Newcastle Forums - Where are they?

[The Fish]

Must admit, it surprises me that a club the size of NUFC has only got a couple of cliquey tumbleweed forums, and a busy one but mostly infested with childish gobby cockwombles.

I'm biased, obviously. And a bit of a dick. But NSC is easily the best football forum I've seen. The mix of posters, the debate, the random subjects, the humour, the opinion, the in-jokes, the sheer quality of some of the writers on here. Every days a school day on NSC, its RIDICULOUSLY good on here.

RTG is a decent one, plenty of traffic and once you weather the initial resistance to you there's some decent chats to be had. MOT Forum is canny, but quiet, WACCOE is the busier Leeds forum but suffers for it.

Newcastle Online is by far the busiest, and that's great for them, but the standard of knowledge isn't as high (imo). TT regulars aren't prone to panicking or knee-jerking when we dropped points at Fulham, or Blackburn, so because everyone is a bit more considered in their response, you won't get as much confrontation and that's where threads can grow exponentially.

NSC is decent and the welcome is certainly warmer than some others (don't expect a lot of love from Swansea, e.g.), the standard of debate is good, but I was surprised that the general conversation is mixed in with the football chatter, the Newcastle ones split the two so that the rumour about the new left back isn't lost.

 

[Exile]

Newcastle online is the big one. Check the promotionometer thread.
http://www.newcastle-online.org/nufcforum/index.php

I hope so. It was injuries that scuppered Brighton near the back end of last season, which saw them slip into the play-offs.But last season there were 3 of them pushing on closely (with Boro and Burnley).

So far this season, I don't think they've had too many key/longterm injuries - but surely they cant go a full season with their near first choice 11 playing every match??

Hmmm.

Apart from our no.1 midfielder Kayal for 4 MONTHS, Rosenior for MONTHS, Bong for a good few games, Baldock for a few...?

 

[FatSuperman]

Hmmm.

Apart from our no.1 midfielder Kayal for 4 MONTHS, Rosenior for MONTHS, Bong for a good few games, Baldock for a few...?

Phew, just browsed through that thread - I aligned with when they had their defeats to ensure I was reading the good stuff. Seem like a decent bunch on there, I quite like their graphs showing progress against their last seasons in the Champ. I like that some of them swing massively from super-optimistic to doom-merchants, feels like home.
[MENTION=29900]Exile[/MENTION] Yep I noticed a few comments like that, I suppose they don't really know our squad so wouldn't know who the key players are anyway. It's the assumption that I find amusing, as far as some of them are concerned we've been super lucky with injuries. We've certainly not been as lucky as last year. Really looking forward to our match against them, hope it's a great game!

 

[Mellotron]

Quite a few of them saying they'll beat us at ours based on our performance at SJP. We were very poor that day. I hope they think that's the Albion that will turn up...

Also, many laughing off the idea that our first 11 is as good or better than theirs. After Gayle in for Baldock, I don't think there's many positions where their player is obviously better than our equivalent. They're also ignoring facts (rafa) to say their centre back partnership is better than ours, which as the stats suggest is frankly laughable.

They also suggested we got lucky with winning penalties and having players of other sides sent off. I don't think they understand how luck works. That isn't luck if you force the mistakes and the penalties/cards are deserved. They have also conveniently ignored Shelvey's red being rescinded after KICKING someone.

 

[Curious Orange]

They're also ignoring facts (rafa) to say their centre back partnership is better than ours, which as the stats suggest is frankly laughable.

FIFTHTEEN clean sheets so far!

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Not on a Newcastle forum, but I like this Newcastle fan. He tried a fare splitting site for train tickets for himself and his girlfriend, to go to Oxford for their FA cup game. They got 28 tickets each.
There was another reply to the Sun pictures Twitter, but I can't find that now. It did mention how the Sun treated Hillsborough.

[tweet]824346450360487937[/tweet]

[tweet]824538454163947520[/tweet]

[tweet]824538554021904384[/tweet]

 

[Uter]

On the subject of Newcastle, I see there are only about 500 tickets currently on sale for our upcoming clash.

I had a peek at the ticket site yesterday morning and I think there were around 2000 available, so we have shifted about 1500 in a day and a half.

I expect some more will be released, but anyone wanting to go to this match shouldn't hang around or they risk missing out.

 

[The Fish]

Quite a few of them saying they'll beat us at ours based on our performance at SJP. We were very poor that day. I hope they think that's the Albion that will turn up...

Also, many laughing off the idea that our first 11 is as good or better than theirs. After Gayle in for Baldock, I don't think there's many positions where their player is obviously better than our equivalent. They're also ignoring facts (rafa) to say their centre back partnership is better than ours, which as the stats suggest is frankly laughable.

They also suggested we got lucky with winning penalties and having players of other sides sent off. I don't think they understand how luck works. That isn't luck if you force the mistakes and the penalties/cards are deserved. They have also conveniently ignored Shelvey's red being rescinded after KICKING someone.

Consensus amongst my mates is that Knockaert is class and we were all disappointed we couldn't tempt him to leave, Dunk is probably the best CB in the league, aside from those two and leftback I'm not sure if you stacked 11v11 we'd pick a Brighton player over our own. Partly through ignorance, admittedly.

