Honey Honey

If he's banned does that mean whilst banned he can bet, since he's no longer a player?

I think it is incredible that Newcastle have been out of the Champions League for 20 years and in that time only 3 new English teams have managed to qualify. In 20 years! Only a US based style system can fix the revenue disparity that has killed the ability for someone else to have a go every now and then.

Have I missed something or are you just referring to the non-Executive Chairman of Newcastle United, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, whose name has been on the takeover since day one and was on the pitch at full time? Co-owners Jamie Rueben and Mehrhad Ghodoussi were taking part in a half time challenge on the pitch as far as I am aware. The Saudi state owns Newcastle United via the Public Investment Fund which is headed up by Al-Rumayyan. He's the face of it. In all Western business press all the time. The man cutting the deals. His face is going to be wherever Newcastle's success is because that is the point of it all. To enable business deals, to enable the PiF to grow its fund to over $1trn by softening up businesses to dealing with the PiF. I'm not really sure what is supposed to be covered up? Nothing says he has to hide away. The deal with the Premier League is that PiF are not allowed to control Newcastle United. Not that the Saudi state don't have the ability to. Hence shareholders Amanda Staveley and Jamie Rueben are the executive directors. How you ever prove PiF are running the club is the difficult part. As Masters alluded to. It seems to me that the rules have been specifically written so this should be done like this. As a mechanism of some sort of control over input values. If this was 1996 John Hall would have to plaster Metro Centre branding all over a training kit so we could buy Shearer.

Shame to see @Lucas drop down a forum but great to see Allardyce achieve another relegation.

Can be many moments but the closer to the end the more important the decisions, the greater their weight. If you stay up it will be in no small part because of that tactic last night.

Making numbers up but the choice is something like this... Park the bus 1% chance of win, 35% chance of draw, 64% chance of defeat. Mixed approach 10% chance of win, 10% chance of draw, 80% chance of defeat. Ultimately if you do go down because Everton win on the last day then this gamble didn't pay off. Only time will tell if this was genius or a mistake.

Football, like life, is about the journey and not the destination. Man City aren't really in a journey anymore and so we see a tepid fanbase, as we also saw with Man Utd under Ferguson. It doesn't just apply to champions though. It applies to every position. The only way out of the rut is a spell of failure.

I think you can decide after the weekend

It's great to be back in Europe. The first 15 years of my footballing life we were nearly always in Europe. It was a defining feature of that generation. I'm glad for the poor buggers who've only ever known Mike Ashley that they'll get to see Newcastle in Europe and not be trapped living the Nottingham Forest effect of 16 year old lads clinging onto an identity from before they were born.

Tonight Leicester took the very curious decision to hope Everton draw as opposed to take a risk that might have meant hoping for Everton to lose. If you play chess with relegation like that and it pays off then genius.

Difficult without Willock and Joelinton to get our pace right. More teams will park the bus against us next season so we need to find the keys for that. I've been shocked for months that it hasn't been happening. For a lot of teams it hadn't really sunk in that we are a Champions League team. Now they'll believe it instead of thinking they can out do us all the time. Leicester showing the way that we will likely see a lot of at St James' moving forward.

Even if so it's highly unlikely for them to then go on and keep losing even more. Especially to what is coming up, home games against opponents all on the beach. Our next 3 are all against teams with something to play for. Much harder task. Hopefully we can get what we need done. Liverpool will get 68-71 points.

I can well see that happening here to some extent. Despite being in power, the ground level, the grassroots, the public conversations have been nothing but miserabilism. What happens to that when it's no longer curtailed by being in power? It will ramp up even more. You've also got parts of this country where the ground level right wing is increasingly talking about things like the so called "war on cars", low traffic neighbourhoods, ultra low emission zones, a slippery slope to climate conspiracy. There's an opening there for a right wing leader, inside or outside the Conservative party. Climate is the new topic, the new immigration. If anyone things the right are bad now, wait till they're not moderated by power. It will be the first time in the social media age that we won't have a right wing government.

