TheBrownBottle

I wasn’t expecting anything other than defeat. A win in either would have been a massive upset. Hope rather than expectation was the order of the day for anyone other than the most optimistic (being kind there) of our support. We don’t go into the LC Final as favourites this time either, but there’s a hell of a lot more hope that we can win. This is a much better side in every way, with a much better manager. And I can’t imagine the support having to chant ‘attack attack attack’ at the players this time round.

Yep. And that’s why those rumours are a load of bollocks. We’re not swimming in those waters yet. At some point you’d think that the tiresome internet ITKs will work out that the FFP constraints are real and the club are working within them, and there’s not going to be £100m+ transfers at NUFC for a while yet. Given how weak the squad is, it would be borderline reckless and irresponsible to spunk the budget on a single player. It isn’t going to happen, set these Twitter blowhards to ignore would be my advice.

Yep. I once saw a similar one to the HBA one in America, only with Obama. Bloody copycats.

*Ashington NUFC jerk* Bloke: I read in the paper this morning that Mitrovic is a Serb Ashington bloke: a Serb? He should be bliddy starting *end of Ashington NUFC jerk*

Ashington pit yak isn’t Geordie mind. It’s pit yakker

If Chris Waddle wrote flags phonetically …

Nee bugger had it. Blue star all the way

Likewise, I was a reader from issue 1 though I drifted away from it around 2010. Agreed - but it was what was available. Hurst is a Tory - he confirmed this in an article for the FT: https://www.ft.com/content/cca67e3a-619a-11ea-b3f3-fe4680ea68b5

Yep, add me to the ‘anticipating a limp defeat’ brigade. We won’t risk anybody who is a risk a week before the final, no-one will risk a red card with a careless challenge, no-one will be pushing that little bit extra hard in case the pull up with a muscle injury. I wouldn’t blame them on that score, either.

Just a note here - this was always likely to be, at best, a transition season. Howe and his new signings saved us from nailed-on relegation last year. We are mid-February in that transition season, and the team are in a cup final and 4th in the table. People are flapping over a few draws - most of which we should have won - yet seem to have forgotten that after the opening day win we drew five and lost one of the next six games. These runs happen. Fuck knows how some will react if we really do hit a bad patch. The squad is threadbare and will take several windows - and lots of new commercial deals - to fix. I’m not sure how whinging every day about the January window helps - yes, I don’t doubt you would have gone out and bought Maddison for £80m, but maybe - just maybe - Howe was not in a position to do so.

You keep writing this and not saying what it is you expected them to do, other than spend more money, which they won’t do due to PL FFP rules. ‘A commercial approach to football’ is just another way of saying ‘didn’t spend the money I wanted them to spend’. Howe has had deserved criticism, and then there’s this stuff. He won’t be criticised by me if they lose the LC Final, that’s for sure. Britain doesn’t have an ‘appreciate what you’ve got’ attitude; quite the opposite, it exudes a sense of bizarre entitlement and a belief that it holds a special place in the world. Given that since the Xmas break we’ve won six, drew four and lost one game that sense of entitlement is strong in some on here too.

Beaten less often than a eunuch’s cock, though

If the CofE is the Tory Party at prayer, then Bournemouth is the Tory party at football. They’re a fanny’s hair away from tinkling their jewellery in appreciation of a good pass

I’m aware of the current league standings, but the reality is that no-one should really be thinking about top four until there are just a handful of games left. There’s a shitload of points still to be won or lost, and it doesn’t take much to slide up or down the table between now and the end of the season. If you’re seriously pinning everything on a top four finish you’re really not going to enjoy the remainder of the season, even if they get there. This is a side which still needs to grind out results as the quality isn’t quite there - I’d urge you not to put that on yourselves and just enjoy the ride.

That’s the best way to lose it I reckon

Bournemouth played well there. I’m happy with the point - really convinced myself beforehand we’d lose today. They did that Tory retirement village proud. If this was Champ Man, I’d be playing my reserves vs Liverpool next week and giving the first team a two-week test. I know we won’t. We’ve been playing beyond ourselves and still are. This team has far too much credit in the bank to be getting a pasting off the support. We’ve lost one league game this season and it’s mid February.

Poor by BDB Some engine Gordon has

I think ASM may literally be made of paper. If he’s still here in September I’d be fucking astonished.

Ok - and as is clear, we couldn’t spend money. No-one in England are going to loan anyone who is any good to us. Not sure what we do from there. This side has been playing well above the mean so far. A correction was always likely. Finishing anywhere above 8th still represents significant progress, and we’re in a cup final. This time last year we had only just scrambled out of the relegation zone.

80 mins in. We’ve reached ‘Eddie Howe is a cuckold’ territory

Do you mean ‘make payments off the books’ creative, or ‘sell one of the handful of players who’d bring in really good money’ creative? Because the latter doesn’t seem that great an idea at present.

And I can’t say it enough that we were well and truly pushing it with FFP. The club has said it repeatedly, and are you blind to what is going on at Man City? You can’t just spend and spend and spend. It’s a rebuild that will take years.

It’s the decision making which has been off. Some lovely play then a bizarre finale. It as if he’s in his own world beating players then wakes up, realises he’s meant to do something, panics and does something a bit shite.

ASM doing his ‘best kid at football on the playground’ impression second half. It’s amusing to watch but not particularly effective

We’ve lost one league game this season, conceded 12 in 20, and just went nearly 10 hours without conceding. At some point Burn’s role in that gets acknowledged - he’s more than a CH plugging into LB. He moves across when Trippier bombs on to create a 3 man back line. Willock and Joelinton usually cover each other. There are times where I think I’ve been watching different matches this season