TheBrownBottle

They’re handing out 7-8 year contracts which means that the transfer fee is amortised over more years - e.g. they sign an £80m player on an eight year deal, that only hits their books at £10m per season. But unless you grow revenues significantly in that period, you could just end up completely fucked in four or five years time if those players on still on your books a la Winston Bogarde

Mackems writing to Look North to complain about the Magedia’s biased coverage as old as Look North itself. Bet the mad cunts write in green ink, too

Fuck me ragged

If we sign him, will fans of Onani be Onanists?

Everton look nailed on to drop this year or next. They've been circling the plug hole for some time, and they are not improving. I have heard some of their support give it the old 'a year in the second divison might alllow us to rebuild'; they really should look at the experiences of Villa, Leeds, Sheff Wed, the mackems ... it isn't always falling into a bucket of tits being relegated. Even for us and our immediate bounce-backs, the hit to the club's finances and prestige are long- (or at least medium-) lasting.

No, there is no failure to understand. People have picked and chosen statistics to back up their own opinion for as long as statistics have existed. It isn't a comprehension issue.

If we signed them, I can absolutely see circumstances where Gordon starts LW and McTominay starts in midfield, with Willock and Longstaff missing out.

There was the racist and untrue one re John Barnes, Luther Blissett and AC Milan

I'm still waiting for us to sign Chris Sutton after we only bought Ruel Fox from Norwich to get him through the door

Meaningless stuff a lot of this - football fans thinking that they're watching baseball. And even with that, think about the only stats that really count for forwards; goals and assists in his PL career. His assist ratio is better than Almiron's, and his goal ratio is similar - and that's allowing for Almiron's purple patch this season. On that basis, looking only at those statistics, most would sign Gordon ahead of Almiron, given his age. I wouldn't, but the point is that these comparatives are basically worthless. If Howe wants him (no idea if he does), that's enough for me. As fun as it is discussing this stuff on here, I'm at a loss when people state 'we shouldn't be signing X'. I'll ultimately trust the man in the dugout.

When you think about it, if you're sitting pretty near the top of the PL you can with some validity claim to be one of the best sides in the world. Yet I've seen more claims by mackems that they are in that single thread than I've seen on here full stop. Mag philistine. You don't know proper quality when you see it

'We play to win. Don't play for 0-0 draws every week.' Let's face it, we know who that's aimed at. It is a shame that their goals scored per game average is 1.46, and ours is 1.65. And we're playing in a division above. We've scored three or more goals six times in twenty league games so far; they've done it four times, despite playing a division below and having played EIGHT more games. Facts are mackem kryptonite

I know where you’re coming from, but that’s assuming that following a victory the season continues as it had. Every match would be changed as a result

Aye, it would be a catharsis for those of us who were a bit scarred by it For what it’s worth, as much as I love KK, I think Howe is a steelier character- and his team reflects that

It might also be of note that the three you mention - Batty, Beardsley, Asprilla - were three of the four regulars who’d actually won things before, and could deal with the pressure. (Ginola won the title and cup with PSG - but he wasn’t the same after Arsenal’s thugs kicked up out of the LC QF). Barton did once say that they ‘never really believed’ that they could win it. This is also why I’m not sure with the counterfactuals re ‘if we beat X, we win it’. I think there’s a good chance we don’t win it even if we beat Man Utd /Blackburn / Liverpool etc.

The table shows all you need to know - Newcastle took 24 points from their remaining 15 games. If that form was replicated across the entire season, it would have been good enough to finish NINTH that season (60 points)

Batty was our best player after he signed - he was man of the match on his debut vs Man Utd and the standard didn’t drop from there. From memory he finished in the top three in The Mag’s end of season poll for best player - not bad for a bloke who only played ten games. He was a far better footballer than Clark, and hadn’t become the crab-like player we all feared we’d signed at that point. There’s an argument that we reverted to the mean in the second half of that season - we were 6th in the form table for the last 19 games, which is the same as our final place the year before. It wasn’t just that Man Utd went on a winning run; NUFC’s form wasn’t even close to title-winning. It is the case that if the 0-1 loss to Man Utd at home is reversed, then we swap places. But it doesn’t necessarily follow that the remaining games pan out as they did. Far too many of our attacking players (Ginola, Ferdinand, Beardsley, Lee) were mediocre post-January.

Good luck with the campaign - the simple and sad truth is that football atmospheres died with all-seater stadiums, and - no less importantly - the huge price hikes and no ‘on the turnstile’ tickets that followed (somehow clubs missed Lord Justice Taylor’s comments that going all-seater shouldn’t see huge price hikes). This isn’t a recent thing - the atmosphere at SJP has been pap most of the time for nearly 30 years. The change in the demographics of those attending has hit football’s atmosphere hard. No longer do you get huge groups of pissed-up young lads gannin crackers. The whole ground now is what the West and East stand seats used to be - the average age of a match-goer is now mid-40s. Loads of them would have given up going years ago once upon a time. Standing therefore isn’t the magic bullet, to me - but it would be a good start.

Gordon won't be picking up anything like Rice's salary and signing-on fee. I also don't think Gordon goes for much more than 30m - Everton has missed the silly money boat for him.

Yep - even though Tames was an Arsenal fan he often grated when talking about other NE clubs. Though he also grated when talking about us - his after-the-fact commentary on NUFC matches was so obvious in its lack of spontaneity - despite having the time to prep, think and plan - he was a bane of end of season VHS tapes

I’m in those ranks, too. I’m ready with the steel helmet, but I always thought Given had too many weaknesses to be a top keeper. Pope seems to have few weaknesses and the back line look so confident knowing he’s behind them

It’s not a Derby, but the twattish nature of their support, along with running a gauntlet outside their ground, always adds that edge to the away games, definitely. Home games are non-entities though

A local copper pulled mine back and let it slap me in the face before asking me to remove - away in 2001-02. Smoggie wanker

I’ve got two smoggie mates - one older, one younger. Older one claims Leeds is their big game - a Yorkshire ‘derby’ (Leeds would argue that, I reckon). Younger alternates between us and the Mackems. My suggestion that Hartlepool is their Derby as no other fucker gives a solitary shite about them usually falls on deaf ears. I’m only trying to help.

The Second Prize Derby is an exciting one. For them.