TheBrownBottle

Finishing 4th = overachieving doesn’t make bottom half = par

Sure, I also think Howe needs time and I’m not yet ready to call for his head. This is poor again mind, and the ledger is building against him. Plenty of games left in the season (and mins left here) to turn it round

Not without selling

Some folks are getting a bit overheated, it it’s time for the ‘have your forgotten the Ashley era’ stuff to end. We’ve spent hundreds of millions since Ashley went - they’re not comparable at this point. Howe isn’t playing with a shit hand.

Yep - plenty of time left

You can’t expect Joelinton and Longstaff to watch the ball either mind

That wasn’t luck tbf, just poor defending

We’ve got five goals in three halves since he came back in. He’s not the greatest footballer in the PL but his directness can be effective.

He’s much better further forward. His deficiencies are exposed in midfield.

That and he just isn’t a midfielder

Aye, I’d rather be entertained than not. Still, we do need to iron out the switch-offs at the back.

Canny half that. We’ve rediscovered how to score, which is nice. Would be even nicer if we remembered how to defend

Like Jaqen said, we’d be deducted points repeatedly and the penalties would likely be stiffer in every successive season

It’s not quite the same thing, though it was a disgrace that the England team bottled it

Nah, it’s a patently homophobic move. He just comes across as being a bit of a thick cunt.

No, he actually had three choices - wear a rainbow one, wear a regular one, or renounce the captaincy. What he did is actually against FA regs, as well as being the act of a simple-minded wanker.

True - though ultimately money is money. I’m not sure all of the NUFC support is aware of just how far behind we are in economic terms - and that the gap has widened since the takeover. Most NUFC fans likely view Spurs as the club we’d be looking to overtake. At present, Gateshead FC’s turnover is closer to ours than ours is to Spurs. The gap is absolutely massive - and gradual, incremental growth is never, ever going to close the gap. If the owners won’t bend the rules, won’t slap sponsorships all over the shop, and are going to take a lifetime to build a new ground, then the only option is to sell for big profits to close the gap.

The rainbow in this instance is obviously not a symbol of god, and he wilfully defaced it to scrawl childish shite about Jesus on it. All he had to do was what the Ipswich captain did and not wear one. Guehi is a complete wanker for doing what he did.

And we’re trying to compete with clubs whose incomes are 2-3x ours; whereas our income is a fraction ahead of Villa and West Ham. To have any chance of catching up, we need to sell players for big profits and replace them effectively. This is how we have a top six instead of a top five - Spurs spent a decade selling their best players for megabucks and replacing them very effectively. I’m sure no Spurs fan wanted to sell Berbatov, Bale or Modric. There isn’t a player at NUFC who anyone should think is here for the long-term, unless the rules suddenly change overnight - which they won’t. This isn’t PSR messing with fans’ heads - this is the reality of the situation. If anything, we need to become better sellers - Bruno’s value likely already peaked.

I've got vivid memories of watching the 1992 match on telly - sticks in my mind more than any game I watched on telly that season

Yeah, I think this is it. I personally love Howe and want nothing more than for him to break our trophy duck. In a sport that's went awry ethically and moved from its roots, he's like an intelligent tactically aware throwback (if that makes sense). But ultimately I care more about NUFC than Howe's career. So I'd have no compunction about the club sacking him if the results and performances don't reach an acceptable level before the end of the season. As far as this gobshite's concerned, he still has credit in the bank.

It is absolutely not something I'd argue re who is the better manager - but even the net argument is unfair; Bruce signed ASM too. Rafa never had a perfect transfer market record at any club - or even a good one, necessarily. But he's still one of the top managers of the 21st Century whereas Bruce is a chancer PFM wanker.

Lost ITK points on that front when the rest of us were claiming the patently obvious

I still think Trippier is the best RB I've seen in B&W by a margin, and I'm happy to say that the club was all the better for him signing - he was a genuine catalyst and his quality was ridiculously obvious. He's let himself (and the club) down badly over the last year or so. That doesn't change my view that he's this generation's Brian Kilcline and one of the most important signings in our history - I just wish he'd went to Bayern in January and he'd left us with pretty much nothing but fond memories (even with the Nov-Dec 2023 ricks that happened every game). I think both positions are supportable - great signing and a class player for most of his time here, but has let us down at the end though not enough to poison my general vibe about him. But he needs to go in Jan.

5th might be enough for CL