TheBrownBottle

Haha yep, free advertising for SD is still money in his pocket for me

Yeah, and that wouldn’t upset me either. Didn’t like it when Ashley just pocketed the money, but I wouldn’t be fussed by a stadium sponsorship deal which benefits the club

Pope’s replacement should be priority no. 1 in the window. Our defence has went to shite without Pope. I’ll never understand how football fans underrate the importance of the goalkeeper.

He was poor positionally and goes to ground far too quickly. The gaps between him and the back line are part of what allows Wood to score goals two and three. Goalkeeping isn’t just about making saves.

It can’t be doubled every two years in fairness - that would mean in three years time we’re earning £100m+ more than Man City or Real Madrid

Italian football has a long and inglorious history of being riddled with corruption - enough of it that the big blowups have names (Totonero, Calciopoli, Plusvalenza etc). AC Milan are usually involved somewhere. That doesn’t mean that they did know, but it can hardly be dismissively waved away. The club has PLENTY of previous on the dodginess front.

Agreed - 21/22 and it’s £70m loss does get wiped for next season’s FFP, so that definitely helps. But I do think that some may have a lack of familiarity with just how far NUFC is behind the Sky Six in terms of revenues, even with a few new sponsorship deals. The last reported accounts showed that Spurs’s matchday revenues are FOUR times ours. We’re still a long way behind - and our spending capacity is too

I always hated that home kit

We made around £30m for CL money, an extra £20m in shirt sponsors and something like an extra £29m from adidas - and the CL money next season looks unlikely. It’s going in the right direction, but it means that we’re still a long way off the ‘Sky Six’, and roughly on a par with West Ham

I agree mate, this is why FFP isn’t operating in the way that it should. FFP should protect football clubs generally; it shouldn’t be protecting the status quo Yeah, good points. Don’t get me wrong, I think they’re serious re growing the club etc. If Abu Dhabi sold Man City tomorrow they’d make a profit; Abramovich would have had a profit if his assets weren’t seized. But both those clubs were invested in in ways which aren’t possible today - so PIF can say ‘we’ll be no. 1’, but I’m not at all convinced it’s possible in the current landscape no matter how steady the growth.

Gambling being a no-no hasn’t stopped him in the past

Yeah; can’t imagine he’d be cheap for us - especially in January. Arsenal would be unwilling sellers

Yep, it’s the biggest weakness in his game for me. He dawdles on the ball quite a bit. I do think he’s improved this under Howe, but it’s difficult to imagine it being ironed out completely

I still stick by my view from the start of the season - anything less than a top half finish is failure, 7th and a cup run would be a good season

He’s miles better than Dubravka; I also think he’s better than Pope. Just my opinion mind

We’ve got Hall on loan - don’t think we’d be allow another two PL loans

Yeah, I saw that video in the ‘Twitter / YouTube’ thread. There are some right whoppers knocking about.

That is the problem though, ultimately. It’s why FFP should exist - the current format is the problem. Football clubs are community assets; that they are rich people’s playthings is an unfortunate consequence of history. Century-plus community assets shouldn’t be put at risk to stroke the ego of vainglorious business wankers.

No, you’re right. I’m still convinced that this is far more of a passive investment than most other people think. The commercial deals have been slow in coming and not exactly pulling up trees; PIF’s complete lack of involvement in the day-to-day running is another flag. It wouldn’t be difficult to have a permanent member of the board on Tyneside who is a PIF person. They have stated that they want to be ‘number 1‘. This is standard sales patter in the ME - plenty fall for it, with the ‘they only get the best’ stuff the standard response. What usually happens is that they get nothing like the best, though they do usually pay through the nose. Plenty of talk about ‘the project’ and it needing time - but two years is actually quite a long time, and the radio silence is a constant theme. Just a guess, but I think that there is a good chance that PIF didn’t really consider the rules in place to prevent a simple pump-and-grow investment in football these days. The club won’t go through the legal challenge routes re FFP - they’d need a stalking horse for that. There is no chance whatsoever that the KSA govt challenges the rules of the English FA & PL in a UK court - it would be a minor diplomatic issue over a passive investment. That’s the reason why they have accepted everything thrown at them to date. If the FFP shackles are off, we would likely see greater investment - but no-one should hold their breath for NUFC to be the club which does it.

Not how FFP works, unfortunately. Staggered payments don’t stop the full value of the transfer being counted in that financial year.

Fair enough - while I do think that we have zero data on how PIF will react to what’s happening at present, from a fans’ perspective talking as if the bloke has weeks or even days to turn this around isn’t great. Losing to Sunderland would cause anger - but that shouldn’t be enough to provoke calls for his sacking.

I missed those tbh mate - if people have written that, then those posts deserve some pushback. I will say I’ll be pissing blood if we lose to the Mackems, but no chance should Howe lose his job. I agree - he should be given at least the season. For me, he’s got enough credit that even if we sputter over the finish line, I’d want the club to back him again for the start of next season. Totally agree that he’ll learn - he’ll be better and the team will be better again next year. The bloke had never managed a European campaign before - he’ll have learned shitloads this time round.

Literally no-one here has called for his head.

Sorry, who is ‘you lot’? From Froggy’s post: ’My thoughts: Are you in poor form? Yes. Is fatigue/injuries to blame? Yes. Should Howe also take blame? Yes. Should Howe be sacked? Only if you're a fucking mentalist.’ That’s pretty much every post on here which has been critical of some aspects of Howe’s management.

Yep. Straw man nonsense. I’ve not seen a single person on this thread calling for his head.