TWar

Feels a bit defensive for Burnley. Will see though. I know he's been poor for a while but good opportunity for Broja with their slow defenders and all the players around him geared towards playing him in and setting him up.

Damn, it happened again. Genuine apologies to all. See you after the game tonight.

Their player values are considerably better than ours their squad was purchased for £286m and ours was £136m. They literally have a squad twice as expensive as ours. You are chatting shite. The fact we have a team that cost under half theres and are still vying for the same spots in the table is all credit to our coaching and management. The fact Newcastle 8th most expensive team in the league and people are excited about them getting top half is a testiment to how they are buying their league position.

"If JWP is worth £60m and Bruno is worth £35m why is it that they have improved and we haven't since last season" at which point the answer is "because we didn't sign JWP between now and last season." It's such an obvious answer that I assumed he must have been trying to get at something else. If you know it, feel free to share it, will be more valuable than your normal response of emojis and reaction gifs.

Why would we see dramatic improvement from JWP being rated £60m when we had him last season too? I don't understand your point. JWP is rated £60m so we should have improved dramatically? But we didn't sign him in the summer? What are you on about man? The rest of this is points we've already done to death and as I have said I don't want to be baited into having the same old arguments with you but I needed to ask about that first point as I don't get it at all.

Since he took over: 1.52 Since the end of jan though: 2.1 Given they have more money to spend in the summer they should really be aiming for Europe atleast. Howes points per game before the end of Jan is 0.9, which is relegation form, but we don't talk about that! *assuming all my maths is correct, feel free to correct me as I am on my phone and don't have a calculator!

I wanted to go to Bournemouth but was outvoted...

That's because you massively underrate basically every player you listed. There is a reason why that group cost £100m. You too, regarding enjoying the sunshine, going out to Brighton which should be nice. Daughters first day at the beach.

Shame neither of you bother to respond to the points made. Even the other guy brought up a single instance of a club underperforming after spending. It was a bad argument as money obviously directly correlates to success but it was atleast an argument.

Well Everton did get to around where Newcastle are likely to finish when spending big, they just stopped spending this summer (with a net spend of £1.5m) and plummetted. Also the higher ups at Everton spent incredibly poorly on the likes of Iwobi, Siggurdson, Keane, Gomes, etc. Newcastle have spent well, I don't think they made a bad signing in January. Also, how is it unreasable to say they are only doing well due to money, they spent almost £100m and over half their goals since have been from players they bought? Shouldn't be controversial...

I disagree regarding the quality of Wood. A player with double digit goals 4 seasons on the bounce is always helpful. Bruno is easily worth £35m and is already showing it. He was linked with a bunch of top teams when Newcastle picked him up and has 3 goals and an assist already. Burn is underrated too, would walk into half the leagues side including ours. And Trippier has two goals too and is clearly a fantastic player. The facts are this: Howe took over at the beginning of November Newcastle barely improved at all, playing poorly all the way up to the middle of January before the signings had settled In January they spent the most money in europe Since January they look incredible Since January over half the goals they have scored have been scored by new signings, 62% a new signing either scored or assisted You can try and list the players individually and say individually they can't have that much of an impact, downplay top talents like Bruno, and outright not mention Trippier, but those are the facts. Newcastle bought their current league position and will continue to buy higher and higher ones in coming seasons. You lot would be the first to notice this if there wasn't such a hard on for Eddie Howe.

Wouldn't be super bothered, Newcastle opperate in a very different financial class to us now. Once they had a window they were always going to go past us, spending more in one January than our net spend since rejoining the league 10 years ago. Their new signings had a role in 62% of goals scored since coming in. Not worth comparing ourselves to Newcastle anymore, they'll be on a level with Spurs and Arsenal before you know it.

Newcastle's £35m midfielder assisting after scoring a brace on the weekend, wonder if their big spend helped... Since the end of January 7 goals scored by their big money buys, 6 scored by the entire rest of the team. Wonder if it was that or if Eddie Howe just gave an especially good pep talk after being there for 3 months.

Mitro tends to put up decentish numbers when he is played. In his two full prem seasons where he regularly started he got 13 and 14 goal involvements (9 and 11 goals respectively). Not world beating but decent enough. Off the back of a season with 38 goals and 7 assist in 39 matches so far I back him to have a decent time in the prem.

This Fulham side might be the best we've seen come up in a while. Going to make it harder next season. Then again, they may lose a couple of key figures in the summer.

Poor guy, having a young child myself I can't imagine what he must be going through. Apparently Liverpool fans are planning a minute applause in the childs memory tonight which is a nice gesture.

He's played a decent amount in their Europa league run to be fair, just very little in the league.

Areola on loan at West Ham and didn't get any minutes. Not sure if they will excercise an option to buy but would be a good signing.

I like Pukki but I don't think a 32 year old really fits what we are about. Could sign him on a short deal but if we aren't getting Broja I'd like someone who has more future.

Burnley: Pope McNeil Cornet Watford: Sarr Dennis Norwich: No one

I don't disagree with this actually. You are completely right that having someone who can play alone up top unlocks a tonne more formations and that gives us much more room to counter the opposition. I don't think Broja has been that great personally for a good while but he was definitely the right choice over AA in this instance. I do think the 4222 is our best formation most of the time but having an option to play a 343/541 is invaluable.

Yeah 100% agree with that, I'm really bad at just letting shit lie, especially when it comes with direct insults. I'm pretty sure it's one of the main reasons people like DMan glommed on to me, easy target for pointless bullshit.

He's been not just not scoring but not really involved for a while. Quite surprised anyone would call a 6 goal forward our big difference maker. For me the biggest difference was the swing in form of Romeu and JWP between the two games, night and day imo.

I frequently adjust my view, you just have to look at the Forster thread for that. I don't get yours and DMans grudge against me. I have a different opinion to you, dunno why that annoys you so.

So weird to mention the center forward who hasn't scored in months after a loss where he barely touched the ball. What possible reason could someone do for doing that?