Ellis H

Man City, Arsenal, Tottenham and now Liverpool dropping points at SJP. Feels like that hasn’t happened in many years? In Howe we trust.

“Jesus loves you” was on tonight.

He’s got “Jesus loves you” on it tonight. Regardless of what he’s writing it’s extremely thick to do it again after getting a warning. Him getting banned over it will be a massive can of worms.

Players don’t actually have to wear them. The FA went after Guehi because he broke some form of messaging rule. Seems like he’s got something else written on tonight and the Ipswich captain has again opted out.

Both players are captain again tonight. Should be interesting.

There’s quite a big and deliberate difference between Cisse kissing the ground when he scored and what Guehi has done. The inference is extremely clear, even if some are choosing not to see it due to their own “beliefs”.

As well as the reasons listed on the last few pages, I’ve also heard Keegan say he doesn’t want to go to certain clubs games because he doesn’t want to be a distraction. I’m sure that’s just his immense modesty speaking but given the situation he’d probably be happier with a “support the team” display. After all, if he truly wanted the adulation he’d be at our games every week. The only thing he’ll really want from this particular match is a good game reminiscent of our mid-90’s classics.

What was the bigger picture with them? I only remember a very small one which resembled something drawn in human shit. Howe’s one is he’s doing really well despite performances not always being consistently good.

I know it’s simplistic but his record here needs repeating. First full season - 4th Second full season - 8 points off 4th (worst run of injuries I’ve ever seen at any club) Third full season - Currently 4 points off 4th. Pardew and Bruce? We’re almost at the Southgate stage of judging him on performances rather than actual, tangible results. Only Keegan and Robson have been this consistently good for us since about the 1950’s but it still isn’t enough for some, though I suspect nothing ever will be.

If Howe’s ultimate “live or die” remit is Europe then he’s not getting sacked anytime soon. Yes, the bigger picture doesn’t look like a masterpiece but it’s a points business and we’re doing fine there. It’s also worth noting Palace have drawn with Chelsea, Man Utd, Villa and now us and have beaten Tottenham this season (knocked Villa out the cup as well). Those are the teams that will realistically be challenging for the top 4 and sums up how inconsistent all bar 3 teams have been in recent years. Ipswich have taken 4 points off Man Utd and Tottenham in the last 2 weeks as another recent example. Inconsistency isn’t just a Howe/us problem, most teams suffer from it now and they don’t have the answers either.

Ginola was massive in France but nothing like Kluivert worldwide. Slightly different but similar subject, have we as a fanbase ever treated an opposition player with no connections to us as well as we did Kluivert? He loved scoring against us as well.

Don’t really know what this proves (if anything) but just worked out that in the league, in terms of minutes, Almiron has played the equivalent of 137.3 games for us and has 34 attacking returns. Murphy has played the equivalent of 82.1 games for us and has 33 attacking returns, with 2 assists in 5.2 games this season.

We’ve got a couple of extremely big months coming up now. I don’t think we’re currently at the point of Howe fighting for his job but if the club are planning on spending big in January they’ll need to know for sure he is their man long term. They won’t want to give him a few expensive new players of his choosing then have a new manager on the touchline in February who doesn’t want them. This kind of thing is so much more important with the current financial rules than it ever was before.

Pretty much just the Sheffield United game as the difference then? Also the freak result against Villa maybe.

Those penalties are probably my biggest football pet hate. I’d fine anyone who takes one like that regardless if they score or not. It’s baffling how clubs hire set piece coaches but continue to allow players to take those “50/50” penalties. Watch the penalties here (11:32) and spot the wimpy, piss-weak one that decided the game.

Barnes is a funny one. He’s only played the full 90 minutes for us a few times despite being fit since 3rd February, which seems to follow a similar pattern to his time at Leicester. He played a part in almost every PL game for years but his minutes played is normally about 1,300 short of the maximum.

