TheBrownBottle

I think you hope we’re not paying £30m as a flat fee Could be complete bollocks, but someone I know reckons he’d heard that there’s a break clause in the contract i.e. we can pay a fee not to sign him. The lad who told me does know someone relatively high up in the club, but I’m dubious as to whether or not that person would know about break clauses in contracts!

Don’t understand why so many seem so desperate for us to get him. Not sure how loud the alarm bells need to be.

Without FFP I wouldn’t give a solitary shite

Barnes and Botman are both examples of failures by the medical staff tbh

No, I’m with you - I’m not suggesting that Howe’s achievements are unimpressive. I’m suggesting that Howe isn’t necessarily going to ‘peak’ in his 50s somehow. There’s a good chance he’s at his managerial peak - but he hasn’t had the platform to win trophies yet. His only full season with us so far saw him one game away from a trophy. He might still win one this season yet.

The debate surely wouldn’t be whether or not injuries and fatigue have contributed - they obviously have. It would be odd if anyone thought having an entire XI missing wouldn’t have an impact on results. It’s whether or not there is a level of accountability re manager, coaching staff, medical staff etc for the injuries (including recurring ones) and fatigue. My view is that there is - some of it is plain old bad luck, some of it is on the coaching / medical staff. Pope, Murphy, Burn etc - just sheer bad luck. But some have rushed back, some have been misdiagnosed, some have not been rotated when they obviously could have been. That’s not all on Howe, but he’s not immune from criticism on some of it.

No, definitely not. If people think that a few dafties venting at SJP are ‘turning’ on the manager, then they haven’t seen it when it does.

I still think that as a performance Villa away was the best this season (I don’t doubt that PSG at home will be the most memorable - assuming we don’t have an enjoyable afternoon at Wembley in May). Proper Howe masterclass, absolutely out-thought Emery (who is a quality manager, of course). That’s the sort of performance that confirms to me that Howe deserves time. I don’t think the injuries issue leaves Howe immune from criticism - John Gibson raised the point on the Ronnie Gill podcast that Bielsa had a similar run at Leeds before getting hit with injuries - playing a high intensity, high press game. I still don’t think it’s sustainable over a potentially 50-game season (allowing for a cup run and Europe), but this was Howe’s first European campaign and it’s not exactly easy to stop mid-season. Next season will be when we’ll learn if lessons have been taken from this one. This could still be the best season in most of our lifetimes - by this time next year Howe’s statue might be going up outside SJP (if he wins the FA Cup)

Barnes’s directness would have been perfect in some of the games in that bad run

Thanks The point obviously was that Howe isn’t a young manager - most managers who are successful are actually successful at this point. Doesn’t mean he won’t win things with us, but he’s not a whippersnapper

Yep, the rest was just pantomime. The KSA govt reached out to the UK govt at one point, and the deal went through when they effectively settled with the Qatari govt.

I’m happy for him to be here, but 46 isn’t young for a manager tbf. By point of comparison to some big names, Alex Ferguson had won several Scottish titles and won the CWC with Aberdeen after beating Real Madrid in the final; Rafa Benitez, Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola had won the European Cup; Jurgen Klopp won the Bundesliga and lost a European Cup final; Arsene Wenger was at Arsenal having previously won the Ligue 1 title with Monaco; Brian Clough had won two league titles and two European Cups with Forest; Arrigo Sacchi had won two European Cups with his great Milan side; Rinus Michels had won three European Cups with Ajax … and so on, and so forth. Doesn’t mean Howe won’t be successful, but he isn’t a young manager.

