Checko

I'm still not over Perch leaving

Nick Pope in July as well. It's all true!

Man if we sign DCL and Lloyd Kelly I don't think we'll need to conduct an internal review to work out why we have so many injuries next year!

If Bruno goes it'll be gutting, but we'll get one of the highest transfer fees of all time for him and will be able to reinvest it into buying loads more lovely, lovely footballers. Still hope he stays though.

Newcastle Soccer Stuff

That's good to hear, you can tell pretty quick from watching an actual game whether a keeper's comfortable with the ball at his feet.

Saw something a few days ago, might have been Edwards, saying Howe preferred Ramsdale but others preferred Big Mama. Who knows though as Ramsdale could have been a smokescreen.

On Fb reference a launched pass is one over 40 yards

One of those graphs you look and and think, 'whoa he's absolutely insanely good' and then realise half of it is just saying 'he boots the ball really long all the time and is very inaccurate doing so.'

Guy's literally 9 hours ahead of us and claiming time difference means he's not up to date. BS.

Ashworth's probably left a jar of this knocking about somewhere. Should check his old office.

End of the year, players rest/recover physically and mentally. Preseason starts, you do some training, then go on a tour to spread the good word and play a few friendlies, couple more matches close to home to finish off. You do the publicity tour preseason because the players do actually need to play then.

In a way it feels like Howe was making a point that this whole thing was bullshit and shouldn't happen again.

Feels like as we're going to the right hand side of the world for some preseason friendlies anyway, could have done this as part of preseason, though obviously there's probably some accounting shenanigans involved to raise cash by June.

Anyone fancy teaming up to place a few random big bets on Bruno F to get booked next year, just in case?

I hear Tonali was gambling on his phone behind Ashworth the whole time during negotiations and people kept shouting 'Look behind you!' at him, but he didn't listen.

Dodgy Dan's definitely the pantomime villain now so might as well have some fun with it.

Looking at Mateta's career stats he's score 65 league goals from 65.8 xG, so his finishing overall has been fine. His base goals per game in past years looks terrible, but he hadn't actually played many minutes. I agree he's been on a particular hot streak and he'll cool a bit (16 goals from 11 xG this year is unsustainable unless you're one of the greatest finishers in history, which he probably isn't), but as usual, if you make plenty of chances your striker will probably score plenty of goals. https://fbref.com/en/players/50e6dc35/dom_lg/Jean-Philippe-Mateta-Domestic-League-Stats Gotta say it's nice when a guy who's been struggling for a bit comes good. EDIT: Also, as TCD mentions, things like movement/anticipation - qualities that get you in the position to have the xG in the first place are very important. I don't really know how he stands here.

Imagine you're seeing someone for a bit, then you start hearing from your mates she's been seen out with some rich nob, the sort of wanker who makes pissy comments at homeless people, and it turns out she's started seeing him behind your back. You're outraged, she says she's going to leave you for him, you have an angry break up, block her on social media, don't respond when she wants to come and pick up her beekeeping costume (turns out she's a keen apiarist in this analogy). Yeah it's good you're not going to waste too much time on her. Yeah the rich nob and her deserve each other. Yeah you get your favourite CDs back. Still, doesn't mean you should necessarily be happy about the whole thing. I mean, now you've got the hassle of going out on the pull again when you've got a Netflix boxset you'd much rather be getting on with. And besides, you're still using CDs. Who does that? I think that's more or less Unbelievable's point.

We definitely didn't consolidate the squad properly last summer. We got one CM, swapped one winger for another and brought in two back-up fullbacks. Plus bought one to loan out for the future. Obviously doesn't help that we then lost the CM all year and the winger for half the season. Could still turn out to be a good window long-term, but we probably didn't strengthen the overall squad as efficiently as we could. This was then compounded by injuries early on and relentlessly tough cup draws. If we can get the two frees in defence then that definitely helps numbers this year and gives us a bit of wiggle room to try and buy quality in a couple of areas. You must be looking forward to next year. Reckon you'll have a Europe challenge in you?

He's not saying he's disappointed in NUFC tbf - he said he's disappointed for NUFC, due to losing a highly rated member of staff and possibly some cash.

Right sided 8 - but if Bruno goes I think he might take the Bruno role.

I agree - I think Bruno's happy here & don't think he wants to leave, but he's ambitous and if a very top team like Man City came in for him I don't think he'd turn the opportunity down. Which is fair enough.

Yeah think Man City were going to spend a massive wadge on him last summer then this emerged and they thought... maybe we'll wait to see if you get banned for life first.

Agree, I think the weakest point of Howe's set up is that our wingers often stay very wide in passy passy phases leaving our striker very isolated and it become very difficult to move the ball forward through the middle. It's a bit like we're set up to counter even when we want to do more posession-based stuff. A legit playmaker on the right could do a lot for us.