become more pronounced the more that football has become about athleticism.

That’s ok mate - I assumed you were

In thinking about the prospect of building on Barrack Road, the site should be more or less ideal. The site is greenbelt, so the ground investigations are unlikely to find serious soil contamination. SJP is next to it, so it is likely that the geotech will find that foundation / structural issues won’t need too much technically difficult consideration. Transport links are decent, site access should be straightforward, and the site should offer plenty of space for works to be undertaken with a ‘crashed’ construction programme - ie the works can be undertaken contiguously rather than sequentially, which would push back the completion date. In terms of planning, I’ve been out of the UK for nearly a decade, so the planning regs may have changed, but they used to be a potential pain in the arse. But I would say that you’d hope that the current SJP would be converted to parkland to offset the new stadium (which would actually improve the situation of Leazes Terrace), and the Victorian bandstand could easily be relocated (or moved brick by brick to Beamish, etc etc). Given that the club bought back the land where the Stack is atm, perhaps that could be given over to greenery too. So hopefully something along those lines would help push any new stadium through planning quicker than if the club was simply gobbling up a greenfield site without any offsets.

I wouldn’t worry about it - I learned a harsh lesson re dads and Wembley in 1996. I already had my Charity Shield ticket via my ST (at that point my dad didn’t go anymore - couldn’t afford an adult ST. So I used to go with my uncle, who did have one). My dad wanted to go, so when the tickets went on general sale, I offered to go and queue at SJP for a ticket for him. He dropped me off on his way to work just before 5am (he worked shifts at Parsons), where I queued for about four hours (I was nowhere near the front, btw - people had started queueing the afternoon before!). Eventually I got to the front, and bought him a ticket behind the goal. When he got home from work that day, I thought I’d get a bit of praise for getting him a ticket. His response? ‘It’s a bit far from the pitch - couldn’t you have got me a better seat?’ So my advice - be ruthless

Assuming a lack of planning issues, then a world class 65-70k stadium can be taken from concept design to completion in just over three years, if you have the right team onboard, and the site is relatively free of issues.

Even a bit of simple maths exposes the obvious lie re their attendances, and how the ticketing there works. In Sunderland’s accounts for 22/23, they posted £10.7m in revenue. Their aggregate attendance was 931,691. That works out as about £11.50 on average per seat ‘sold’. Yeah, pull the other one. Either their ground is filled to the brim with kids (cheapest ticket £8 per match) or they aren’t selling anything like the numbers to support their attendance claims.