TheBrownBottle

That shimmy to create a chance for Willock was pure sex

I was at the 2-2 - Le Tissier scored a fucking howitzer in that one too; coach ride back had the atmosphere of a defeat

I’m sure we must have put down a cheque to help towards building their new ground. We never got owt down at the Dell - haven’t been too bad since they moved to St Mary’s

It hardly matters now - but it absolutely did. The one where the daft cunt was staring at it for two mins didn’t, though.

We’re closer to Arsenal now than we are to 5th. There’s an overweight woman out there readying her vocal chords

And I love Labia … on the other hand

Game awa now

Yeeeees

Phew

Took me one clip to see that came off Almiron’s heel. How does it take these fuckers three mins?

There ye gan

Dan Burn is allergic to heading the ball in the opposition box

Gordon is off

The funny thing is that for the last seven or eight games our attacking play has clicked, and it’s almost as if the back five not looking anything like as solid has went unnoticed. Same again today so far, Pope and the centre halves in particular are making some interesting decisions. I still think we’ll be ok here. A nice early goal SH will settle the nerves back down - and force Soton to attack again.

Just like vs Villa, there is a significant drop off in intensity without Longstaff in the middle. Soton will sit on this now - they’ve been decent first half. Bruno likes doing that ‘running the ball with a man on the shoulder’ thing, but it’s suicidal when you’re running towards your own goal. Need to be a bit quicker with the ball in the final third. I still think there’ll be a rocket up the bum from Howe here - he won’t wait long to make changes, either.

Bruno dozing off in midfield caused that I’m afraid. Happening a fair bit of late.

We play a high intensity game and those slight over- or under-hit passes are exacerbated by it. Also hard to keep footing. I think we’ve been ok so far tbf - Soton playing canny well too with nowt to lose

Really fancy two things which are a bit of a rarity atm - a clean sheet and a Bruno goal

Man Utd always attracted huge crowds, though there are plenty who pin their nationwide support to sympathy from the Munich Air Disaster in ‘58 of course - and I do think Liverpool benefitted from being successful at just the right time; the dawn of the TV and European football being the biggest thing going age. Had European football and TV become as integral a decade earlier than it did, it might have been Wolves and us (or similar) who entered the picture as the biggest bollocks on the playground. And we had the world’s fourth highest turnover in 97/98 - though this was the very end of the time when ticket prices were similar across the country and the numbers through the gates and local merchandising truly made a difference. Today it’s how many punters in Asia or the US or elsewhere have decided that you’re their favouritest side in the world - this week, anyway

Yeah, there's a logic to that. And they can definitely sponsor more than one team.

No, there are no doubt some people in Middlesbrough and sunderland who would quite like to see it happen

Yep, Wolfsburg are 100% VW owned. Clubs in Germany are often linked historically to the big local factory where most were employed - a lot of German towns and cities sprung up around a single employer. The only one I can think of in England with a similar background is Arsenal - though of course they no longer play in Woolwich and aren't funded by the local armaments plant.

Comparisons of NUFC's latest kit sponsorship deal to Spurs'. Also there seems to be a wider debate around who we replace in a 'Big Six' - which presupposes that there is a Big Six, and that you can't have more than six in an elite group. I think you can have more; and you can have fewer (which English football has in the past). The media seem obsessed with who we replace, but what seems more likely is that over the next two or three years they start talking about a 'Big Seven'; the clubs competing regular for European slots and domestic cups. Once the current phase of our rebuild is over, I can see years c.5-10 post-takeover us moving away from that bracket - and competing consistently for big trophies with other huge clubs.

Don't get me wrong, they're definitely the 'lesser' of the 'Big (Sky) Six' (more than happy to call them the 'Sky Six' btw - Sky love these 'Big' monikers as a sales-pitch) - the others actually win things! What I meant re Leverkusen is that they are not historically a big club, nor a successful one, nor do they get big attendances. They're a well-run (and well-back financially - the supposed purity offered up by German football ownership models also has within it two prominent clubs - Bayer Leverkusen and RB Leipzig - who literally have their huge multinational corporate backers in the name. Though they're still not as successful as PSV - another of the corporate clubs) club which has punched above its weight. I agree that Spurs are basically at the height of what they can be, at least without external resourcing being poured in. Which would likely be the case for us, too - consistent top five or six finishes would be a well-run NUFC's likely best case scenario, allowing for the club to run under its own steam. However, the backing the club now has can act like a steroid injection and allow the club to punch its way above that - like Man City or Chelsea. And once you're winning things for a few years, the reputation is made and the club is truly transformed - Man City and Chelsea are not 'naturally' bigger clubs than Newcastle, Villa, Everton, Leeds ... or Spurs. Note that my opinion is that NUFC could always have been more than that, but the last 20 years or so have meant that clubs like ours find a different ceiling in the modern game to the one which existed for a century before that. One thing though, I'm afraid if you're seriously going to suggest that Man Utd and Liverpool are also somehow propped up via the forces of darkness for their 'support' then we're never going to agree on that one - Man Utd and Liverpool are huge clubs, full stop. That is truly getting into second gunman on the grassy knoll, jetfuel doesn't melt steel territory ...