tajjuk

Two centre-mids for me as it seems pretty inevitable Hojberg is leaving, the club is appearing to play hardball on the fee but I can't see them letting his contract run down and going for free. Reckon we will end up selling him for like £20 million. If he goes then we basically have JWP as a first choice centre mid and then Romeu who is not good enough for the system to start each week. Unless Lemina has a massive chance of heart because no top club actually ends up wanting to take him.

Ings was excellent, sharp, fit, aware, not the best attempt when he hit the bar but excellent finish for the goal. Compare him to the lethargic and heavy legged Kane for Spurs, you could see Ings actually improved his fitness with the time off.

I think the Bundeliga has shown with these behind closed doors games, there are way more away wins and we are a good away team anyway, so that is hopeful.

I like Lawro's prediction, says Norwich can treat it like a start to a new season and then starts referring to our poor form from before the lockdown........ Apparently form is relevant but also not relevant. My main worry is how up for this we are going to be, they are battling relegation and I worry our players think they are safe, so a little complacency coupled with rustiness is not a good thing.

Most of our money is from the Sky TV money, and if the season gets cancelled the PL will probably still give out compensatory money as well to cover the prize money etc. And they might even compensate teams for loss of revenue from not getting any attendances, so I doubt finances would be a giant issue IMO, in normal circumstances we would only have about another two months or so of fixtures anyway with a gap until August with little money coming into the club. Global shares uncertainty is more likely to cause problems as any potential investor is not going to just have £250 million to freely speculate when they are potentially having other investments diminished.

Can't see it resuming either, we could be at peak virus time then. They should also note that most football fans are complete idiots and will turn up to games even if they are showing symptoms and will infect others, if you just resume the games then you'll create a new peak of cases and therefore cause more deaths. No way in 4 weeks this is going to be cleared up. Have to just cancel this season, and hopefully next season won't be impacted.

lol yeh, that is basically their core vote.

They are pretty much our best hope IMO, they run their clubs like we used to/try to, good scouting, development of young players that they ultimately know will move on, pressing football, basically maximising every percentage off the field to improve on it. They may be a soft drinks corporation and hated by most German football fans, but they way they have run their football clubs is excellent.

'Best team in the world' that has been beaten by Atletico Madrid in both legs, a side 6th in La Liga behind the mighty Getafe, got hammered 3-0 by what third bottom Watford, comfortably beaten by Chelsea in the FA Cup, only just struggled to beat West Ham, Norwich and Bournemouth recently, all of whom relegation threatened and struggled to beat Shrewsbury over two games. They have been pretty crap for a while. Still will win the league of course, but no records, no treble, no invincible season, even Man City in a struggling transition season, with far more injuries have outscored them in the league. The media fapping will continue of course (Beeb already have article out saying how 'great' their season will still be), but they are IMO very far from a 'great' team, just a very good one IMO that this year has not had much competition in the league, Man City have had injuries to key players and after winning back to back leagues just look a little lacking in desire to win it again, and Chelsea, Utd, Spurs and Arsenal are probably performing the worst they have in the last 10-15 years.

Red Bull is probably the best outcome we could hope for IMO. An Abramovich style rich investor is not going to happen I don't think because of FFP restricts that too much now, they can't invest as much, so the club would have to grow organically, and Newcastle would be a better option surely for that with their much bigger fanbase and stadium. How long has Newcastle been on sale for? Can see us having a similar issue and in the meantime expect very little investment going on. This has Sunderland written all over it I reckon. Another season or two of just surviving relegation, still for sale, Ralph leaves, we go down, no investment in the championship, another relegation etc.

I think more its good to tick off things their arrogant fans can't spend the next year talking about, unbeaten season has gone now, and so has the treble chance, hopefully they will drop out of the Champs League as well. Be good if they drop a few more points in the league as well to stop any records there being beaten. I mean Liverpool fans are going to be unbearable enough as it is winning the league.

They don't particularly score against anyone. Of course they might score, but its far more likely Newcastle won't score at all, will score from a set piece/long shot or from a bad defensive error from us. Particularly as we are likely to have more of the ball and we don't seem to be very good when that happens. I am not worried about Newcastle scoring, its us scoring that is going to be the issue, especially if Redmond and Djenepo continue to be out and JWP has to play right back again.

And Almiron only has 2 goals and 1 assist in the PL from 27 games. I am not sure why people are so scared of these players, they are fast sure, but they don't contribute much, they seem similar to what Troare was a few years ago, lots of pace and dribbling but no end product. Between them they have 3 goals and 2 assists from 43 games. Djenepo has 2 goals and 2 assists from only 9 starts. Their top scorer is Shelvey with just 5, and the 4 centre-backs are their joint second top scorers, we should be more worried about defending set pieces IMO. They have only scored 24 goals all season (worse in the league) and literally 50% of those goals have come from set pieces, only one of their goals has come on the counter attack.

