Football 2025-26

[charlierc]

6 minutes ago, Comfy Bean said:

Scotland getting less than 4000 tickets for our opening WC game. It’s so bad it’s almost funny. Looking like similar picture for everyone. Slight increase in the bigger stadiums.

Prices also way higher than uefa charged in Germany 

Yeah a friend of mine who has been following England in recent years showed me the prices and holy sh*t they're extreme. They're actually slightly more than Scotland's thanks to FIFA's pricing algorithm for good measure. 

 

Feels in keeping with this mess so far ngl. 

[charlierc]

9 hours ago, kaosmark2 said:

Saw a model that if PL games ended at the 85th minute this season we'd be 3rd. Most game-changing late goals conceded and fewest scored. There's bits of just accepting some of these but this is now a frustrating pattern.

Aye it's become a frequent issue. We seem to be unwittingly turning into our own biggest problem and clearly there are some things that need sorting out. 

 

At the very least we seem fragile with one goal leads late in games. It's actually a subplot that makes this weekend's trip to the neighbours interesting because they are conversely a team who are very good at scoring late goals and will have a home crowd baying at them to get into us. So it'll be a big test of our mettle to see if we can get the job done. 

[gary1979666]

20 hours ago, kaosmark2 said:

Feels like it'll be a close game. Your form has dipped and ours improved, but with these late goals we've been conceding I doubt there'll be a morale thing for it. Last game before 1/3 of your squad goes off to AFCON right? How are you thinking about the packed xmas schedule while playing with a thinner squad?

I go into most of our games thinking we're going to get spanked, but have thankfully been pleasantly surprised.  With the derby, the bar is always low - it's after going to school in Newcastle as a Sunderland fan in the 90's!

My main hope this season was to stay up, so if we end up with a few losses, then so be it - just hope there's no injuries resulting from AFCON and we can scrape a few points.

[kaosmark2]

2 hours ago, gary1979666 said:

I go into most of our games thinking we're going to get spanked, but have thankfully been pleasantly surprised.  With the derby, the bar is always low - it's after going to school in Newcastle as a Sunderland fan in the 90's!

My main hope this season was to stay up, so if we end up with a few losses, then so be it - just hope there's no injuries resulting from AFCON and we can scrape a few points.

I hope you do stay up, the lowest points record thing for a few years was very funny, but I've missed the derby! Even if we haven't got Shola for them any more. 

 

I'm not too surprised at the downturn in form, the fixture list gave you a very kind start and the rough run being harder isn't a shock. But AFCON falling at the busy point of the season after this run is pretty brutal.

[charlierc]

I'm guessing FIFA running around telling everyone that they've got millions of people requesting World Cup tickets means they're not about to change course on their outrageously expensive ticket pricing.

 

Though I do wonder if dynamic pricing that they've employed will wind up going both ways and some tickets might sell for a lot less than they want, as was seen at last year's Club World Cup.

[charlierc]

On 12/12/2025 at 09:47, gary1979666 said:

I go into most of our games thinking we're going to get spanked, but have thankfully been pleasantly surprised.  With the derby, the bar is always low - it's after going to school in Newcastle as a Sunderland fan in the 90's!

My main hope this season was to stay up, so if we end up with a few losses, then so be it - just hope there's no injuries resulting from AFCON and we can scrape a few points.

 

22 hours ago, kaosmark2 said:

I hope you do stay up, the lowest points record thing for a few years was very funny, but I've missed the derby! Even if we haven't got Shola for them any more. 

 

I'm not too surprised at the downturn in form, the fixture list gave you a very kind start and the rough run being harder isn't a shock. But AFCON falling at the busy point of the season after this run is pretty brutal.

I'm expecting a competitive game tomorrow tbf. Which will be interesting because it has felt like Newcastle in some games this season, consciously or unconsciously, seem to be actively avoiding going at 100%, which in a game like what I imagine a Tyne-Wear/Wear-Tyne Derby will be like is a bit of a no-no.

 

Certainly it makes the dynamic interesting that, even if with some awkward results more recently, Sunderland look very competitive with a settled side that looks like it knows what its doing. Taking points off Arsenal is no mean feat after all, and indeed for all their recent incoherence, it was still good going to get a point at Anfield.

Edited December 13, 2025 by charlierc

[kaosmark2]

1 hour ago, charlierc said:

I'm expecting a competitive game tomorrow tbf. Which will be interesting because it has felt like Newcastle in some games this season, consciously or unconsciously, seem to be actively avoiding going at 100%, which in a game like what I imagine a Tyne-Wear/Wear-Tyne Derby will be like is a bit of a no-no.

 

Certainly it makes the dynamic interesting that, even if with some awkward results more recently, Sunderland look very competitive with a settled side that looks like it knows what its doing. Taking points off Arsenal is no mean feat after all, and indeed for all their recent incoherence, it was still good going to get a point at Anfield.

I think we can't actually maintain the 100% style for 90 minutes twice a week. It's just not possible.

 

There's an extra dimension for Tonali (and to a lesser extent Elanga) looking tired as well, they both have newborns. 

 

But yeah, Sunderland look decent this season. I do suspect the dense fixture list and AFCON will see us finish the month ahead of them, but I'm hoping that's from tomorrow! It'd be a good time for Wissa to get a first goal...

