I've just bet a lass at work who has the misfortune to be hitched to a mackem that we'll finish above them in the league next Season. Given that I've just handed over a tenner for last Season's efforts have I wasted yet more money? Thoughts? Come on, I need some reassurance here.

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2001

Answers

Bookies cannot separate us. This means its probably down to the derby game again. Last two seasons we've lost a net three points to them over the games. Swap that aroudn and we finish above them. Easy !!

Or,

They are very reliant on Quinn and Phillips. Quinn's back is getting worse and worse and they will have to rely more and more on Dichio, who isn't half the player Quinn is.

Or,

they haven't really had an serious injuries since promotion, the loss of say both Quinn and Phillips for a 6 week period, matched with Reid's desire not to spend more than £650k on a player, (cos that's what Phillips cost so why spend more ?) means they could very easily had an awful run which pitches them downwards.

Or, looking more positively at it ..... we get all our players to be injury free for a whole season, Bassedas suddenly settles in, as Solano eventually did, we buy a classy left winger, Shearer isn't the player he was so he only gets 20 goals but Jeffers/Bridges also get 20, and Dyer and Solano get 10 each from midfield. Our defence continues it's end of season miserly ways and we only concede 30 goals all season and we end up in a surprising 3rd place and CL qualification.

Prefer the first few

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2001

Bit rash. Heart over-ruling heed, looks like to me.

That's as far as I'm prepared to go along the reassurance track.

Some people never learn. :-))

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2001

I had a simillar bet for the last two years with a lad from the RTG board.

I had to buy a mackem tie, which I did on-line I will never go into a shop and get one. The problem was they rang me up and asked if I would like to order anything else!

I explained about the bet and being a Toony and the twat hung up on me! >:o)

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2001

I'll take you up on that an'all David.

The discrepancy in injuries between NUFC and SAFC is not coincidental and I expect SAFC to finish a clear 7-8 points above NUFC.

We had awful runs in the last 2 seasons but you did not capitalise.

ML3

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2001

Easy money Dave - I can't see the chimps doing any better than this season, while I expect a giant rocket (Saturn 5 would do nicely) to be up every Newcastle United player in August.

And I do hope you reported her to the RSPCA

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2001

Are you as confident with things like the lottery, ML3, which I'd have thought would be a bliddy sight easier to predict than final placings in a footbal league ?

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2001

There's no lottery in predicting that we will finish above the mags. We are the better side at the moment, so the chances are weighed in my favour.

This is based on recent history and financial status of the clubs not blind faith.

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2001

I'll wait until the start of the season to see who has bought who. If the season started tomorrow it would be a close thing but as usual we have Shearer, Lee, Dyer, Griffin and Cort injured!!

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2001

Cheers ML3, bullish talk like that is music to my ears - keep it coming.

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2001

Still not convinced ML3. Since when has recent history and past performance had any impact at all on how things will go in the future, especially in something as unpredictable as football ?

There are too many things that can go wrong that have absolutely nothing to do with what's gone before, one of the most obvious to my mind, being injuries.

I hope you aren't going to try to tell us that our injury list had absolutely nothing to do with where we ended up at the end of the season.

If the roles had been reversed, I'd be a bit concerned if we'd got off to a flyer and still ended up only six points better off than your lot.

The best any of us can really do is 'hope'. Start 'expecting', and you leave yourself wide open to at least a modicum of ridicule when the expectations aren't realised.

And, although you'd maybe never admit it on here, if you're anything like the Sunderland supporters in my local, you're over the moon to have done as well as you have.

Make the most of it mate.

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2001

I think what ML3 is saying that it is the injury list but that its our fault with training methods.

IMHO we had a bad season and finished as low as we could. SAFC did slightly better - they had slightly fitter players.

The squads are just about evenly matched so it'll be the 2 derby matches that split us again - unless some players arrive/leave either club.

We've both got enough dosh to buy good enough players - our board won't spend it and their manager won't.

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2001

Keep it up lads. The unfounded badger confidence always cheers me up and invariably leads to failure. Could this be the difference between red and white and badgers,arrogance and optimism on your side,realism and pessimissum on ours.There is not much between the teams at full strength but i feel we have the edge on depth as we have young hungry players who are nearly ready whilst yours are still too young.

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2001

Geordies are marketleaders in optimism, it's true but, SK, we don't have a monopoly on arrogance - many of my Makem colleagues were convinced you would get into the Champions League etc.

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2001

Dougal,i understand your reply but could you confirm whether or not they are long term fans or just stadium groupies.The reason i ask is 'cos in my experience it is the newboys/girls who expected europe and the long term fans see the full picture ie shit for years still playing catch-up.

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2001

soooooooooperkev! I don't remember Manure or Liverpool having anything near the drought that our clubs have experienced. Hopefully manure will win nowt this year and liverpool will only win one trophy I found it really selfish of them to win just about everything.

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2001

SK
I'll butt in on Dougal's behalf. My local is now probably more makkem than mag, and I only use it cos I can walk there in about 3 minutes. There's a sort of armed neutrality most of the time, which let's us sort of relax a bit in each other's company.

'The effin mags this' and 'the effin makems that' is generally taken in good part as just the usual boozer banter.

The point of this preamble is that the guys I drink with are mostly long term on both sides and a lot of the time, we mags had to grit our teeth or ridicule the possibility, while plans for visiting European grounds were being discussed. And these guys aren't new boys. So in my experience, no, it wasn't just new boys/girls who had very high hopes of getting into Europe.

As an aside, can you explain to me why the bar is absolutely heaving with Sunderland supporters when Newcastle are on Sky. ? There's no way I'd turn out when Sunderland are on just to see them lose, which is the only reason I can come up with.

And honest, mate, if you went into a Mag pub when Sunderland were on Sky, and had to sit through the same atmosphere, it might make you wonder.

I might be seeing this from a slightly distorted viewpoint because it was the only pub I went to to watch football. Now I won't go near the place when either of us are on Sky, I'd rather get in the car and go somewhere else.

And I'm not so naive as to think that Mag orientated places like this might not exist, cos that also makes me wonder. But by christ it's scary. I'm not trying to score points here. I'd really like to know.

-- Anonymous, June 08, 2001

They love a bit of it!!

-- Anonymous, June 08, 2001