Steve Earle

He’s our player. why on earth would we sell for £3m?

The great man was on my Manchester-Amsterdam flight yesterday. Just in case anyone gives a damn…

There’s a high bar you know?

I like that! For me, the three we actually get. Because our leadership remains toxic (‘we promote!’) and ludicrously overestimates the actual ability & teamwork required to sustain a promotion push over 46 games. I’ll be surprised if we have more than 3 points from the first 3..

I’m with you @Lambert09. Abdul is a £50M+ player in the making. Emphasis, for now, on ‘in the making’. And I like what I’ve seen of his character. If he moves to the right environment next, just watch him go. In any event, for me he’s the best to play for us in that position since the most gifted player ever to wear the shirt left.

Well put. For years we were run by a troika. At times almost decently. Susan leaves, forced out & given minutes to clear her desk. Then the wheels came off big style. I’d be loathed to criticise her too much without much more information, especially as the capabilities of the two left behind have become clear for all to see.

You have my sympathy. I’m afraid to say you can expect disappointment on a massive scale several times over a personal and professional life. Sorry to be the bearer, and all that.

I won’t be alone on here in having seen, I think, 10 of them, beginning in 1969. Still, there’s a record there for the taking. Go on Top my son, you can do it. 18 here we come!

And of course we won’t necessarily know then either.

But that’s where we are, isn’t it? Hoping for an ‘inspired’ appointment. They are bound to get one right eventually. This is what I think Henry Winter meant when he described us as a ‘manager club’. In other words, absent anything resembling a club strategy, the buffoons in charge keep rolling the dice hoping to drop on the next Enzo or Nige. But every passing year’s financial missteps make it less and less likely that any manager could succeed here.

A strategy you say? That’d be a start.

An optimist huh? You think there'll be another season after next?

I think we need, among many others, a Steve Howard-style ST. Someone for wingers to cross to, someone decent at hold up play. If we go the more likely route (4-2-3-1 with a rapid CF) then we could do a lot worse than Sidibeh from Stockport. Impressed watching him now.

This is of course right. 👏 May I introduce you @CarolinaFox to paragraphs?

This could have been us with a half competent owner. Sack Rodgers in the autumn, appoint the available Emery, extend Tielemans’ contract (or sell in the January window). It was, even back then, obvious. To most people but not our 🤡 of an owner. We’d have won a European title by now.. . 😢💦

Shouldn’t the thread be called ‘League One - Who Cares?’ I don’t, for one, having given up my season ticket after 45 years, & given up completely on the incompetent buffoons that allegedly run this empty vessel. I have something between admiration & respect for those of you who still have the ‘pashun’. I guess I might have sustained that if I were still in my 30s or 40s. The manager next season? It’s maybe 10-15% of the problem.

It’s not your guts @teblin. It’s your brain. With Top & Rudkin in charge it’s a certainty that things will get worse. The thing that’s not clear is whether it’ll ever get better under these clowns 🤡

He really doesn’t! Obviously IMO. Here’s 10 teams he doesn’t get in, without any thought at all: Arsenal Man C Man U Liverpool Villa Chelsea PSG Bayern Munich Atletico Madrid Real Madrid Barcelona (11th added in case you felt he’d start for Villa. Or Chelsea). Remember, he’s not even the first choice LW at a Newcastle side in the bottom half of the league!

We’re talking at cross purposes. Barnes isn’t, wasn’t & never will be an elite level player. I was responding to a post, initially, that suggested that as well as Ndidi, Tielemans & Maddison, our other ‘European level’ players from the recent past might have included Albrighton & Barnes. I took ‘European level’ to have meaning more than ‘played in Europe’. Perhaps implying elite level. Those Barnes stats are indeed impressive. But they don’t tell the whole story. I can’t think of many Champions League teams that would want him as a starter, for example

Pretty sure they never played together?!? My claim, on behalf of Ndidi, Tielemans & Maddison, was that they were the best midfield trio we’ve ever put out, certainly in my time - 1965 onwards.

Jonathan Northcroft wrote that we had four world class players in 2015-16: Schmeichel, Kante, Mahrez and Vardy, who ‘was world class at what he did’

I’m suggesting that you implied a certain standard, not just ‘played in Europe’. Sharky played at the absolute maximum of his potential for a handful of games in the Champions League, not all of them. I’ve never seen Barnes have a really dominant game in Europe.

He had his moments Ric, and I was there to see him score our first Champions League goal. But it can’t seriously be argued that he performed at the level of Ndidi Tielemans & Maddison - comfortably the best midfield we’ve ever put out (unless someone who saw the Ice Kings begs to differ). Let’s not forget that Sharky lost his place to Ayoze Perez either.

You were doing so well, and then I read ‘…and I’d argue you could add Albrigton & Barnes to that list’. Never. Good Premier League players both, but ‘easily European standard’? No. Not unless by ‘European standard’ you meant, and I don’t think you did, could play for OH Leuven, or similar? Agree with the rest 👏

Thought Aluko looked really good. Let’s hope he stays. He’s definitely ready for League One. Page & Monga showed flashes. I wouldn’t be too disappointed if Monga left for big money. Page, however, we must keep, at least for a couple of seasons. Silko offered more (in a more open game, against tiring players) than either Monga or the execrable Mavididi. Souttar, if we can keep him, is a potential captain.