Mark Albrighton

It’s not a great design, is it? I prefer his earlier work.

No idea what the app they’re using is (who buys the drinks has been a suggestion), but Grealish and Targett’s delight at John McGinn’s despair is apparent, and quite enjoyable to see. Team bonding.

Being relatively local, we can generally pick up the differences, but I find that to those further afield it all gets filed under “Brummie” or “sounds a bit like Noddy Holder/Lenny Henry/Ozzy”. My ex (Irish born, Bristol raised) and her friends are all of the belief I have a brummie accent despite having never lived in Birmingham. I’ve had “Oh I arrived into New Street and everyone sounded exactly like you” sort of comments. Same principle but extrapolated, I remember chatting to these American girls while on holiday in Mexico, and to their ears me and my mates sounded exactly like this other group of lads from Barnsley. Couldn’t hear the difference. Of course, I assume these subtle nuances apply to accents everywhere.

Selected quotes from the article linked below - Link So the final was played on Monday 27th May. Glenn goes on holiday/international duty on Tuesday 28th May for a week. Villa put out a statement regarding players leaving on Saturday 1st June. Glen returns and sees the two missed calls on Tuesday 4th June (him stating he found out on a Tuesday can be found elsewhere...so unless I’m missing something it must be that Tuesday). Again, unless I’m missing something incredibly obvious, why was he unaware that the club had made an announcement until Tuesday 4th? I can believe that he doesn’t google his own name, but did no one bother sending him a text saying “ah well mate, you’ll find another club, plenty of life in them legs yet...etc etc. Did his wife not hear anything on twitter? No one in the international squad had any idea either? While the whole thing is a bit odd, Glenn clearly was expecting it and I suspect he’s not too downbeat about it.

It’s almost like they want to provoke a fairly large, sometimes reactionary fan base into phoning them to argue otherwise.

Yeah I don’t think Newcastle supporters have too much impact on Ashley’s thinking. But the original point being made was how toxic it would be in the stadium if Bruce had a similar poor run that Rafa did last season. Rafa, despite his flaws had a lot of goodwill in the bank. I don’t think Bruce does. The end result of that (hypothetical) toxic atmosphere probably wouldn’t mean the supporters would get what they want, but it would be there all the same.

My point was that a positive of Bruce you have previously referenced is our net spend during his tenure. I know you didn’t say he was great, in the same way I don’t think you’ve said Rafa is crap. Paraphrasing to make the point. Edit FWIW I bet if we added up the value of the squad he inherited, it wouldn’t be too far off £90m.

There were a few games that looking back you’d think, that should be a win. I’d be more forgiving of the Sunderland result - local derby, Sunderland seem to have a hold over them. Newcastle’s result against us was poorer in my opinion. On the second point, you’re basically saying “Rafa is crap, he had £90m worth of talent and got relegated”. But you’re also saying Bruce is great for his net spend, for getting £10m for Amavi, £7m for Gestede, £5m for Westwood etc etc....well why can’t it be “Bruce had all these valuable players at his disposal....and we were nowhere near promotion in his first season”? And I don’t just mean players he sold, the expensive players he didn’t buy but regularly played...he may not have spent £15m on Kodjia but he certainly benefited from him...

Yes, I think there is more chance of Newcastle being relegated with Bruce in charge instead of Rafa. That doesn’t mean I’m saying it’s nailed on they’re going to finish 20th or anything like that. I just think they would have stood more chance of staying up if Rafa had stayed.

Well as you pointed out they were in the relegation zone when he took over, so their quality is debatable. He then faced the likes of Liverpool, Man City, Spurs, Leicester in the run in. But you pointing out how much he spent with no reference to his net spend contradicts your defence of Bruce’s tenure here.

You’ve been fond of pointing out Bruce’s net spend during his time here. What was Rafa’s net spend that summer? A quick search suggests Newcastle spent about £60m and brought in £90m. So a £30m profit and championship winners in one season.

He’s exactly how I tried to convinced myself Tom Fox was like before it became apparent he wasn’t/couldn’t ever be.

More quotes being posted but I liked this bit -

I’d be happy for the cover girl to cleanse my energy chakra...if you know what I mean, eh, eh?

Ooh I haven’t had a rock cake in ages.

I would guess we’ve all been to matches where a goal has been scored, the supporters celebrate, the referee has a chat to the linesman/assistant, the goal is disallowed and the opposing supporters celebrate that decision. I don’t really see how an overturned decision made by VAR is massively different in that regard. The celebration of a “no goal” has been fairly common for years. Do supporters not cheer when an opposition player fluffs his lines and misses? Isn’t that akin to celebration of a “no goal”? As for supporters not having an idea of what’s happened, I think there’s always been an element of that. Did every Villa supporter at Elland Road understand why El Ghazi got sent off? You can watch some Leeds fans reactions to clearly see they have no idea why Villa were allowed to score. FWIW, the non goal in the Leicester- Wolves games probably should have counted in my opinion, but by the letter of the law, it was correctly disallowed. I wonder how vocal Nuno will be when it benefits his side. I’m broadly in support of VAR but can understand the frustration and criticism of it and I don’t think it’s being used as well as it could be.

I don’t think it can be understated the amount of goodwill Rafa had in the bank to ease any unrest among supporters. Not sure Bruce has quite the same credit rating at the moment. Although I should add, I doubt they will only have three points after ten games. But if they did, I don’t expect Bruce to receive anywhere near as much leeway as Rafa did.

I didn’t want to jump the gun on this and really tried to get my head around the thinking behind his reasoning for that. Like I’ve missed something obvious as to why that would be a good idea. I can’t come up with anything. Reassuring to know these head scratching decisions weren’t just for us.

It’s appears to have been deleted now, so maybe Mrs W has had a rethink.

I think Spurs are closer to Man City and Liverpool than they are to Man Utd, Arsenal and Chelsea.

Probably an obvious thing to say, but looking at the above list, the sheer amount of defeats, or rather the relatively low amount of draws in some of those final tallies is quite startling. Cardiff winning 10 games last season looks admirable, but only picking up 4 draws seems bizarre. Last season, Southampton managed 9 wins and 12 draws and finished 5 points clear of Cardiff.

I vaguely remember hearing that it’s common in the US to have them upstairs. My only other knowledge on the subject is that Kirstie Allsopp doesn’t have her washing machine in the kitchen. Probably.