acrossthepond

And a seat on the board, let's not forget that.

This game went when we took Ritchie off, I can't get my head around that decision.

Their WBA shirts are called "West Bromich." Their Roma shirts are called "Rome." It's the exact same shitty design for every club. How is this meant to be "bespoke"? It's the same dogshit template repeated over and over again. They have no licenses obviously so the only thing they print is the name of the city/town in question in a font that's an obvious and pathetic knockoff of Supreme. All in all, the only use for terrace idol tshirts would be if I was caught short in a Sunderland Tescos after a bad curry or three.

"How's it gan", fuck me. Hello fellow humans. It's rare that I would say this but this is absolutely a case for Stevie.

Well done. I didn't agree with the defensive subs but Atsu did well as an outlet at the end and Clark did make us look more confident at the back. Rondon looked class, like the player we thought we were getting. Hopefully it will continue.

Great goal.

Ritchie deserves credit as well for playing on while injured. He never shirked a tackle, very committed performance from someone who's had a bit of stick for his lack of end product.

Get in!

He'll win us many more with tactical nous and inspirational leadership. The Man U and Arsenal home wins last season come to mind. We'd have lost the Arsenal game 0-4 if Pardew had been in charge, as soon as Lacazette scored it would've been open season.

Not only is that not even the same media story from yesterday (the equally bogus claims yesterday were that Lascelles himself objected to being played on the right of the 3 centre-halves) but it's absolute bullshit, not to mention that Rafa's defensive formation worked exactly to plan. They scored from a nothing penalty and a deflection. We nullified them completely for 75 minutes, then scored a great goal after their BS penalty. The goal was scored by a Rafa signing and substitute who's got dog's abuse but has scored two good goals this season - no mention of "working magic" with Joselu though. Finally they got a jammy deflection that is the sort of luck that football matches are sometimes decided by. So we lost to Chelsea, who had a net spend of 87m to our -28m. Chelsea, who could bring on players from their bench worth more than our entire starting XI's transfer fees. Now it's the end of the world, Rafa is rubbish, we're going down again. How short-sighted, how ignorant, how unmindful of last season can you be? As for fucking Mitrovic, I'll say it now. I don't care if he scores 20 this season. It wasn't working out here. It was never going to work out here. We're better off shot of him and we certainly got good value for selling him. It wasn't Rafa's fault that Fat Mike wouldn't spend the Mitrovic profit. He scored a couple of goals against Burnley and fluked one against Spurs and now he's the second coming of Shearer. Righto. We'll see how many games he lets pass him by at Fulham, standing in the centre circle with a petulant look on his face because he's not getting the ball played into feet. Or maybe he'll be a brilliant success at Fulham and their attacking talent (that they spent 68m on) will light up the league - once again, how will that be Rafa's fault?

HOSSSSSSSSSSSS!

Never, that ref wants shooting with shit for that. What a disgrace.

Muto is on the bench, isn't he?

I can't even with the thing on the right. Meth zombie barbie and orange buffoon with abominable toupee are bad enough - that fucking froot loop on the right defies rational explanation. Those glasses were MADE to be punched off someone's face. I would also guarantee he has no prescription need for eyewear.

Not just managing us but spunking something like 60m. I would wager without seeing the numbers that that was more net spend than any other manager in Ashley's time was ever given. Ultimately Fatty got most of it back (profit on Wijnaldum and Mitrovic, approximate parity on Mbemba and Townsend, some loss on Saivet and that worthless donkey Thauvin) but Benitez hasn't seen a penny of it. Spendthrift with one of our worst PL managers ever; tightarse with one of our best PL managers ever. The Ashley way.

That was worthy of a red, dirty bastard.

Conveniently that range excludes the barren summer where we signed only Anita. It also includes the January 2014 panic buying and the inexplicable error of judgment that was giving McClaren the amount of money he did over two windows. How's the net spend been since relegation? How about previous to January 2014? Anyone can fiddle with numbers to try to prove a point.

Sickening. "We didn't try at all in the transfer window, we banked 20m profit, but here's a shittily-written piece of trash that states otherwise, so glad that's cleared up, please don't protest as your precious team might get relegated again for the third time during my flaming car-crash of a tenure, but of course that would have nothing to do with my continuing mismanagement of the club and lack of investment. Fanks, Ashley."

I reckon Saivet and Lazaar will yet be shifted. The money will mysteriously disappear down the back of Fatty's sofa before Christmas and we'll be back to wiping our own noses or whatever bullshit it'll be this time. I am impressed that we didn't bother with the fake deadline day bids this time and went out and actually secured cover for a position we need. All the same, 20m+ profit yet again. This club will go nowhere as long as Ashley owns it - no need for hysterics, nothing's changed, we've known that for the better part of a decade now. We are where we started this window, roughly speaking. The same depressing, soul-sucking, exhausting, occasionally brilliant Newcastle United.

I'm going to predict no incomings and maybe Saivet out.

I don't even think we've really bothered with that this time. Rondon is clearly all we're getting, we'll have a "leak" sometime late today about some ludicrous foreign-based player, that'll do for a bit of drama and hope tomorrow before we announce we're "done with business" with a few hours left in the window. The latest performance of the NUFC transfer bullshit concerto.

It's still a little early, give it until Tuesday night for the bullshit to truly start materializing.

This is about to end badly, isn't it? Dear lord, you'd think these fucking morons would've got the picture by now but we just keep repeating the same cycle of sorrow every two years or so. The fat fuck lucked into a manager good enough to keep us up indefinitely, even on a reasonable budget which was supposedly the goal from the off, and he just can't keep his sausage fingers out of a good thing. He's not just going to press the self-destruct button, he's going to karate chop the fucking thing, pocket the transfer revenue yet again, and chortle at our impotent protests. We're fucked. Again.

I don't understand why we have to get rid of Gayle. I'd rather keep him and have Rondon too, and we clearly have the money to do that. Then we could have - gasp! - four strikers, each with different attributes, able to be rotated depending on tactical need. Gayle isn't the most lethal PL striker ever but he's a good option to have. Ideally we would be upgrading him, and Ritchie, and other Championship stars/bottom half PL players like them, but I think it's clear that's not going to happen.