Harsh on Djenepo, he was MOM against Villa, caused them all sort of problems and was picked out for his performance by MOTD etc. and then his mum died, so he wasn't involved against West Ham. Newcastle are pretty average at best, they are in relegation form they haven't scored a goal in the league in the last 4 and that includes failing to score against Oxford Utd and they have sneaked through 3-2 in the FA Cup against a championship and league 1 team. They are relying on their very flukey results from the first half of the season, where they parked the bus and fluked goals from centre-backs, now that is not happening as much, they aren't scoring and they are making more mistakes at the back/ I expect a much better showing from our team, Ralph seemed pretty angry with them and I reckon he'll have give them a bollocking, I reckon we'll win.

We were poor, but its football, look at the other results today, Liverpool stunned by Watford, Chelsea only drawing with Bournemouth, if you aren't mentally on it in this league then it doesn't matter who you play you'll get beat. It's just annoying this squad needs so many wake up calls, we seem to play our best football when the pressure is on and following up poor performances, West Ham wanted it more because they needed it more and our players performed like the season was already over, by his comments I expect Ralph will give them a massive kick up the arse this week. But he shouldn't have to be doing that. Consistency is all over the place mainly because the players can seemingly raise themselves to really good levels for some games and not for others.

Well at least that stops them going unbeaten, hopefully Madrid knock them out of the champions league as well and someone does them over in the FA Cup. They'll still be unbearable winning the league of course, but all these sort of things can take the shine off them a bit.

Ralph seems pretty angry by his post match comments on the beeb

Part of that failure to convert chances was down to Ings, he had several good chances, including a 1v1 that he should have scored but tried to put it through Reina's legs. So Villa tried to stifle Ings, didn't do that very well and still lost, giving away several chances to other players as well. So teams can try to stifle Ings, which is not easy in itself because he is a very busy player who is always on the move and will like to be close to his markers anyway to pay of their shoulder or harry them, but if that opens up space for others we have other players capable of scoring goals. Especially if you are marking one of the furthest forward players, if for example they put a DM and DC on Ings to double mark him, that will create space around the edge of the box and the likes of Armstrong and JWP have shown they can finish from 20 yards if given chances. Also its a bit different trying to shut down a team creative outlet (i.e Grealish) than it is to trying to shut down a striker (i.e Ings) because the creative players need the space and time to create, Ings just needs a sniff of an opportunity, and as I said I don't think he particularly cares if people mark him closely because a lot of his game is about harrying defenders and forcing mistakes, so if those defenders are close to him, he is close to them if they get the ball, and he likes to spin in behind or turn people with quick feet, which if the defender is too close is easier to do.

They have similar problems at home to us, Keown would probably call them hard to please, they are struggling generally but especially there. Plus we are a much better team away from home. Fancy our chances. Also seems they are already restless with Moyes, new manager bounce well and truly worn off.

It's fair to say that we've had a fair few fails in the scouting department in recent years, but I think its time to to give them some credit, obviously Danny Ings has been a great signing so far, but Djenepo looks like a potential gem and Armstrong has proved to be quite the bargain. Just to put some in perspective, Villa have spent £143 million on transfers this year. Our starting 11 yesterday that played them off the park cost around £85 million.

Presuming Man Utd beat Watford its 6 points to catch up to 7th, our fixtures are winnable, only City really above us to play I think but we have to win more winnable games. As someone above said, they dropped points against Wolves and Burnley hurt and probably have cost us that chance, 2-0 up and lost, and losing at home to a not very good Burnley team is annoying, 4 points from those and we'd be right in the mixer. Certainly though Ralph and the coaches should be putting that there as an incentive, so we don't just peter out and go on our holidays.

Hadn't seen any links so thought I'd highlight it, but like you say probably just rumour, would be an odd one. The other thing to consider is where would be play, he lacks the pace to be a wide man and has more recently for Liverpool played a deeper role I think, can't see him dislodging JWP and he is not good enough defensively to take over from Hojberg, he doesn't really fit the system.

The Express is saying we are trying to sign him.

That is a dumb question. It is is normalising it because it literally shows normal people, often successful people, are also gay, and that is nothing to be ashamed off, which then inspires other people to be open about their sexuality and others to accept it.

It is, honestly these players that do this make a mockery of the fans, we all know what pain is and we all know that you don't react like that, if you are really really hurt you barely move, and if its just a knock or an ouch you just kneel or sit down or slowly walk it off, no one in pain rolls around on the floor like that because you are only going to cause more pain, the natural reaction is to hold the area and stop bloody moving.