Drank enough times in the Percy to know that it wouldn’t be an issue at all. I wouldn’t in the ‘toon disco’ upstairs post-match though - mainly because no cunt could hear what was being said in any case

The crowd hardly happy-clapped their way through the Ashley era. I sacked it off when Ashley got rid of KK, but I don’t for a second think that everyone who still went after that were all complicit in what occurred (I also didn’t think Ashley would be around for a decade and a half - had I known my self-imposed exile may not have occurred). Expectations change, that’s football. The crowd turned on Robson in the end, and that was perfectly fine with me too - his time was up. Newcastle has spent almost half a billion quid in two years, and ST prices are rising rapidly. Football crowds have always been reactionary, and all crowds expectations change based on where the club is at that point. ‘We were playing X, or were in division Y, Z number of seasons ago’ is meaningless if significant investment has taken place. You’re not looking at something miraculous - you’re looking at (mainly) well-spent huge sums of money being spent on a PL club. Howe’s done a great job in my opinion - but other opinions exist. I have never booed or jeered at a football ground - I never saw how that helped. I don’t like jumping the gun on managers, and I also think Howe should have bought plenty of time and goodwill. But I don’t like the number of ‘they got what they deserved’ comments. Going to actually attend football matches isn’t an inexpensive use of time or money - plenty of those people kept the club afloat for years when others (like me) who couldn’t face paying Ashley money didn’t. I’m not morally superior for taking that option - NUFC wouldn’t exist today without punters paying to attend matches; if everyone had been like me, there’s no football club. I continue to watch from afar, but it’s a watered down experience - takes zero effort for me to sit on my arse and watch it at home. Worth thinking about for anyone sat criticising those people who continued to unhappily put up with the pigswill Ashley served up - they’re the ones who deserve the success that’s hopefully coming, not those of us sat on our arses watching on TV. Yes, people acting like divs and being overreactive at the match will happen - they should calm down - but they didn’t ‘deserve’ Ashley. Fuck that.

Yep. The population of North America is roughly double that of Western Europe. The comparisons are daft.

Any links so we can have a chuckle? edit: found it. Christ, I can feel the squirm from the other side of the planet. Still being utterly disingenuous. MM: ‘Bus company received threats’. Twitter: ‘what threats?’ MM: ‘I don’t need to prove owt to you’. Fucking glorious- and at no point is it explained that the TF editor is the one ripping the supporters off

It’s the disingenuous nature of ‘True Faith’ putting on coaches at exorbitant costs; coaches owned by the editor’s company. Not everyone will be aware of that little fact

It definitely is - Tory Boy Alex’s inherited company was Phoenix Coaches and Taxis. Literally using a fanzine to try and rip off fans, while keeping schtum about the obvious conflict of interest. Absolutely fucking shameless - that statement too about a ‘local business’. Yes, yours Alex, you dodgy cunt.

Given that Atheltico’s turnover was about £70m higher than ours in the last set of accounts, he’d best ask them for crazy money. NUFC remains limited on what could realistically offered in salary. Joelinton isn’t close to being a £160k pw player.

I don’t think he’s a particularly good CM tbh. Never looks at his best there at all. He can cause havoc further forward, and does some good backtracking out wide

You need to give the KSA govt a ring, and tell them that they wasted the cost of a phone call to the PL to find out what it would take to resolve everything, and they wasted $1bn in paying off BeIN the day before the takeover miraculously went through.

Yeah, I don’t think that point is too far away tbh. We’ll hit a brick wall with commercials etc soon without being a genuinely successful side - I can’t see us spending the same as we have the last two years (over £400m) in the next two and being comfortable with see-sawing around the top half and flirting with the bottom half. Howe needs to be given time to show that he can learn from mistakes and I remain confident that he can. I hope that the idea of pushing him out isn’t even entertained this season. I do think next season is a crunch one for him though.

Yeah, I don’t think he’d be easy to replace - he’s a good footballer with some considerable strengths as a player. If we got £40m back though, then we’d surely consider it - it would be a serious boost to who we could bring in. I’d absolutely be happy to see him sign a new deal and stay with us - I love the fact that he’s gone from a figure of fun (and a genuinely contender for the worst Newcastle no.9 I’ve seen - and in terms of transfer cost, pound for pound he definitely is) to one of the first names on the team sheet and someone who I love watching play. He’s brave and 100% committed to everything; hard without being nasty; more talented than he appears (his close ball control is far better than he is credited with by many). He’s replaceable, but not easily so. If he goes, I’m happy to trust that the club will have already identified replacements (I’m sure they have lists for all positions / players).

Christ that’s some grim reading. Like all good managers, Howe has deserved all the many plaudits he’s received, and the relatively few pieces of light criticism too. But that reads like we’re managed by a PFM chancer on his last legs.