I’m annoying myself now but stumbled across this “Alan Pardew: 'If I can deal with Hatem Ben Arfa, I can get Emmanuel Adebayor playing again'” https://www.irishmirror.ie/sport/soccer/soccer-news/alan-pardew-if-can-deal-7187608 ”Emmanuel Adebayor describes Crystal Palace move as worst decision of career” https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11706/10913138/emmanuel-adebayor-describes-crystal-palace-move-as-worst-decision-of-career Also found this? https://imgur.com/gCC1chO

https://imgur.com/DDJA466

The hoodie and track top are listed as loose fit on adidas website. Other 2 things are regular.

I’ve posted this before but I love it so here it is again. Keegan on signing “trouble maker” Asprilla "I've seen what other people say about him. They think he's a good player and warn about his temperament. But if I had signed players on the basis of what I heard about them, David Ginola and Andy Cole wouldn't have come to this club and the fans would have missed some great players." "You've got to have the courage to look at what you need and get the very best available. That's what I did. What other people think of players has never worried me. You listen to the talk, but you've got to make your own decisions. It's on the field where it really matters." "The crowd will love him. He's a match-winner, he's a goalscorer and he's an entertainer. He's a real Newcastle player - quick, works hard and has flair. Faustino's the sort of player that Geordies love. The players they talk about are just like him. They should sit back and watch this fellow."

Alan Pardew has revealed he had to ditch Hatem Ben Arfa at Newcastle United as he upset his staff and the Toon squad too often. Ben Arfa was a genuine fan favourite but after a fall out with Pardew he was eventually offloaded to Hull City then Nice, only to make a return to the big time with Paris St-Germain where he went on to win two domestic cups in France. Despite showing fans his brilliance in a black and white shirt, with memorable goals away to Everton and at home to Blackburn Rovers, Ben Arfa was eventually let go by Newcastle. Indeed, Newcastle were happy to release the French international without picking up a fee as they wanted him off the books completely. Pardew told Talksport: "Unfortunately for Hatem - who was an unbelievable talent and if you asked which player you'd want to give the ball to it would be him - but I did not play him all the time. "He antagonised staff and players. He had this way of upsetting the camp. His defensive work was zero. But he was a tremendous talent on the ball." Pardew has also been opening up on his infamous headbutt on Hull's David Meyler during the 4-1 win in 2014. The ex-Newcastle manager says it cost him a huge fine and an eight game stadium ban. Pardew said: “Meyler sucked me in there he was very clever. He kicked me as the ball was running out of play and then on the way back I was giving him a few verbals and he sort of came towards me and I put my head into his head. “It wasn’t actually a headbutt but when you look at the footage but the media went mental, I had nowhere to go. I accepted the charge and Mike Ashley fined me £100,000 straight away to make a stance on it - and that was without the fine from the FA! “It was an expensive situation and I served my time. I had to sit in a hotel room and watch the game because I couldn’t be on the sideline which was really painful as well. "It was Fulham we played and I was in a hotel room at the Royal Garden watching it on TV. "Can you imagine how frustrated? I was running around the room going mental on my own.

Quite relieved the game got moved because I reckon we’d have properly struggled at theirs. It also says a lot about our goal threat that we had a centre back taking penalties and our only actual possibility of a goal went off at half time.

"Data-driven" has been the watchword in football of recent months. With the success of Brighton and Brentford overachieving in the Premier League thanks to the clubs' clever analytics and transfer policies, a lot of their rivals have started to revamp their own internal processes to copy them. The brains behind Brighton's success (betting impresario Tony Bloom) realised two things. 1/ There was a limit to the amount of additional uplift his traders could give the team; and 2/ there weren't enough good analytics teams out there to go round. So the club quietly put the word out that their trading nouse was for hire. To trial, they agreed to start working with Ipswich Town. Ipswich's rise to the top division has been meteoric. But now they're in the same division as Brighton, football insiders are starting to wonder who gets the best analytics when the two clubs play each other.” Hadn’t heard of that connection but it does help explain Ipswich flying up the leagues and quickly looking competitive in the PL.

Looked like general rubbish in the bag sadly/thankfully.

Kicking off in Madrid derby.