TheBrownBottle

Player of the Season: Joelinton Most Improved Player of the Season: Krafth Most Disappointing Player: Willock Signing of the Season: Bruuuuuno Goal of the Season (feel free to rank your top 3): Bruno vs Soton; Wilson vs Palace; Almiron vs Wolves Game of the Season: 2-0 vs Arsenal best performance, 0-1 away to Leeds meant the most (sheer relief) On the pitch Moment of the Season (we all know the takeover was the off-field most important): Joelinton gannin radge after goal vs Brentford. Loved it, me Manager rating out of 10: 9 Season rating out of 10: 6 as an average, but 9/10 second half (the Bruce statistical weighting skewing that average)

Oh I’d love that. Best part is that they’d never, ever be able to complain about his running of the club, as being guilty of ‘mag-like behaviour’ is of more import than SAFC being run properly. After the initial rush of telling themselves how grateful they’ll be, the mounting fewm - with no ability to vent, per the above - would be fantastically entertaining. They’ll return to the PL at some point, I don’t doubt that. Rebuilding in the second division takes time, but look at Luton - a well-run club can build over a couple of years. Problem is, salmon pants and Co are still running things - a return via the trap door still appears more likely than getting out via promotion.

Never, ever forgive us for ending his ludicrous payday as defensive coach. Having to listen to the entitled prick be bored by his own job was horrendous; he sounded like Les Dennis’s Mavis Reilly reading the phone book out loud. The BBC have a lot to answer for on that one. Liverpool old boys club.

Hey, let's not be too downbeat about the mackems' cutting mockery - maybe next year we'll finally get to the Wembley final just like them. In fact, I'm so confident I'll put a bet on What are the odds for our U-20s to win the Checkatrade next year then?

Do they realise that appearing in Third Division play-off finals and Football League Trophy finals are not only undesirable, but not actually possible unless you play in the third tier? Something we've never done ...

Same place as the old Wembley Stadium is my understanding - and I've seen Newcastle play there five times. There's some right weird feckers on there posting as NUFC fans

I must be the only one who preferred Leeds to Everton going down. Now there's a sentence you wouldn't seen a Geordie write a couple of decades ago

Wolves away was always dicey - 100% agree on all counts

'The biggest sleeping giant in English football has already stirred. If Andrea Radrizzani, their owner, goes through with the sale of a stake in the club to Qatari Sports Investment (QSI) or two other rich investors then it could be time to write a new chapter in the giant’s fairytale.' https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/andrea-radrizzani-new-qatar-investor-can-get-leeds-up-to-level-of-man-city-bfd0gcqlf Massive weapon

They're a fucking weird bunch, though. Mackems of my acquaintance used to go on about how every Geordie they know claimed to be at the Gillingham play off game, and decades on they're still fantasising that we're all off to Wembley in our droves to support Wycombe. I'll be doing what I normally do - checking the score the odd time, and laughing my bollocks off if the result goes the right way - but otherwise getting on with my day, like most normal humans of the mag variety. They have always confused pisstaking for obsession, the poor dears

I'm utterly indifferent to all other pro and semi-pro NE clubs. I'm happy for sunderland to fail, but I couldn't give a shite about any other club doing well or not. The smoggies, Monkey Hangers, Darlington, Gateshead etc. Wish them no ill generally (well, Middlesbrough a little bit), but couldn't give a monkeys either.

At least they don't have to cross a picket line to be the pits - just when they're working in one. Scab c***s

That's what the LMA Manager of the Year is for I think

It could be an age thing (you may be a lot younger than me!), but the mid-90s Arsenal team was light years behind their current side.

That was fucking great. Well done to all concerned

It would be like opening your Xmas presents on Xmas Eve ...

I'm guessing every kid who loved football and was born between about 1980 and 1985 would have heard of him in the '90s - though his fame was truly built by Ajax youth academy of our imaginations; do young'uns today still think of Ajax's youth side being a conveyor belt of talent, where they all play football in the same style as the first team?

*points* he got it

I still think the East Stand should have been renamed the Keegan Stand to mirror the Milburn. There is no-one as important to the modern club as KK - he’s our Frank Watt. This is the club that Kevin (re)built, ultimately

I have zero respect at this point for Delaney, who is just an absolute embarrassment at this point. I can understand him not criticising his own employer’s iffiness, but his junket to Qatar for the draw (and mealy-mouthed excuses), his non-questioning of KSA money pouring into his beloved Man Utd previously, and his cowardly attempts to make Howe a spokesman for KSA are all utterly risible, and he’s one of the few people I can think of where that ‘SJW’ shite the right push actually applies. Holt’s just a cunt.

Ashley so completely cattle-trucked our commercial revenues that it wouldn’t even need the connections and resources of the PIF to significantly grow that area of income for us - the club has been held back for so long it is ridiculous. It’s something that pisses me off about the laziness of the press - Ashley’s ‘balancing of the books’, rather than his failure to grow revenues even at the same rate as other PL clubs (including modest ones). Not helped of course by merchandising sales going straight to SD … edit: agreed on Caulkin, too. But he does seem to have an ‘in’ with them (or at least Staveley). The ‘no red flags’ stuff was embarrassing, and a lot of his stuff in the Athletic just reads like fanzine stuff to me

I can’t even read Edwards’s stuff anymore - I think the bloke increasingly looks fragile. He’s losing it. Caulkin & Hope in particular I was referring to - though I think TRon could be right re the creating of a sort of ‘false narrative’ in terms of how much will be spent

Love the man His opinion on tiki taka- style football is spot-on. Boring as fuck. Catenaccio reborn, except in the opposition’s half instead of your own

They haven’t pumped billions in to date. In fact, if the consensus of the journalists who have an ‘in’ is correct, then the money coming in doesn’t really look too much different to the figures Villa’s owners have pumped in. I wonder how many minds will change if the summer brings in modest recruitment rather than the huge sums spent that many are expecting?

I’d bet my house on Hurst using the term ‘undeserving poor’ unironically Perhaps if the charities were charged for being on the tender list so that bad charities who’d just sell the money are discouraged that would be a good idea?