Football

Barkley, Bale, Cahill, Johnson, Carroll. Bloody British players, always diving! :persuazn:

Some of our fans have unbelievably short memories. I've said it before and I'll keep saying it until I'm proven wrong, we're much improved since last year. Granted, ten draws in sixteen games is too many, but six of them have been against top ten sides (three against the current top four). Poyet has been successful in turning defeats into draws, the acid test will be in the second half of the season when he attempts to turn draws into wins. We've played the majority of the better teams at home already, which means we can focus on beating the teams around us. Starting now.

Last sixteen of the Gazprom Chumbawumba League draw

Cool, a repeat of the '97 final. Arsenal's prayers well and truly answered there, too.

Some of our fans have unbelievably short memories. I've said it before and I'll keep saying it until I'm proven wrong, we're much improved since last year. Granted, ten draws in sixteen games is too many, but six of them have been against top ten sides (three against the current top four). Poyet has been successful in turning defeats into draws, the acid test will be in the second half of the season when he attempts to turn draws into wins. We've played the majority of the better teams at home already, which means we can focus on beating the teams around us. Starting now.

Perhaps it's perception over reality but Sunderland's record against the fellow strugglers last season seemed curiously poor. A Hail Mary win like at Chelsea and point that should've been three at City were tremendous efforts that ultimately proved telling but I don't know if I'd bet the proverbial whatever on them beating Burnley at home. That being said, I'd be surprised if they ended up deep in the relegation picture this time out and though I'm skeptical of Poyet I agree that a year of incremental improvement is lot better than being a fiasco, as was so recently the case.

Perhaps it's perception over reality but Sunderland's record against the fellow strugglers last season seemed curiously poor. A Hail Mary win like at Chelsea and point that should've been three at City were tremendous efforts that ultimately proved telling but I don't know if I'd bet the proverbial whatever on them beating Burnley at home. That being said, I'd be surprised if they ended up deep in the relegation picture this time out and though I'm skeptical of Poyet I agree that a year of incremental improvement is lot better than being a fiasco, as was so recently the case.

Our late surge to safety, while stunning, was such a freak occurence that I'm almost tempted to strike it from the record. I always think back to last season's home defeat to West Ham, the last in a long line of 'do or die’ games that we failed to make any impact in. Poyet was a man at the end of his tether afterwards, the team wasn’t good enough and he'd tried too many different combinations of players and formations. But, whether by design or sheer dumb luck, he and his staff managed to create that platform in the end, and they appear to have worked fairly sensibly over the summer in order to build on it and just generally calm things down a bit. By no means has it been scintillating stuff, but compared to that dire game against West Ham, I'll take it. The tipping point will yet again come in January when we have to act quickly to bring in reinforcements who can hit the ground running. We've paid the price for backing managers to the hilt financially so many times before, only to be let down by under-performance and complacency.

What license does Phil Neville have to commentate on Bundesliga games? The same one Marco Reus has to drive!

A duel on the patio between Roy Keane and TC23? Like their respective contributions to Aston Villa, how pointless!

D'oh!

A deservedly miserable end to an unfathomably bad four and a half months for BVB. Maybe everyone's just so busy in their heads planning their respective departures to 'greater' pursuits next summer that they forgot about the meantime. Lewandowski never did that and let me tell you, none of these guys are fit to tie big Robert's laces. A lot of reputations are dying in the dust right now, not least JK who has the mother of all winter breaks ahead. Any well wisher who wants to romanticise this as some inevitable 'Dortmund being Dortmund' charming, lovable decline I urge to wake up pretty quickly. 

Meanwhile a certain elderly Dutch turkey necked weirdo with a bad dye job rolled into town and failed to comprehend what even El Moyesy grasped implicitly: beat Aston Villa like the feeble beasts we are for you are Yanited and that is what Yanited do. Not even Magna Carta is as fundamental to British life as us losing this game is, it's like observing traffic lights, you don't even think about it, you just quietly observe and move on. But not this time, not even a referee with subjective leanings could dishearten Lambo's lions. Having said that, indicative of how rubbish he is was the fact that we looked far more menacing after the Agbonlahor farce. Every supporter I've spoken to said we shouldn't even appeal the red because we'd be better off without him, though that's presumably based on the assumption that Chuck "Le Crap" N'Zogbia doesn't replace him. 

