TheBrownBottle

Lee would play ahead of Longstaff; Beardsley would fit in either of the wide forward positions (Beardsley was a pressing forward before pressing was a thing)

Ah telt yez it would be controversial Nope, nope and nope for me. Ginola wouldn’t fit this side; I’m unconvinced that Ferdinand is better than Isak or Wilson (as in Ferdinand dropped into the PL of 2023 wouldn’t have a better goal record than Wilson as a ratio); Botman and Schar are leaps and bounds better than Albert for me.

I’ve never done so, but I suspect I might if we win this thing. I’ve no idea what I’ll feel like tbh

Controversial opinion time: this current side beats the KK one, and does so comfortably. The KK one was stronger relative to the rest of the PL of its day, but you’re currently watching a better side. English football is so much better today quality-wise than it was in 1996. In terms of the KK side in Feb ‘96, Beardsley and Lee are the only two who would likely start for me.

It would still be a massive surprise if anyone else comes in - certainly for big money. They won’t want this year to be a running a loss due to the three-year-spread which FFP is based upon. We’re already likely to be creaking at the edges. Wait til the summer, with the vastly increased revenues and sponsorship deals, and go from there. This has been a good window to me if business is done

And how many of those would most consider a success? I’d say Joao Felix, Coutinho, Lukaku and Pogba definitely weren’t; and Grealish and Dembele don’t look worth the money.

Or, of course, why Twitter is worth avoiding 100% of the time. Weird entitled twats being wound up by professional sad cases

The ‘why are we getting players from the Championship’ brigade out in full force I take it? ‘Just go and get Maddison for £80m’ etc. Thick as pig shit that lot, not even worth interacting with them.

Yeah, completely agree. Spurs for the first decade and a half also looked like the other member of the ‘Big 5’ who looked like they’d shot themselves in the foot, being a consistently mediocre mid table side. The 2010s turned that round for them.

I suspect some of it also comes from having been in the top division for so long, it engenders a greater sense of entitlement. Everton are a big club, and have an impressive history, but their history since the late 80s more closely resembles Southampton or Coventry’s long unbroken runs in the top flight; and they’ve had some very near escapes. A few years in the lower tiers would likely fix some of those issues.

Shoulder-shrug news if it happens - I’ve never rated him particularly highly, and he’s on serious wedge. There are very few players who’ve been involved in the relegation of NUFC that I feel misty-eyed about - and I think he spent the vast majority of his time at NUFC being lazy and half-arsed, tempered by short spells with Benitez and Howe. Best of luck to him elsewhere if he goes - wonder how many more we can ship off to Forest?

Brucebean

There isn’t one in mine - my NUFC memories stretch back to the ‘80s, and I don’t think we’ve had a better RB in that time.

100%. He honestly thinks he’s out there telling brave truths in a jokey manner, the Bill Hicks of North East football hacks. I saw this tweet from him on here: https://twitter.com/LukeEdwardsTele/status/1619416589711073281?cxt=HHwWgoDT0d2zqfksAAAA and my only reaction was a head shake and thinking ‘you sad cunt’. Honestly, someone who knows him should just tell him to get off Twitter, or just use it to post links to his articles.

Edwards is the sort of tiresome twat who forgets he publishes transfer tittle-tattle and gives football players rankings in matches, yet has fantasises of being Carl fucking Bernstein. The constant Bruce wind-ups with the support (while people biting were daft) was just embarrassing and showed he had little in the way of actual professional ethics (again, imagine how low that bar is when your job involves printing rumours agents give you). The Henry Mauriss stuff just showed that he is an incredibly piss poor journalist (it was patently obvious to everyone except him that Mauriss didn’t have the wherewithal). No agenda on my behalf; there is something amusing about watching a mid-life crisis being played out on social media. And at least unlike Graham Linehan, Edwards isn’t actually harming anyone. But I find him irritating when he pops into my view.

The Geordie who scored for the Mackems against Newcastle; the Englishman who scored for Scotland against England. Football’s own Benedict Arnold

You know, considering they’re all delighted he’s gone and over the moon with the money, an awful lot of them seem overboard angry with him. Not sure I’d be that angry about a player leaving who I wanted to leave.

‘We currently have better players’ ??????

It’s his Barry Venison-esque wardrobe becoming dernier cri which would be the greater crime against Tyneside couture.

In the short term he offers competition on the wings (I know I’m not the only one who thought we desperately needed a new winger in the summer). I really like Longstaff and Willock (finishing excepted) but they both looked absolutely fucked vs Southampton - they’ve given the club 100% maximum effort for ages and you could see that their energy has been sapped. Getting Joelinton back into midfield is needed to me - Gordon, ASM, Almiron, Murphy, Joelinton, give us plenty of wide options now - crucial when Howe plays a high press with wingers covering shitloads of ground doing it - even Willock or Isak could play there at a push. It really is going to take time to rebuild the side and the club; Ashley’s legacy isn’t going to be wiped overnight. I think Gordon is a canny signing - though I will concede that I do think we’ve paid a bit more than what he’s really worth (£30m + add ons looks more like it to me) - but he’s young, English, fits Eddie’s high-speed high-press style of play (and can shithouse with the best of them), I’m looking for to seeing what the lad can do. I just fucking love being excited about NUFC again - other club’s fans laughing at signings on Twitter just isn’t going to make a dent in that. I’m too old to give a solitary shite about the views of the press or other clubs support.

Miggy was a club record signing - £20m+ five years ago. It wasn’t buttons we paid.

Ashworth and Howe are in charge of our transfer strategy. I’ll trust their judgement 100%, while acknowledging 100% success rate is likely impossible. Just be thankful that they’re in charge of it, not those who went before … https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4_s3vBNeTy8

I’d recommend going into the Almiron or Joelinton threads on here from a year or so back, and then picture what might have been written it we’d sold them last January. Everton are a shambles, and as we know only too well unhappiness at the club also bounces to the players. I couldn’t give a flying one what they write, as I know where their minds are at present.

Graham (West) Denton, more like