TheBrownBottle

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.

My old man played for centre-half for Walker Central as a young'un. His claim to footballing fame is that he was tasked with marking Peter Beardsley in one schools match. Beardsley bagged a hattrick after about ten minutes, and his coach moved him to fullback so that my fatha could stop being utterly humiliated - you can tell the humiliation hasn't quite left him 50 years on ...

Yep. Just the words ‘Ashley’ too close to ‘Newcastle United’ makes me jumpy. Wish the fat cunt would just disappear.

You’re right, it’s in Woolsington. I probably wasn’t clear - when the Mackems call it ‘Ponteland Airport’ it presupposes that if that were the case it would illegitimise the idea of it being Newcastle Airport. Which it wouldn’t.

Don’t they sometimes call it ‘Ponteland Airport’? As if Pont is a million miles from Newcastle - and as if every single city’s airport has the airport within city limits. You name an airport after the city you’re travelling to so that the person flying there knows that they’re buying a ticket to the right place. Barcelona’s airport is miles away from Barcelona, but they still stick Barcelona’s fucking name on it, because ‘El Prat’ most would probably think it is what the Spanish called Michael Owen during his brief stay at Real rather than the name of the small town where the airport is. I learned where Barcelona’s airport is due to one of our Champions League visits there; you’d think the Mackems would actually have played in Europe within most people’s lifetimes by the way they go on about the name of a fucking airport.

I still find all of this odd. 10m+ of legal costs in the takeover, for which only Staveley (a minority shareholder) is responsible? Why wouldn’t PIF be the primary debtor for legal costs? And why wouldn’t they just pay them in any case? More concerning - if it isn’t true, then surely there wouldn’t even be a case to answer? What exactly was the nature of a financial agreement with Ashley? And if he is owed money (and the argument appears to be when he’s owed it not if) why not just clear it? There’s a rabbit off somewhere - the ‘no comment’ to their pal Caulkin is unusual too (albeit this is an ongoing legal case). Some clarity on this would be good - it does look to me like Ashley wants a slice of the club back.

We don't actually know very much about what the plans are generally, tbf - Staveley had said 250m investment over five windows had been the plan - but that was after the original deal 'collapsed'. Most of it has been vague (and I suspect speculative) and PIF has said almost nowt since buying the club. The club needs a proper CEO, that's for definite - it does feel a bit rudderless at the moment. I think the decisions re manager and DoF have been spot-on, mind, so what I've written isn't unnecessary panic - and I like the obvious passion Staveley, Reuben and Ghoudoussi have for their roles. But it would be good to see a first-rate CEO join the board to really drive the club.

Daniel Sturridge played for all three recently

Got to say, I’ve always assumed he is an investor - the fact that Rangers & NUFC were the first big clubs signed up with them spoke volumes. Castore has that cheap tat look which sits well with the other SD brands It would be nice for that contract to end sharpish - though like all Ashley deals negotiated a year before the takeover, I’ll bet there is no break clause - and we’ve probably been signed up long, long, long term. He’ll still be wringing out what he can from the club, don’t worry about that.