The Fish

That's an undeniably valid question. Reckon if Bruce loses the next two he'll be gone?

Surely the pomp around this new coach is just an effort to distract from the football and the manager? It's not like they can do that with an exciting signing.

He tweeted something about being a good person and being loyal and kind to friends when they're in trouble. While I can understand him defending Bruce from some of the personal abuse that's appeared online, the majority of the criticism has been of his ability as a Premier League manager, and for that there's no defence.

Any rumours who it is? I know we've been linked with Williams, Willem, Choudry, but I've not seen owt today.

Definitely felt like it was the players taking responsibility, rather than following instructions. Bruce will only get fired if we're in the bottom 3 for a couple of weeks/rounds of fixtures.

Is it that select, though? Pardew, McClaren, Carver, Hughton (arguably), Shearer, Keegan II; Judgement Day, Bruce...

Yeah, do not search for that term on twitter at your desk! That hashtag is definitely not safe for work.

We chose our area because of the primary school catchment area. Mrs wanted to choose one for the local secondary but I figured that, in a decade, the excellent schools might be shit holes and the shit holes might be excellent. Plus, once I teach him how to play as a false 10 he won't need schoolun'

Honestly think the problem is the number of tv shows where people breeze into a fixer-upper, and in 30 minutes they've got a dream house with a cinema room, a kitchen island and bifold doors. Even in those, the drama of builders and surveys are apparently immediately resolved. The only people I know who've actually benefited from a fixer-upper are the ones who can afford to pay a fortune, or people who're builders themselves. We're trying to get someone to come in and add a small splashback behind the bathroom sink, we've been chasing various tilers for fucking months. It's getting to the point Mrs Fish is considering letting me have a crack myself. So I can't imagine the fart on getting 3-4 tradesmen to work in sync for a bigger project.

We managed to get the dream house for asking price because the original buyer offered more, then pulled out. Cheeky bastards wanted us to match that price, but we held firm and saved about £25k. Now we've got a house that we'll not move from in the next 20-30 years. We've spent a little here and there on a new bathroom and stuff, but we want to do the kitchen extension and the attic. So that'll be about £90k, but the way I see it, anything we spend on the house will be reflected in it's value, and the local estate agents have said the thing's already gone up in value by about £50k in 2yrs just because of the market in the area.. Just need a rich aunt to die/phat acca to land so we can pay for the work we want done in one fell swoop.

There's no way Benitez is coming back to work under Ashley, there's no way Ashley would have Benitez back either. That second half was infuriating because even though we were still average, intensity like that would have seen us pick up more points against Sheffield and Fulham. You shouldn't rely on the introduction of 1 player to get your team playing averagely. We could have been playing a 4-2-3-1 all season, even with the injuries we've had, so why haven't we? Why in the fuck did we push Hayden to rightback when we had RB's on the bench and the ghost of Jeff Hendrick on the pitch? Why, against one of the leakiest defences in the league, did we fail to have a shot on target until the 53rd minute? In the first 10 minutes we had attempted 9 passes, they had attempted 40.

Hendrick and Shelvey must have pictures of Bruce that are more offensive than that one of him on the beach.

He's clearly not enjoying it, he's lost the fans, he's likely lost the players. Just resign Steve, you'd immediately regain a scintilla of respect form the Newcastle fans, as Gullit did. You'd still be able to get another job in the Championship and you'd avoid the heartattack that is waiting around the next corner.

Yes, we can. That's the problem.

And they get to drink a nice bottle of Chateau de Chasselas.

Only joking, ya big crack addict. Even you are more insightful than Savage

There are gobshites on here who can talk more insightfully about football than Robbie Savage. Not you though.

George Elek?

Yeah, I'm struggling to have sympathy for the people who voted leave. Yes, they were lied to, but the slightest amount of critical thinking and common sense would have shown the claims by the Leave campaign to be bullshit. Part of me is actually enjoying the steady stream of regret coming from Leave voters.

And they (and shows like it) show you don't have to be antagonistic to get interaction from the audience. That said, I appreciate that my view of football and how it's reported might not be shared by the majority. talksport's entire model appears to be winding up fans and they're pretty successful. 606 have shifted that way more and more, so it must work for them too. I'm like you, I'd much prefer someone who's never played the game talking sense, instead of someone with years of experience playing football at an elite level talking shite.

What they should be doing is giving the layman actual insight. Carragher and Neville on MNF are usually good for this. They break down key passages of play, or trends that may not have been obvious to the fan. When they show the way the Leeds team were breaking in such a similar way each time it was almost like a set piece, that was good insight and something that was probably missed. That's the role of a pundit, for me.

100% I know the newer breed of pundits are improving the... craft(?) but you only have to look at podcasts (not mine so yous can all FUCKRIGHTOFF) to see that there's an appetite for people talking about football after doing some actual research/homework. Football Ramble is good for this, right mix of insight and levity. They don't rely on conventional wisdom, and while I sometimes disagree with their conclusions, I can't fault their work.

That line from Redknapp about punditry being harder now because the audience "are armed with more information. Some of it is right, some of it is wrong" had me raging. Like Howay says, if these experts actually watched us week in, week out, they'd not trot out the clichés and banality.

The way some Americans deify the Constitution is mental. Screaming you can't change it and must abide by it as it was written. Even though arguably the most famous parts of it are the fucking amendments.

Even then Rooney's ability to get past a man wasn't like Ben Arfa or Messi. It was a quick movement then a burst of acceleration, coupled with good strength and low centre of balance. Like you reference in the comparison between him and Riquelme, he would choose the option that was more efficient. Agree that Rooney and Shearer would have worked well together, even if that meant Rooney would score fewer goals.