Gayle is in such good form he's keeping the likes of Mitrovic and Murphy out, Shelvey is an absolute game changer in this league and would get into any side in the Championship imo. Hayden has been excellent without getting any of the spotlight that Shelvey or Gayle have and I think he'll perform in the top flight too. Clark came to St James' without much fanfare from our fans, he looked so poor for Villa we thought we'd bought a bit of an egg, but he's been superb. Ritchie already has 6 goals and 6 assists in the league and while not at his best, is still a cut above the majority of the league. Yedlin is good going forward and has utterly unbelievable pace, bit suspect at the back but he's learning.

re: the Shelvey thing, it could be bias, but when my position is supported by the majority of pundits, and the FA themselves I feel vindicated in saying that it shouldn't have been a red card. Lansbury (known for his shithousing) kicked Shelvey and then tangled their legs together, Shelvey should have laughed it off but didn't and kicked out to struggle free. The appeal was helped by Lansbury's OTT clutch-the-face reaction to the contact with his chest. We would have comfortably won that game had we not had 2 men incorrectly sent to the stands (plus a penalty not given and a perfectly good goal chalked off). To be fair, the standard of refereeing is shit for everyone, but you'll know yourselves that a disallowed goal, not getting a penalty, or a goal wrongly given, can have a dramatic impact on the outcome of a game and when you're one of two teams neck and neck for the top spot every tiny margin matters so much.

 

[Mellotron]

Consensus amongst my mates is that Knockaert is class and we were all disappointed we couldn't tempt him to leave, Dunk is probably the best CB in the league, aside from those two and leftback I'm not sure if you stacked 11v11 we'd pick a Brighton player over our own. Partly through ignorance, admittedly.

Gayle is in such good form he's keeping the likes of Mitrovic and Murphy out, Shelvey is an absolute game changer in this league and would get into any side in the Championship imo. Hayden has been excellent without getting any of the spotlight that Shelvey or Gayle have and I think he'll perform in the top flight too. Clark came to St James' without much fanfare from our fans, he looked so poor for Villa we thought we'd bought a bit of an egg, but he's been superb. Ritchie already has 6 goals and 6 assists in the league and while not at his best, is still a cut above the majority of the league. Yedlin is good going forward and has utterly unbelievable pace, bit suspect at the back but he's learning.

re: the Shelvey thing, it could be bias, but when my position is supported by the majority of pundits, and the FA themselves I feel vindicated in saying that it shouldn't have been a red card. Lansbury (known for his shithousing) kicked Shelvey and then tangled their legs together, Shelvey should have laughed it off but didn't and kicked out to struggle free. The appeal was helped by Lansbury's OTT clutch-the-face reaction to the contact with his chest. We would have comfortably won that game had we not had 2 men incorrectly sent to the stands (plus a penalty not given and a perfectly good goal chalked off). To be fair, the standard of refereeing is shit for everyone, but you'll know yourselves that a disallowed goal, not getting a penalty, or a goal wrongly given, can have a dramatic impact on the outcome of a game and when you're one of two teams neck and neck for the top spot every tiny margin matters so much.

Fair points all. Yes Shelvey would certainly get in our side. Surely the strikeforce would be Gayle and Murray though? Would complement each other perfectly.

We've not been unlucky this season, but we were incredibly unlucky last season, so our fans feel like it's a bit of a balancing out. We should already be in the Prem, frankly - that sounds arrogant but what I mean is our performance last season would be enough to promote a side 9 times out of 10.

 

[Exile]

Surely the strikeforce would be Gayle and Murray though? Would complement each other perfectly.

There's a thought. If only a club had ever had the chance to play those two together, they'd surely be reaping the benefits.

 

[The Fish]

Fair points all. Yes Shelvey would certainly get in our side. Surely the strikeforce would be Gayle and Murray though? Would complement each other perfectly.

We've not been unlucky this season, but we were incredibly unlucky last season, so our fans feel like it's a bit of a balancing out. We should already be in the Prem, frankly - that sounds arrogant but what I mean is our performance last season would be enough to promote a side 9 times out of 10.

Trouble is we play one up front, so when we discuss 11v11 you'd have Gayle & Murray, we'd have Gayle and an attacking midfielder like Mo Diame or Perez and how do you compare Baldock with Diame or Perez. They do very different jobs.

That said, Murphy and Mitrovic are both very good strikers at this level, the former is in decent form and the latter is raw potential bundled up in a big sack of Serbian psychopathy.

There have been calls from some Newcastle fans to play Mitrovic/Murphy alongside Gayle, but to be fair Rafa's got almost as many trophies as our club has in it's history, so I reckon it's reasonable to say he knows more than we do. A 4-4-2 would probably lessen Shelvey's time on the ball, or at least put him under more pressure. It would push the game closer to the opposition's net which would limit the impact Gayle's pace and movement can have.

Both Brighton and Newcastle are on course for about 100pts this season, which in most seasons would be enough to win it outright, but may only be enough to finish second this year. Leeds fans are piping up saying they're coming for 2nd place, but they're only on 1.82PpG which over the season would get them 84pts. And that's if they maintain their good form and don't lose key players to injury. Our squads can probably handle it, can theirs?

Brighton deserve to go up automatically and if you maintain your form you deserve to go up as Champions and while Newcastle fans would be disappointed, you can't argue with a 100pt season. We wouldn't have failed (despite what mackems may declare) because our points tally would, in most season, stroll to the the league, but we happen to be going up against a remarkably well drilled, committed Championship squad with just enough special talents garnishing it to make a difference without spoiling the broth.

Also, Hughton's a bloody lovely fella who was screwed by our owner.