They are not set to lose power over policies or being right wing. In the vacuum that will ensue each faction will claim failure is the result of not following their thinking. Promoting their values. This is the story of these coalitions. That part is at least predictable. Who comes out on top I'm not sure. A lot will depend on who survives as an MP. It wouldn't be a surprise if we get culture wars ramped up.

Think more likely Liverpool catch us

Fine margins went Arsenal's way. We need a holding midfielder. Can't defend when Longstaff is out. Thought Botman and Bruno had off days. Botman a little out of form lately.

I think if you re-ran this first half you'd come out with 10 different scorelines. On another day we could be going in at half time infront or behind more. The goal is the result of Longstaff being out. Our midfield does not defend properly without him. We need to keep our composure. Too many scuffles going on. I wonder what Martin Keown thinks about all the dark arts coming from Arsenal. Does make me laugh. People like him have been mouthing off all season about our 'dark arts' and doing us down. Now his precious Arsenal have stooped to that level, even as early as 5 minutes in they were time wasting, what's his view? In my opinion we only get called out for our gamesmanship over others because the big boys have yet to mentally process that we can be challenging now. Once they process that they'll be less frustrated about it all. My prediction is this game will end either 3-0 to Arsenal or 2-1 to us.

Labour is a coalition of all over the liberal spectrum of the centre and left. The leadership shifts from different factions of that coalition. Conservatives are the flipped mirror image of that, just switch left with right. Both parties hound out authoritarian and social Conservatives. Hence parties like UKIP, Reform or the Social Democratic Party exist separately. Lib dems are a middle class protest party for people who are too uptight to swing between the above two parties. The Greens are left wing activists who don't like having to water down their views in a coalition so go it alone.

Can't see us getting anything if Longstaff is out. Have a chance if he's fit.

I forgot he got West Brom relegated

The good thing about the fixtures everyone has got is that it is unlikely anyone will be clear with 2 games to go. It could easily be just as open then as it is now unless some shock wins come out. This is juicy. I hope it holds up. So many years something has looked like it's going to be epic only for it to be over early.

Who hasn't this bloke managed?

6 years doesn't matter if that's the result of one great side. 6 years is just one generation. It's when it is 20 years that you have a problem because that's multiple generations of players. No one looks back at the early 80s and says the league was done as a competition just because Liverpool won it nearly every year.

Bottom 3 sides aren't dysfunctional for 38 games. No one is, except the rare occasion someone is bottom of the table woeful, thats never all 6 or 7 of the relegation scrap. Performance form, like for every team in every position will ebb and flow throughout the season. You can be ok and still not deserve to have won the game. Chelsea had wins that could have easily been draws. Had they been so then what they have descended into now they'd be in the mix. Before the money disparity a club could win the league and be in the bottom half the next season. And vice versa. Money is not a coincidence here. The money clubs can finish top 6 and everyone say how shit they looked throughout the season. Whereas for Brighton to finish top 6 they're never allowed to be shit for anywhere near as many games. That's the money disparity which causes that. Bailing bad teams out all the time. That's the floor. Whether 2nd or 7th Manchester United seem to always be in or one game away from crisis. Moaning all the time. £1bn spent and in two cup finals but they still want the owners out. This is because they're not actually any good anymore but they can buy being up there. In another era where income didn't cause such disparity they'd be nowhere near the top post fergie as they've never had a good team. Only good teams would make the top in a well balanced league.

Everton weren't as bad as the scoreline suggests. They just can't defend. I said at half time we just need to up a gear in attack to finish them off and that is what it was. You could tell in the first half for as little danger as we might have produced there were clear easy looking openings should we get our act together. We have the pattern of play and energy that is capable of gutting anyone if they're not switched on. I make that our 7th game this season we've scored 4 or more goals. 4 of them away from home. Incredible.