TheBrownBottle

I think ‘confirm’ is a better fit than ‘admit’ in that sentence. There’s no guilt involved. Still, the brass neck on the cunt. Almost admirable to be that delusional. https://mobile.twitter.com/ChrisDHWaugh/status/1542167753070678017?cxt=HHwWgsC4ndLZ8OYqAAAA

And if this wasn't Spain ... your arse would be well and truly nicked

Championship (Football) Manager used to assign 5 and 4 to CB. Always mildly irritating to have to swap them round to the (correct) 6 & 5. I love traditional numbers, especially given that the sequence is a hangover from the 2-3-5 formation that all teams played for half a century - the fact that with the switches to W-M and 4-4-2 no-one said 'hey, maybe we should amend the numbering to reflect the new formations'. Nah; 2, 5, 6, 3; 7, 8, 4, 11; 9, 10 it is.

They'd happily finish 16th every year, as long as we were 17th. And that doesn't necessarily mean in the PL either. They've no interest in being the best they can be; they just want to be less shit than us. Ashley's reign gave them a few opportunities to do this, so they now think that somehow that is a normal state of affairs - the problem is, we were being hobbled by Ashley, and they were being propped up by a sugardaddy in Short. Normal service has resumed

I think being a young’un now would be great, but I’m sure as shit glad we didn’t have easily available recording facilities and social media when I was one. Fuck knows what embarrassing shite me and my mates would have posted. Mind you, the only NUFC signing I ever remember going to the ground for was Shearer’s - and that was organised fun with the Flashing Blade and the Flashing Bladettes (DJ Alan Robson for those lucky enough not to know). I wouldn’t have spent a weekday morning sat outside the ground waiting for a highly rated ‘one for the future’ centre-half.

Yep. Still find it incredible that these parasites somehow managed to get the clubs to pay them, rather than the players pay them.

That also involves getting a shitload of sponsorship money, which to date hasn’t been the case.

I’d be amazed if we went for another CB for now. Botman, Burn, Schar - we’ve signed Dummett for another year, which means only keeping one from Lascelles or Fernandez.

Wasn’t one of our first signings one of Liverpool’s data gadgies?

Christ, the defenders Milan had from the late ‘80s to late ‘90s (and on tbf). Tassotti, Baresi, Costacurta, Maldini is surely the greatest back line in football history - Tassotti and Costacurta were superb players, and Baresi and Maldini will always be in ‘greatest defenders ever’ conversations. To think they had the likes of Panucci and Galli as back-ups in the side that won the 1994 European Cup - Jesus wept. I can’t separate them from Barcelona’s late ‘00s-early ‘10s side as the greatest club teams in history.

And the agent has caused us to (correctly) pull out. Honestly, this one is for the best for me.

Hopefully he'll realise at some point that the reason the likes of Messi and C Ronaldo don't try and beat twenty players every fucking time (even though there is a good chance they could) is because there is usually a pass which is on which would stretch the opposition defence quicker and more effectively. And yes, they obviously aren't trying to find Chris Wood - but the point remains; beating players is the usual recourse when better options are not available. Johann Cruyff always talked about good footballers playing with their heads up; they don't need to constantly look at the ball, they're looking for options. The easiest, quickest and most effective way to beat a man is to pass the ball past him. If the lad would learn to look, he'd improve rapidly. What gives me hope is I thought you could see a bit of that in the last four or five games of the season. Nothing would make me happier than Howe and the coaches improving this side of his game. If they do, he could be with us for years. If not, he'll be gone quickly.

“I want to moonwalk son, but life’s a shithouse”

I’d stick that on the trip advisor site for Sunderland. This type of honesty is missing from most travel reviews I think - Judith Chalmers take note

Watching Adam Pearson talking about Newcastle directly down the camera is like being trapped on the bus to an away game with the weird cunt who no-one wants to sit next to, who proceeds to talk at you incessantly about the third choice fullback, all while you’re just wanting to sleep off a hangover before getting back on the sauce.

Agreed - though I have to say I'm entertained by the rumours being put out by Ekitike's agent (who I'm not convinced is very good at his or her job). Real Madrid are the latest 'interested' in him. Funny how none of these clubs are actually willing to bid on a player they're all desperate to sign who has a contract offer on the table which he could sign any minute. It's not even subtle at this point. Even if the lad signs, we're going to have fun with his knacker agent. Reminds me of Anelka more than anything - though by the same age Anelka was a full French international and had won the double at Arsenal, so I'm definitely talking about the knacker agent rather than conspicuous talent.

What's even more astonishing is the fact that most of them will have watched as many minutes of NUFC last season as us, and are still willfully blind to the obvious. You know that hoping we lose if far more important than 'the lads' winning

And if true, it would explain why there was lots of noise and then no noise. We're going to get a lot of that for the next couple of years - plenty won't be interested. I'm just happy that we're even looking at players of Diaby's quality - and not all of them will say 'no'

RW and a CB look like huge priorities to me. It is hard to imagine a RW coming in who wouldn't be an improvement over Almiron or Fraser.

If anything sums up the trauma of the Ashley era better, it has to be people questioning signing a good goalie 'when we already have one'. When Ashley bought the club in 2007, our first team squad keepers were Given, Harper and Krul. All PL quality to me (Krul was MOTM in his debut vs Palermo the year before). This is normal, lads and lasses. A decade and a half of that Dickensian shithouse running the club has made us forget

I shouldn't diagnose people's mental health problems based on their twitter and social media output, not only because that's not how that diagnosis should work, but also because I'm completely unqualified to make any such diagnosis. But fuck it, I'm in a diagnosing kind of mood. Casey, Burnsie and their ilk have some fucking serious issues. It is all transparently attention-seeking shite, it is all pulled out of their arse and if they have TWO separate sources within the club (two sources being a journalist's usual 'proof' of a story) then our club has employed at least two people who are straight-up cretins. The fact that anyone in our support listens to a single word that they say or believes a word they write is truly worrying. I'd be interested if there is any correlation between believing these half-wits and posting 'pro-Boris' shite on their twitter feeds. I bet the ratio is almost one-to-one (notable that the Krays' best mate and follicly-challenged Tory council candidate Wraith is happy to prop these goons up).

Woodman is off and Darlow is due to follow. Dubravka misses a lot of games and isn’t the greatest of keepers. Not sure most clubs would question having at least two PL quality keepers at the club. Pre-Ashley, it was something that we usually had.

Yep, I’d expect he’s been made an offer of at least the chance of having and keeping the no.1 shirt. He won’t have come to sit on the bench in a WC year - he might as well have stayed at Burnley.

He’d be a good signing for me. England squad regular, looked decent every time I’ve seen him. I think he’s a better keeper than Dubravka, though I realise not all will agree with that - but at the very least, he’s solid competition, and far better than Darlow. And if the fee is correct, that’s a bargain in today’s game. I agree with a lot of the sentiment on here - I suspect too many are expecting too much (I can only imagine what Twitter looks like). Top half finish has to be the aim next year (and a crack at a cup run) - we’re not going to be signing several 50m+ footballers.