Kilcline

Weez Keys this morning, a nearly but not quite of the sticking the boot in genre: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/mar/24/eddie-howe-newcastle-football-saudi-arabia

50/1 for the Golden Boot on BetVictor if that's your thing, each way on top 4. You'd think Mbappe and Kane will be top 2 but pretty open after that I reckon

Nice, that'll be enough to tell the wife there's footy I want to watch so she can go and watch her shite upstairs

It wouldn't surprise me if we won 5 or 6, but equally I also wouldn't be surprised if we only got another 5 or 6 points. If the players come back from internationals and play like it's shit or bust I think we'll be alright and at least get close though.

Aye it's Athletic Bilbao he's linked with, not Real Sociedad

Did you have to go a size up or just your usual?

The Guardian comments section under Weez Keyz match report seemed to have an unusually large concentration of "neutrals happy the good guys had won" this morning

Aye, I mentioned it in the aftermath of Wednesday - might have even been you I said it to - on the "coaches on the pitch" stuff, like at 4-2 why isn't anyone saying "sit tight for now, no more goals". Off topic but along similar lines, there was an interesting analysis done I think during the 2022 World Cup that drew a correlation between the national teams that were doing well versus those that weren't basically along the lines of the countries that had mainly players from clubs with pragmatic coaches were doing better (it may have even been Ancelotti vs Pep coached/influenced players or something like that) because they were more used to adapting and having to sort things out on the pitch, whereas Spain was the example of what happens when you're over-coached/wedded to a system. Albeit we learned the hard way that they fixed that!

If the first two were draws would that not mean we'd have been the "champions" for those two games? Thick cunts

Fucking hell The gift that keeps on giving even 24 hours after they've taken the right fucking piss out of us

In Elanga's defence, our wingers often show for it short so it has to be something tactical - probably trying to draw the defender in to drop it off and then spin. But it winds me up no end too as we could just go direct, especially when we have someone that quick. Murphy does it all the time and it just kills space. But to that end, Elanga has had games where he's made that run every time and we still don't pass to him, there was one game recently, I think Villa at home, where Willock has had an open pass to Elanga a handful of times after they came on and he's gone sideways to Trippier every fucking time. It's like if we don't play to the pre-rehearsed patterns our brains are going to melt or something.

Was just about to write almost exactly the same thing, he's absolutely shite

For some reason I always felt like it was either us, Tottenham and Man City who were on rotation as football's biggest laughing stock for various reasons back in the day, they're just delivering the goods right now, football heritage etc

I do think you can "learn" to finish at that age, but whether he's able to do it, already has a baseline instinct for finishing (my biggest doubt), and whether we can afford to wait and see if he learns is another matter.

It's funny you say that because I thought the opposite re the chances, he's only really got the one finish/part of the goal to aim for when he cuts in off the left and doesn't have Barnes' quality from that area but if he's central he can have a bit more variety, although he's obviously far from the finished article when it comes to finishing wherever he plays

Agree with this, he was a disgrace for the goal but overall he's not long back from injury and hasn't exactly been coming on when we've been flying or playing confidently

I'm even more pissed off this morning. Not helped by knowing I'm going to the England games with a mackem mate this week who has been unusually non-gloating in our group chat so is obviously saving it for the Green Man beer garden before he starts, the cunt

There's no point signing a DM unless we are going change the shape of the team to actually get the benefit of having one. Ironically, for me, not only would signing a DM and changing the shape slightly make us way harder to play against, it should also narrow the midfield and make it easier to build up attacks by bringing us closer to the centre forward and making the full backs more of a creative outlet, our assists and chances created from full back this season must be crap. It doesn't feel like it's rocket science, we've had massive gaps for years but aren't getting away with it - or have the firepower to scare teams off exploiting it

A couple of give and go's with Kane and a goal next Tuesday and he'll look a million dollars, full of confidence coming back to us and eyeing up a seat on the plane

Gy-eeyore-keres, total fucking donkey

Hasn't Lego Cunt been giving it the biggun this week about how their previous bottlejobs and losses have prepared them to win aswell? Fucking wanker.

Either Pep went apeshit at HT or Arteta's team talk was useful as ours at HT today

Goal music

Would rather we had goal music and light shows than Maresca or Mourinho in the dugout

It's been a terrible game, haven't all the three shots on target been in that one move with the Trafford treble save aswell