Dr Gloom

I think we’ll beat Ipswich and Chelsea, which is basically enough for top five. There are points up for grabs in all of the other ones too. We have nothing to fear, the way we’re playing

3-1 to us

Damn. I was looking forward to a meme fest. anyone else want to lead team pissy pants? CT, I’m looking at you

they’ve only lost one at home all season. a tough assignment which will make our victory on Saturday all the more satisfying

time for a bed wetter/sausage shaker poll. looks like PL is leading the bed wetters. Who’s with me in team big bollocks?

This is exactly where I’m at in my Newcastle WhatsApp chat with friends. There are one or two of us who are supremely confident we’ve done enough for champions league already but a majority still fear an old Newcastle-style collapse and won’t say it out loud until it’s practically mathematically secured for fear of jinxing it. I keep imploring them to trust these lads. They are playing like they believe they’re one of the top five sides in the country. We should start believing them in them too. They’re playing with a swagger and I love how they’re speaking openly about qualifying for the champions league now, it feels completely different to a couple or years back when no one wanted to admit we were in with a chance. This feels different - they know they’re good enough and I’m convinced they are going to get the job done.

sort of explains the modern obsession with creating the perfect high value opportunity. The stats can be helpful but it’s also made the game more boring at times. When you’ve got players who can strike the ball as well as ours it can be infuriating watching them recycle the ball around the box, a’la Man City, instead of hitting it when a shooting chance opens up. I’m glad our lads have started taking more risks and having a pop. The Murphy one is a great example. If you’re feeling juicy, why not have a go? The first only one on that graphic which looks ridiculously low on the xG is the one from miles out which I presume was Schar’s effort

The xG for Isak’s goal seems particularly low. It was a much easier one than Murphy’s, which was hit from an angle where few go in. Isak’s was 15-20 yards out with only the keeper to beat. There must be some shit strikers out there for the modelling to be so low on that one. I suppose we’re lucky to have Isak because those are the chances he usually takes. The header he missed was a massive chance too. If he heads that into the ground, he scores

I noticed that too. I think he’s like all the best strikers: hungry for goals and he still fancies the golden boot

what did you make of the xG modelling for yesterday’s game? I’m struggling to comprehend how Palace’s xG was 2 and ours was less than 2. Okay, I get that Murphy’s goal was a screamer from an angle with a low xG probability and that their missed penalty inflated their figures but did they have any other big chances apart from that? Maybe I’m guilty of looking at the game through black and white spectacles but I don’t remember being overly concerned by many of their chances and thinking we wasted at least 3-4 good opportunities on top of the 5 goals scored.

I don’t mind xg in principle but it isn’t infallible. We fucking battered them. There’s no way they should have a higher xg than us. Isak shoukd have scored four. The one he scored was the hardest of his many chances. What did Palace create other than the penalty? It was mostly potshots from outside the box, which surely should have created less xg than the chances we created. It was one way traffic for 90 minutes

welcome back! couldn’t agree more about Murphy. He’s living the dream and I’m here for it

the one occasion you didn’t predict the 5-0 and it came home. Gemmill-like powers of prediction

Get your cigars out lads. This is champagne football

Justice!

How the fuck is that a penalty like? 😂

and it’s LIIIIVVVVVEEEE

If we a win tonight and a draw at villa, champions league qualification is all but done.

Everton? He looks every inch a David Moyes player. Leeds, if they get promoted maybe. Not too far from home. Or he might look at what McTominay did at Napoli and consider a move abroad. He’s a similar player technically to Sean

Man City’s isn’t easy

Agree it won’t be easy. It’s a much tougher task than Man U - they have some dangerous players up front and Wharton in midfield, who looks the part. We could do with an early goal or them getting someone sent off in the first half to settle us down. It’s the sort of game where the crowd could get nervous but I’m hoping the midweek factor, under the lights with more time for pre match beers, will offset that. I was listening to one of the podcasts earlier and someone mentioned our Wednesday night game record: we’ve won five and drawn one of our last six

He’s had a great career at Newcastle and can be proud that he’s been so involved in the squad for so long after the takeover given his technical levels aren’t as high as a lot of the new additions - he was still keeping Sandro out of the team at times earlier this season, which is remarkable really and a testament to the work Sean gets through on the pitch. There were times in the past few seasons where we just looked better with Sean in the side, despite there seemingly being better options on the bench. You can’t question his attitude and I wouldn’t object to him staying on as 5th/6th choice CM. But Sean may prefer to play first team football at this stage of his career and you’d imagine there would be plenty of suitors in the PL or abroad. We should also be able to get £20-30m of pure profit for a peak age English CM with PL and CL experience.

The magpie looks more like a penguin

imagine caring that much about a club that isn’t a local rival that you’d be motivated to commission artwork that bad