TheBrownBottle

Saka is a big miss - that lad fizzes with energy and intelligence.

FIFA still had those shit rules at the last WC re ‘predominately light or dark’ kits, which is why England and Italy’s kits now look uniform. It’s a shite rule

Definitely. It says a lot about his footballing intelligence that he can do that reasonably comfortably.

I remain in the ‘Rashford is a decent gadgie but not an international class footballer’ camp. He’s too ‘streaky’

I wouldn’t be happy seeing him there for Newcastle tbf. But Southgate’s selections have become increasingly bizarre. England managers, like US presidents, should have a term limit …

No, your second point was. Your first: ’The Ashley mindset in some of our fans is taking a while to shift mind’ Was a reply to a previous poster saying that we shouldn’t sell players because of FFP, that this would be small time.

Playing the ball doesn’t come into it - stopping a clear GS opportunity does. Looks like Bellingham was stretching for the ball so that wouldn’t be an obvious GS opportunity

Has to be a red too

Cheech and Chong @ St James Park

It’s what the A-League should be all about, and it is beginning to produce young players

Yep, Irankunda in particular looks like he could be a real talent, still very young of course. I enjoyed watching Nieuwenhof play for WSW, it’ll be interesting to see how he gets on at Hearts. It can be hard to tell how young lads will develop, of course. But there’s some canny young players coming out of this country at the moment.

C Ronaldo is one of a handful of players who can effectively self-fund a transfer via additional revenues brought into a club (even one as big as Juve). It isn't an apt comparison to an excellent midfielder like Bruno who also isn't going to shift the commercial dial much

The idea that we can't be selling better players in order to spend. If we sold Bruno, it would hardly be to line the owners' pockets a la Ashley. We would sell in order to improve the squad - if we sold Bruno for 100m (extremely doubtful) that could fund buying several 100m footballers under FFP. But apparently that can't be considered, because that is 'Ashley-like thinking'. Until NUFC's revenues are up with the elites - and based on the adidas and Sela deals, we're not there yet - then of course we'd have to consider selling players. And we shouldn't act like wet blankets if we do.

Graham Arnold's done a pretty decent job to date - I think he's entitled to not select young'uns who've not pulled up any trees to date. If Kuol is good enough, then there's plenty of years ahead in his career to win boatloads of caps.

It is cold, hard facts not the 'Ashley mindset'. The club has a smaller income than Spurs, but plenty on here think we can spend like Man City without consequence. We. Can't. Fucking. Spend. Like. Them. The quicker you get it into your skulls and stop thinking that the club isn't limited by FFP, the less pissed off you'll all be at the end of every transfer window. It is this sort of delusional attitude that sees people grumble about Dan Burn getting contract extensions, or Dummett and Ritchie still being in the squad. If we could spend what we want, do you think any of that previous sentence would be written?

BBC Archive clip re North East football featuring Brian Clough, Lawrie ‘Barbican’ McMenemy and John Gibson looking resplendent

Haha that’s fucking great

The old west being called the Milburn is more recent than my birth. A rebuilt East stand in particular would need a new name.

There’s a general lack of clarity on that tbf. Though if it is meant to be the possessive then it definitely should be pronounced ‘Sint Jameziz’, regardless of whether or not there is an ‘ or an ‘s. If only English had a genitive form …

Yep. Given, Solano, Ferguson, Dyer, Speed, Shearer, Lee etc Gullit was sacked in August - there was plenty of time left

I know where you’re coming from - but this club doesn’t exist in its modern form without KK. He was more than a manager & former player. I’ve said it before, but this is the club that Kevin built.

It’s a wee bit different. BR took over one of the world’s richest clubs, we also were by absolutely no means certain to go down. It’s hard to make that claim given he came in in September. We also qualified for Europe in 11 of 14 seasons before Ashley rocked up - it wasn’t exactly unusual.

‘Pricks’ I seem to remember them being called for their criticism of Mick Wadsworth The timing of his dismissal was much more of an issue than his dismissal. And Shepherd thinking he needed a ‘hard man’ to sort out a problematic dressing room compounded the issue. It is though hard to imagine Howe signing the players we signed during that era - so many were talented but not of the best character. And it isn’t a modern thing - Brian Clough infamously used to check if a player was a ‘boozer, birder, or liked a bet’ …

Apropos of nowt, I still do find it odd that there is a Bobby Robson statue. He was a good manager for us, no doubt there. His statue at at Ipswich makes sense. Not at SJP.

Balls to a statue - I still say rename the East Stand. Or have both.