Checko

I'm going to assume he managd them when Championship Manager 2 came out.

Yeah, like at school when the teacher can't be arsed and puts on a video instead.

We'll be announcing our official gold-mining partner soon enough.

And back on topic, Eddie Howe has an excellent hairline.

To be fair Goldbridge didn't say 'backing', he said NUFC had "way more resources" last year. I would count salary spend as part of the club's resources [it's often seen as the most directly linkable financial figure to on-pitch performance] and Man U was second in the league, over 2 and a half times higher than Newcastle's in 22/23 (approx £213 million to £81 million) : Source - https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/chelsea-premier-league-wage-bill-30054153 Net transfer spend was roughly the same with Man U slightly ahead in 2022/23 but pretty negligable. I would say we certainly didn't have 'way more resources' as Goldbridge says. Also his implicit point about ten Hag getting too much criticism and speculation in the media. That's fair enough, but his clickbaity videos do it as well. So I would say some of his point is factually incorrect and his general point about the media is hypocritical, even if I do actually largely agree ten Hag's getting too much criticism.

I'm British and middle class. I find honesty that hasn't been thoroughly marinated in vast vats of circumspection very uncomfortable to deal with.

How'd he end up loving Villa?

Out of curiosity, do you always have to have the final word?

Yeah this is the thing... I think we actually had better chances of winning if we were calmer and more patient and kept things tighter. Look at the end of the game - we were chucking men forward and leaving gaps at the back because we had to score and they had a number of great chances. If we play it safer, last 10 mins it could have been them leaving the gaps, and us getting the chances. Playing on the counter is playing to our strengths. Not saying we shouldn't have tried to be positive on the ball, but I think we could have been a lot calmer, more composed, patient. and just said - 'hey, we've got Europe in our hands, we have something tangible. If you want anything then you need to take the risks, and when you do.. we'll be ready to pounce.' Except in Italian, obviously. That's the tough, hard-nosed winner's mentality for me. On the other hand perhaps they feel Europa League wasn't worth the fatigue so they'd rather go more boom and bust. Either way, I don't want to come across as too negative - I'm certainly not upset with a positive attitude, and the players gave it a good go. Neither way guarantees success and I thought we played very well for a lot of the game. But I do think we missed a trick & that's why I described it in the match thread as a bit naive.

Eddie's so methodical you'd imagine he must have multiple rolling autosaves turned on.

From what I read at the time he sounded a very quiet, shy lad who just got his head down and got on with things. Didn't seem the type who was willfully unprofessional.

At the end of the day everyone's got a price - if someone offered us a billion pounds for Bruno who's turning it down? They key question then should always be, what would your price be where you think there would be a net benefit to the club by selling him?

I wouldn't say Newcastle had way more resources than Man U personally. Don't think you could compare the budgets and experience levels of players last year. [for the record I think ten Hag is obviously no mug and Man U's board should just back him and get rid of the players he doesn't like. In return ten Hag should ditch the flat cap and stop trying to look like a coke baron who's bought a big country house and claimed he's gone straight]. Also I think some of the criticism of Goldbridge is that fact that he's part of this media hysteria. It gets him clicks. A very brief google search and a couple of recent videos: GOLDBRIDGE - GRAHAM POTTER TO REPLACE TEN HAG?!? (13 hours ago) The END Of Erik Ten Hag? ft. Mark Goldbridge - (not his channel but still agreed to be part of it) (9 days ago) I'm sure there are plenty of other examples. Bullshit clickbait gets clicks. Clicks are money. He is part of that.

Eddie Howe is class. This season's been very tough. He will grow and thrive.

Looked at the goals again. I mean the first one the guy's 6 yards out, all a keeper can do there is spread himself and hope he gets lucky. Are people really criticising him for letting that one in? 2nd one - maybe Nick Pope can get a touch on it. Maybe. And that's only because he's fucking massive. This 'pathetic dive' stuff, completely disagree. You can't do a giant flying Pickford leap from a standing position so quickly, there just isn't time there, it was a good first-time finish. Would have been a worldie if he'd saved it. I don't think M Dubs is Nick Pope's level, (but then I think Pope is an elite goalkeeper), but I don't blame him for either of the goals yesterday. I also have some sympathy for a guy who has barely played a competitive match in a year and a half being expected to come in and be in top form straight away. The worst defensive error yesterday by far was Tino completely miscontrolling under no pressure and giving them a free one-on-one yet everyone seems to be giving him a free pass.

Trouble we've had is to rest Isak means to play Wilson, but he's been injured. Without Wilson then we'd need to play Gordon up front to cover, so we'd need Barnes to play LW, but he's been injured. Alternatively we could play Joelinton out on LW to cover, but all our other CMs have been injured. Otherwise move Almiron to the left and play Murphy on the right, but Murphy's been injured. Apart from that we're left with Ritchie and Newcastle United fan Lewis Hall, but Howe clearly doesn't fancy them right now. Hopefully he can get a bit of R&R now we're starting to get one or two bodies back.

Yeah I think at 1-1 all the onus is on them to commit players forward so I think we'd have had more winning chances playing tighter and hitting on the break, certainly later on. Still, que sera sera.

Imagine our team tonight but with, say, Salah on the right wing...

Yeah Nick Pope is a brilliant goalkeeper and hard to be compared to his standard. People like to focus on Pope's obvious weakness, which is that it's mildly terrifying whenever he's passed to and there's an opponent in our half of the pitch, but apart from that he's so good at everything else. Looking at the Pope thread, when he signed there were some saying he's good, and lots of 'is he that much of an upgrade on Dubs?' 'Is it really a priority position to upgrade?'. Then a month or two later it's all 'holy crap he's a massive upgrade.' That difference has only increased with a year and half of Dubs' inactivity. Still, perhaps he'll end up scoring the winning dunk.

Yeah I've seen it, Woody Harrelson gets the key dunk at the end of that film IIRC. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Dubs is amazing, by any means. I just don't remember him being really at fault for the goals today, but I'd need to see them again to be fair.

Talking about the second goal? I'd have to watch it again but from what I remember it looked a quality finish and I don't think any of them get near it.

Tbf I think he's generally quite rubbish on the left... he stays very wide and hugs the touchline but doesn't look to get to the byline and get a cross in and doesn't look to cut in and shoot. He likes to drop deep to get the ball rather than run in behind and so doesn't cause much of a threat at all. Basically it's not really his position and I'm never sure what he's expected to do out there. He got an assist vs Southampton and there was his crazy run vs Everton last year, apart from that I don't remember being particularly impressed with him there. Think we'd get the best out of him with a proper no. 10 playing behind him who he can link with. He's not a big strong Drogba type, I think he needs the Bergkamp to his Henry. The Del Piero to his Inzaghi. The Jeff Hendrick to his Chris Wood.

If we'd had almost any other manager we'd not have been knocked out tonight against that Milan team... because we'd never have been in the competition in the first place.

We definitely didn't bottle it. We came out, were assertive, on the front foot, played well, got the lead. 2nd half we were ok, then they got a chance after a set piece and took it. That can happen. In football one chance is all you need sometimes. Things then got a bit open, but we could have sat back, defended the draw and tried to just stay in Europa League places but we went for broke. That's not bottling, perhaps a bit naive more than anything. But if we're going to go down, at least we went down swinging. When the game got open that's where we really missed Willock and Barnes, would have really suited them then. Ultimately just lacking some really top quality in attack. A maddison or Chiesa type playing and we probably make an extra chance or two when we were on top. A proper DM to allow Bruno to focus on playmaking at times as well would be a good addition to the squad I think. Also, Tomori's a good player. He was great in the first match too.