D'oh!

If I were a Sunderland supporter I'd frame a copy of Pardew's contract over the mantel piece. A minimum of four points every season for eight years? Yes please! 

I for one would be quite happy if Agbonlahor were to sit it out on Sunday, he almost always seems to score against us.

The good news for 'Pardiola' is that he's the first Newcastle manager to survive four straight defeats in the derby game. The bad news for him is that it's because that's never happened before.

I for one would be quite happy if Agbonlahor were to sit it out on Sunday, he almost always seems to score against us.

Walked right into that one, didn't I? A bit like Steven Taylor last weekend.

Taxi for Neil "no eyebrows, no job" Warnock. 

Steve 'Tenth Yer Know' Bruce must have won more games against us in the past year than he won for us in his final year as our manager, and the fact that Hull are by far and away the worst side seen at the SoL this season just makes it all the more galling. If it hadn’t been for a truly abysmal display by ourselves (and to a lesser extent, referee Andre Marriner) they would have been there for the taking after the first minute. Instead, the players slipped all-too-easily back into complacency mode, succeeding only in killing our post-derby day buzz stone dead.
 
Get it together please, Gus.

 

Taxi for Neil "no eyebrows, no job" Warnock.

I pray this doesn't mean the Neil Warnock media machine kicks into gear and he'll be back on my TV.

Oh Paul, how many more utterly rancid performances does Lardo N'Zogbia have to put in before you realise that Jack Grealish, though very raw, is light years more likely to help us score some goals? 

We'd not won in our last six Premier League meetings with Villa and to be honest, I wasn't expecting an alteration to those stats today, particularly after the whole Boxing Day fiasco. Another away point and a clean sheet are of course welcome, but our nasty habit of rushing our final ball late on in games came close to costing us even that. 'Twas a battling performance by the home side after the slightly iffy red card, the lad Grealish looks very handy indeed.

We started 2014 in 20th place and have ended it in 14th. That represents progress, ask anyone!

 

 

Just £9.99! 

 

Warning: disc may stench of small time nothingness!

 

Hard to believe this giant of the global game currently don't have a manager!

 

Does anyone know where I can order the Best Of Pepe Mel Boxset?!

 

Alan Irvine, we hardly knew ye; Tim Sherwood, let us reacquaint ourselves with thee! 

No need to cancel the hosting contract lads, I'm sure the Palace fans will be wanting it soon enough. http://sackpardew.com/

Well wipe my brow and call me Nancy, it's Pards to Palace, Pulis to Brazil 1970, Tiny Tim to no where and no one to Newcastle!

Despite giving City another good game at the Etihad, we once again ended up with precious little reward for our efforts. They had too much quality in too many positions and deserved to win, but (and I know it’s a big but) had we picked up pesky Frank Lampard at the decisive moment, who knows what might have happened.

Thrills and spills everywhere I turn, back to back home 0-0s with Sunderland and Palace! Eleven goals in twenty games is a jaw dropping statistic however you try and slice it and the thing is, harmlessly mediocre though I generally regard as these days, we're actually on a trajectory to oblivion if we keep this up. Positives: Okore's becoming a fast favourite of mine, Sanchez is 90% class/10% liability while none other than Cieran Clark is having a glorious, surprising run of good form. I'm pleased as punch for the lad.

Had a bit of a giggle at the outraged fans of a subsidiary/tax write off franchise that haven't even kicked a ball yet moping about Totally Frank staying on at City 'til the end of the 'EPL' season. Presumably Stevie G. will do the exact same thing to sneak a championship medal onto his C.V. next year while Liverpool linger in the shadows, quietly weeping to themselves whilst publicly declaring that they're fine with it.