Dickie

Only new albums I've listened to this year are Nick cave and Teenage Fanclub - both quality

Absolutely. To be fair to Gayle he did try that and ended up 3 inches too high, hitting the bar and going out. Atsu hit the bar and went in, 3 inches difference over 12 yards... I don't know if the Hull players who scored would admit that their pens were within less than 3 inches of the spot they were aiming for.

Like I say, plenty of top, top teams have messed up penalty shoot outs. I think you'll find a lot of professionals will say that it's very hard to legislate for a shoot out. The obvious example that springs to mind is Baggio 94. Nobody can tell me he didn't practice enough pens - he was always his sides regular penalty taker and he was famous for being a model professional, very hard trainer and dedicated etc, and with the confidence of being the best player in the world at that time, with a track record of playing well under pressure and in big games. You could have had 3 Baggio's on that team and who's to say all 3 wouldn't have missed. It happens. I'll never criticise players for missing in penalty shoot outs. I think I'll stop here otherwise it's just going round in circles.

OK fair enough, have to agree to disagree there then. I'll just always find it hard to criticise players for missing in shoot outs - whether we're talking about NUFC or any other team. It's just one of those things. Plenty of top teams with top penalty takers have had shocking shoot outs over the years. I really don't think it necessarily on them as players or the amount of preparation they put in as professionals.

It really is - good penalty takers miss pens every now and again, especially in shoot outs, and every now and again it happens like last night where everyone has a shocker at the same time. I don't doubt that our 3 that missed them are as good at pens in training as the 3 that scored them for Hull. Not a joke and definitely not an embarrassment imo. It happens and I'm not going to criticise them for missing the pens given how well they played on the night and the levels of motivation, professionalism and preparation that they've put in all season.

Obviously gutted to go out but really heartened by the performance, especially after how poor we were on Saturday. We were absolutely different class to them for most of the 120 mins, barring odd little periods like the beginning of the 2nd half (and unfortunately 30 seconds after the goal) when we got a bit complacent. I thought they all played well and as a team we looked quality. Let's not forget that at any point in the last 4 or so years we would have been guaranteed to go there, put in a lame, heartless performance and lose within the 90. The change we've seen in the last 6 months has been astonishing. I know they have been whipping boys in the Premier League this year but I'd be surprised if many Prem teams will look as superior against them as we did. And that was on a pitch that should have been a leveller for them. Shelvey is frankly a joy to watch - I really hope he keeps this going for the rest of the season and into the Prem because I think he's got the ability to be one of the best midfielders around. Gayle had a bit of an off day but I'm not going to criticise him cos he's been absolute quality for us since he signed. If we can keep putting in performances like that in 7 out of 10 games between now and the rest of the season we'll be flying. About the pens, I'm not too bothered about them missing them. It happens to all teams. It's a cliche but it's true, it's a lottery and I accepted a long time ago that Newcastle just basically never win penalty shoot outs. On another night we would have won inside 90 comfortably with that level of performance though. I thought Selz looked good apart from the goal. It's unfortunate for him, it looks like he's going to struggle to make it here. I think he might a good keeper who's just got off to a bad start. He should have pushed that first shot out though - that's a basic mistake and you can't really make an excuse for it. No criticism for not saving any pens though. And Lascelles smashing that water bottle into the front row was class

Sounds like the woman who used to run the ice cream shop in Seaton Deleval who would hoy a radgie if you had the temerity to ask for vanilla when you meant plain (or maybe it was the other way around, can't remember)

Aye I'd agree with most of that. I've seen glimpses to suggest Atsu might be a decent player in the future but he had a bit of a stinker on Saturday. Mitro on the other hand, as I say, the more I see of him the less faith I have that he's a top flight striker. Hope I'm proved wrong obviously.

I'd agree with that. We were totally flat right from the start and there was a total lack of cohesion, probably mainly caused by the changes. We just have to accept that while rafas rotation policy is going to bring us some advantages there will inevitably be the odd game where the players don't gel. About Mitro, he looks hard but he's really a big fanny as far as I can see. Gets knocked off the ball far too easily for someone his size and wins little in the air. In a game like yesterday when the team is just not clicking you really need to rely on your target man to hold up long balls or at least flick them on to give us a chance of getting up the pitch. Doubt blackburns defenders will have an easier game all season. He's still young like and bigger strikers normally hit their peak relatively late, but the more I see of him the less I rate him

That will probably be a good move. Pragmatic at least, given the personnel available to them. It's all about batting for as long as possible in the first innings, whether you win or lose the toss. If they bat for 130-150 overs they should give themselves a chance in the game. As long as they're not chasing the game England's attack are capable of bowling a team out on a wearing 2nd innings pitch, despite the negativity of the press. Including buttler should help them to do this and I reckon Bairstow will be fine at 5 - he's been in early in the innings plenty in this past year due to England's fragile top order

What are they supposed to be? Half and half Newcastle-Northumberland?

Exactly - his signings record there was excellent really. 15 mil yearly net spend on average to achieve those league placings is tremendous, not to mention the cup wins

Based on the players I know anything about it seems like quite a well reasoned analysis. The fact that it's written by a supporter who sounds like he knows his onions gives it more value than if it had been written by a journalist imo

Don't know if anyone has already posted this but it's quite an interesting summary of Rafa's transfers from a LIverpool supporter's perspective. I'm looking forward to seeing how he can develop this squad from here on (provided Ashley doesn't do owt daft, which still seems a pretty fucking big proviso to me). http://lfcstats.co.uk/rafatransfers.html

I'm looking forward to this one, I think we'll give them a howking - 4-0

There's some good photos in that lot, cheers Tooj

It was a strange case wasn't it - I think I remember seeing feature on him on football focus a couple of years ago, I think he had packed in football and was running a bar in Marbella or something like that. He was only mid 20s when he quit iirc.

I was listening to Talksport commentary of this match last night in the car. Had a chuckle to myself when his first contribution after coming on was giving the ball away and putting his defence under pressure. Then about 15 mins later Stuart Pearce goes "you I'm not sure if the substitutions have helped, if anything they've made it worse". Good man Stuart, keep telling it like it is

I wouldn't want to Lascelles to leave. He's a promising young player and seems to be a good leader and good influence on the rest of the squad. I've no problem binning off players if Rafa deems them not good enough to make the step up next season, but that is a totally different kettle of fish to losing our more influential players to better clubs. If we start existing to selling players at a profit again I can't see Rafa sticking around and the last 6 months or so might as well not have happened. That said I don't doubt this story is just standard newspaper guff.

Don't blame them either! The difficulty of what they painted, often on massive scale, all the way up to about the mid 19th century is mind boggling. Good to see people like mr walks keeping the flame alive ?

Leave off him man HF - a lot of artists will trace the outline, or use a light box, for outlines if they're working from photos. Nothing wrong with that all. He still has to do all the shading which is the hard bit, not to mention sort his composition out for all the disparate figures he's pulling together into a single group portrait.

Don't know, never heard anything about his brother

Aye that's him. I don't like to see those videos though - there's always been twats making him do stuff like that for tabs and money. Sad to see. He's always seemed a nice enough guy to me, totally harmless, just a wreck.