TheBrownBottle

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.

FTFY - they don’t get the first verse right

I’m curious to see how Howe will set us up on Satder vs Forest. He absolutely nailed Villa away, in stark contrast to the cagey away performances we’d seen for most of the season. I enjoyed the crackers nature of the Luton game, but I wonder if Howe might make us a bit more defensive again in reaction to it. Hope not. My dad also told me Howe was getting a bit of stick vs Luton from a few vocal divvies in the Milburn. He reckons Howe shook his head disappointedly at one point when he turned and heard a few shouts to change things up. Seems incredible that he was getting grief to me.

I still hold that he doesn’t look particularly good at LCM. Looks far better LW. Problem is that his output isn’t spectacular

In all honesty, if we’re winning shitloads of trophies and are England’s best club side then I’ll start thinking about players being irreplaceable. We’re an upper mid table side at present - I’m confident that most of our players fit in the ‘replaceable’ camp.

I’m not up to date then I bet your club has other ‘partnerships’ though. It’s fucking awful.

No, I do mean the Bernabeu. There’s little room left with a finished stadium, but that’s the result of building pretty much the biggest stadium in world football on the site, using every inch of ground that you can. Sequencing the works on that site would hardly have been too challenging. SJP has buildings behind the East Stand that you can practically touch from its roof, it’s on a slope, and there is literally nowhere for heavy plant to easily operate. The Gallowgate is just a complete bastard of a place to try and develop - yes, the Bernabeu also has a nearby underground station, but it’s not literally where the stadium foundations would need to be driven.

This in bucketloads mate. I despise it, and hope we don’t ever get involved with the ‘MCO’ horseshit for precisely the reasons you’ve outlined. Same goes for ‘feeder’ clubs. Royal Antwerp just won the Belgian league, but they’re still viewed as a ‘feeder’ club for Man Utd. It’s fucking abysmal.

To do it, you’d need players who have the positional intelligence to operate in a ‘total football’ midfield. There was no indication when everyone was fit that we have that in the present squad (this is not a criticism of the technical abilities of our midfielders)

I love the bloke personally, but ultimately my emotional attachment is to NUFC. He’s in the ‘happy if he stays, shrug of shoulders if he goes (provided it’s for good money)’ category for me

He doesn’t play the same role as Vieira / Yaya Toure. He’s a big unit who plays wide left or left sided attacking midfielder. We might get our money back if he was sold

*looks at username* Yeah, not sure you’re unbiased here

I think what swung it was the $1bn paid by KSA, and the end of the BeIN block. That was on the 6th October 2021. On the 7th October 2021 the deal was announced as being back on; it was completed on the 8th October 2021. But I reckon it was that bloke who did the legal stuff on Twitter wot won it https://www.skysports.com/football/news/12040/12427926/newcastle-takeover-all-parties-hopeful-saudi-led-consortiums-deal-can-be-announced-on-thursday

Any contractor who bleated to me about access issues on that site would receive at least a raised eyebrow. It has nothing like the issues any SJP redevelopment would have. Quick aside - this is the same young hack who does the podcast with John Gibson. They talked about moving Newcastle’s home ground a while back. Gibson - a man who has been following NUFC since the ‘50s and has encyclopaedic knowledge of the club - viewed a move as ultimately a positive. The young’un got misty-eyed about the brutalist stadium currently on site, saying we couldn’t leave. Completely anecdotal, but I have found that generally the younger fans are more attached to SJP

Yeah, agreed. It is worth remembering that we bought him as a centre forward, and he’s on a PL centre forward’s wage - he isn’t badly remunerated at the moment.

Yep, again it doesn’t help us, but the idea that it damages the PL generally isn’t correct. Most English PL clubs have the vast majority of their income coming from TV money followed by match day income. Commercials for all except the biggest clubs is often comparatively small. Growing the commercials at Palace or Wolves is likely to be in the order of seven figures. The Sky Six have zero issues with their commercials. So UEFA’s FFP rules will have little to no impact in general on the PL. Thinking that it hurts the PL is wishful thinking - as it means that the PL will push back against it. Nope.

The UEFA FFP rules wouldn’t impact this at all. It’s based on turnover - the PL clubs earn a lot more than their other European counterparts. The rules would entrench English football’s position, not damage it.

Just as long as you’re the one giving him it and not the club I’m ok with that