Rayvin

Yeah that last bit is going to be a novelty for us - last summer we did iirc, absolutely fuck all. If we can crack the top 6 over the next 2-3 years (and given the decline of Arsenal and Man Utd, I don't think that's impossible) then I think we'll all be thrilled on here.

I don't see us going past City for ages, and I honestly don't even care. Just thrilled to be moving upwards again at last.

It'll suck if we don't get Targett, I really liked the lad and he deserves to play for a better club than Villa with his attitude.

They have a thread complaining that the BBC hasn't given them sufficient attention on Look North. "BBC Look Newcastle". https://www.readytogo.net/smb/threads/bbc-look-north.1580345/ They're fucking weapons man, almost to a man. No other club in the country, not one club anywhere, will have whacked up a thread about whether or not their latest achievement received sufficient coverage on the BBC regional news.

What the fuck is wrong with the Tory party... and more to the point, what is wrong with anyone who votes for them!

The guy trying to argue that their owner is the son of the guy who is responsible for this so it's totally different. Aye mate, and we're owned by PIF and not the Saudi state, two totally different things, I assure you!

Have to say mind, responses so far are entirely based on whataboutery. I mean we all know that none of the people giving us a hard time about this do actually give a fuck about the issues - we probably give more of a fuck tbh - but stuff like this really does show how vapid and disingenuous these attacks are. Not only do they not care, clearly, about the human component of the matters they bring up - they're also actively capitalising on them, using the plight of these people to sling mud in a local rivalry. That's not limited to the mackems mind, I think you could apply that to everyone in football who gets worked up about this shit.

Is Aubameyang world class?? I have him set at "average to good" in my head, which is a few rungs below where Morgan seems to rate him. Don't really pay attention to Arsenal though I guess.

Ah I forgot that happened, fair enough. Last game captained by Lascelles then, almost certainly.

Ritchie might get subbed on at the end or something, but it's an away game after all so limited impact for the sentimental stuff anyway. Nice to see we're set up professionally though. EDIT - why Lascelles over Schar?

Aye, I'm just going to read Gemmill's inevitable MBM on here.

I want them to lose here because honestly I don't think they'll go back down again if they go up. I mean they're not getting out of the championship anytime soon but I'm fairly sure they'll consolidate without getting relegated next season if they do go up. Sadly, I reckon this is probably where (this particular aspect of) the hilarity of Sunderland's plight ends.

Glendenning doing the guardian's MBM for it I assume he begged them to let him do one.

Christ man, is there any other club in the country that has this much of a carry on about going to London? You're left to imagine that most of them genuinely never leave Sunderland at all. Which would explain, amongst other things, the inbreeding.

I mean, I thought that this was a respectful and interesting discussion. Didn't get the sense that anyone was going to fall out. Either way, fair enough.

Yeah I've 180'd fully on this on thinking it through. I can't reconcile holding the view that "opposing" someone over something they can't change is in any way acceptable or productive, and it should be called out. It may be a "belief" but not all beliefs are benign. And his non-involvement may be actively harming homosexual people within Islamic communities. He may simply be ignorant of the facts, but he can fix that by informing himself. I'm sorry for my initial post which was poorly thought through and insensitive tbh.

It's a tough one though because the flag is asking him to say "I think homosexual people should be treated with the same respect in their private lives as everyone else" and his non-consent to support that notion is saying... I mean presumably the opposite. He's not saying "I choose not to be gay" (as if that was an option) - he's instead saying "I reject the notion that this other person can "choose" to be gay". That does feel like a fairly solid step over a line that we wouldn't accept in other contexts?

Tbh I've thought myself out of that view I think. We have a responsibility to act on information and evidence that is logical and well evidenced. That is something I fundamentally believe. If we cannot logically oppose a view, we should accept it until a better alternative comes along. This means that Gueye has either rejected the logical and well evidenced information that indicates that homosexuality is not a choice, in which case he should be criticised for it. Or he has determined that it's not a choice but that it's ok to oppose people for things they can't change about themselves. In which case he should be criticised for it since that's no different to racism. The only possible wiggle room IMO is that he could claim that the rainbow flag represents some sort of political dimension and statement beyond simply attempting to advocate for the notion that homosexuality is acceptable, but I wouldn't be generous enough to grant him that interpretation unless he actually said it. And even then it's weak.

Ha, interesting one. I don't think it's a question about being braver - Gueye's stance on homosexuality won't define him as a person so he won't have been struggling with it every day of his life in the same way that Daniels might have in a football context. He made his statement for one day and then went back to living normally again. There's no question it takes more guts for Daniels to do what he did after a lifetime of possible stigma. That said, bravery aside, Gueye can have his views. As long as he's still compassionate with individuals and isn't actively hating or causing harm to anyone - and as much as I disagree with him - I don't really see him as a problem. I think the concept behind his view is problematic socially - i.e. the notion that people should be 'disagreed with' on the basis of something that they can't change about themselves - this can only be damaging IMO. The battle we need to win there, and that we are winning tbh, isn't going to be achieved by lambasting a single Muslim footballer who isn't making a big statement and who probably doesn't think too hard about such things. But for consistency, I then have to acknowledge that it's the same for any Christians who feel the same way. Not actively causing harm is the main thing, I think?

Liberty is about the only thing they'll be able to pivot to. "We want a country free to be as blindly fucking stupid as it wants to be - no one will ever tell an Englishman that he can't shoot his own foot before taking a hacksaw to what's left of it, and subsequently throwing it at a foreigner while singing No Surrender! For they will be emboldened by a government that did the exact same thing to its own country!"

I see the Reuben brothers are in at number 3. Everyone in the top 20 has north of £8bn. Who needs that much money man, what can they possibly do with it that needs them to have that much. I'm close to posting that infographic again about how utterly obscene it all is.

While it's amusing, I don't actually care that much what happens to them. I think they are more likely to succeed this time but that's mostly because Wycombe have been in my head as a 'minor team' forever, and so I'm judging it based entirely on that. We are now a completely different calibre of club to them. We always were IMO, but it's more pronounced now. They could be a single position below us in the premier league and they'd still be League One as far as the relative stature of the two clubs goes.

I honestly don't see Leeds getting a win at Brentford and Burnley can afford to lose to us as long as Leeds can only draw.

Thanks for keeping us all invested in it though - as much as it's disappointing that it wasn't to be, it's been good craic for half the season

On the plus side, we may as well fuck up Burnley now. Not arsed about losing to them for the sake of throwing Leeds out.