TheBrownBottle

Managers who won it as players have a more successful track record. Maybe we should appoint Geoff Hurst while he’s still with us

Bearzot and Scaloni are the only WC winning managers I can think of who managed one of the international youth teams before stepping up to be the full international team manager. There’s not really a track record of this being a successful model.

I never thought SJP was much different from anywhere else in that regard - in fact the proximity of pubs often made it more appealing to piss off early for some.

Zero chance the club would listen to offers at £120m is my view. I think there’s a giant ‘not for sale’ sign above his head. Someone would have to pay well above ‘market value’ for him

I don’t think they have the pulling power, personally. They’re a step up from us, but Isak should be thinking about a leap up to leave. If he goes he does to a giant, I reckon. I also don’t think we’d even contemplate selling him this summer unless the money was absolutely insane (and by that I’m talking £200m)

It’s a massive step up from a handful of A-League matches to a decent European league. It was always massively risky to send him where we have. He should’ve been sent to a fourth tier club a la Anderson to see if he could be toughened up first, as well as to see if the lad could start stepping up levels. Sometimes these signings don’t work out, but I also don’t think that the lad has been handled well. He definitely should be retained at NUFC for a period to let him settle and get training with our reserve set up.

The Arsenal links are hilarious for two reasons: - they haven’t got anything like the money it would take - they aren’t Real Madrid Isak’s going nowhere; the papers should simply knock it on the head

Tbf they can keep the Tory cunt

I never want to see Isak played out of position to accommodate anyone else. He’s a centre forward. We need to play him there

Greece wants its stolen Parthenon (‘Elgin’) marbles back; Nigeria has campaigned for the restoration of the Benin bronzes; Egypt has repeatedly laid claim to the Rosetta Stone All pale into insignificance against the biggest cultural rape of all - the Mags stealing that Mackem ditty, The Blaydon Races. Because Blaydon is in County Durham, y’knaa:

Translates perfectly

We fired him from the best-paid job he’d ever had in football and never forgave us for it I’ve always thought he was a creep - and he’d spend his entire time as a commentator with an attitude that he’d rather be anywhere but at the game he was commentating on. Him coming out as an ‘anti-woke’ bore simply cements his place as a wanker of the first order for me

He dawdles on the ball a lot - which is a concentration issue tbf

Bruno is the best I’ve ever seen at doing it. It’s an art form to that man

Fair enough, we’ll have to agree to disagree on that one

Fabrizio Romano will be linking him with a move to LA Taxis within a week

Aye, it was a good cross, has to be said

Beaten by a header in his own six yard box - he is actually allowed to move towards the ball

The lad is completely out of form and due to the ongoing injury issues, Howe can’t drop him. I feel sorry for him, tbh - but I also think he’s been utterly shite of late. The crowd shouldn’t turn on him, though. He doesn’t select himself, he works hard and tries. I wouldn’t want to see him sold in the summer - I’d rather he was what I think Howe views him as, a back-up midfielder.

I love their crack on this stuff. Always have - bizarre anecdotes about seeing Sunderland tops in small former pit villages in County Durham showing that everything is ok, or how formerly red and white enclaves are now filled with mags - as if tiny hamlets and villages in Durham are proof of anything either way. In their minds, everything is about a mythical no man’s land from roughly Gateshead to Hartlepool - to the victor goes the NETG trophy. They haven’t a clue that not a bit of it matters, and that in the modern game capturing supporters from relatively local places isn’t what turns a club into a ‘big club’

Honestly mate, I haven’t checked but I’m sure we went a couple of months without a home goal. It was absolutely horrendous. My dad took me and a few of my mates to a match vs Brighton around the same time and that finished 0-0. One of the lads who came with us was a Liverpool ‘fan’ who spent the bus trip back to the west end taking the piss. I’m assuming the fact that he was eleven years old was the only reason he didn’t get a corrective …

As long as he can do the Mackem manager job AND keep pumping out YouTube videos, I’m all for it

Yeah, I think you’re right. Still, it’s a fun target to aim for!

93/94 was a 42 game season tbf - and we’ll need to average 2+ in the remaining games to beat it. I think we will, though

They look likely to be another Sheff Wed to me - shuffling between the second and third tiers, with the occasional flirtation with the ‘Championship’ top six positions (while failing to go up), rattling round inside a ground too big for where they are and where they’re likely to be