[lost]

1 hour ago, charlierc said:

I'm guessing FIFA running around telling everyone that they've got millions of people requesting World Cup tickets means they're not about to change course on their outrageously expensive ticket pricing.

 

Though I do wonder if dynamic pricing that they've employed will wind up going both ways and some tickets might sell for a lot less than they want, as was seen at last year's Club World Cup.

 

Difficult to see how it will work out. I know the states have had really bad inflation post covid and you watch these online videos of costs for say families at disney land or a week in Vegas nowadays and this probably compares. The issue is obviously wages outside the US haven't really kept up and therefore how popular football is over there for them to sell the majority of tickets domestically.

[charlierc]

51 minutes ago, kaosmark2 said:

I think we can't actually maintain the 100% style for 90 minutes twice a week. It's just not possible.

 

There's an extra dimension for Tonali (and to a lesser extent Elanga) looking tired as well, they both have newborns. 

 

But yeah, Sunderland look decent this season. I do suspect the dense fixture list and AFCON will see us finish the month ahead of them, but I'm hoping that's from tomorrow! It'd be a good time for Wissa to get a first goal...

That's certainly a dynamic we're having to adjust to - I do think we're overplaying Bruno, Tonali and Joelinton and it's leading to a sense of tiredness. One can argue Tonali has also looked off it since catching that bastard flu bug that's doing the rounds and trying to play through it. I wasn't aware of the new arrival in his life tbf but that would make sense too.

 

I do seem to recall some in pre-season thinking Sunderland would be a walkover like the side that the Toon beat 3-0 in the FA Cup in the season before last. That's very much not gonna be the case.

[charlierc]

6 minutes ago, lost said:

 

Difficult to see how it will work out. I know the states have had really bad inflation post covid and you watch these online videos of costs for say families at disney land or a week in Vegas nowadays and this probably compares. The issue is obviously wages outside the US haven't really kept up and therefore how popular football is over there for them to sell the majority of tickets domestically.

Well the ticket is always worth what somebody is willing to pay for it, but a starting price of $200 for most group stage games is ambitious. Particularly if we're talking that these tickets are for seats in Row Z where you get a better view of the sky than the pitch.

 

Or maybe it's in keeping with how this World Cup seems to be structured by FIFA just to make money for them. The NFT stuff reported earlier this year felt pretty egregious, for one.

[kaosmark2]

3 hours ago, charlierc said:

That's certainly a dynamic we're having to adjust to - I do think we're overplaying Bruno, Tonali and Joelinton and it's leading to a sense of tiredness. One can argue Tonali has also looked off it since catching that bastard flu bug that's doing the rounds and trying to play through it. I wasn't aware of the new arrival in his life tbf but that would make sense too.

 

I do seem to recall some in pre-season thinking Sunderland would be a walkover like the side that the Toon beat 3-0 in the FA Cup in the season before last. That's very much not gonna be the case.

I think they can probably handle 2/3 games, but yep. Miley looking so assured in his latest appearances adds to the calls for rotation as well. Willock's been better this season than he has in 2 and a half years as well. Tonali's had a couple of good games since that flu, but has generally looked a bit off it more games than not.

Honestly, I was of a similar attitude to that, but they recruited well, and that makes a huge difference. I'd also thought when I saw the fixture list that their run in before would potentially make their morale worse, but they got so many wins before that that it's hard to think they won't be up for it.

[thetime]

2 hours ago, kaosmark2 said:

I think they can probably handle 2/3 games, but yep. Miley looking so assured in his latest appearances adds to the calls for rotation as well. Willock's been better this season than he has in 2 and a half years as well. Tonali's had a couple of good games since that flu, but has generally looked a bit off it more games than not.

Honestly, I was of a similar attitude to that, but they recruited well, and that makes a huge difference. I'd also thought when I saw the fixture list that their run in before would potentially make their morale worse, but they got so many wins before that that it's hard to think they won't be up for it.

 

6 hours ago, charlierc said:

That's certainly a dynamic we're having to adjust to - I do think we're overplaying Bruno, Tonali and Joelinton and it's leading to a sense of tiredness. One can argue Tonali has also looked off it since catching that bastard flu bug that's doing the rounds and trying to play through it. I wasn't aware of the new arrival in his life tbf but that would make sense too.

 

I do seem to recall some in pre-season thinking Sunderland would be a walkover like the side that the Toon beat 3-0 in the FA Cup in the season before last. That's very much not gonna be the case.

 

Whats happening with Elanga? Was expecting him to kick on at Newcastle. 

Edited December 13, 2025 by thetime

[charlierc]

1 hour ago, thetime said:

 

 

Whats happening with Elanga? Was expecting him to kick on at Newcastle. 

I do wonder if he necessarily suits our system as well as Murphy does. You see bursts of speed from him, but I don't really see enough consistency when he gets to the decisive area of the pitch.

 

Considering how annoyed Villa were to have to sell him for FFP/PSR reasons, I was expecting to see more from Jacob Ramsey ngl.

[kaosmark2]

1 hour ago, thetime said:

Whats happening with Elanga? Was expecting him to kick on at Newcastle. 

First few games he was putting good crosses in that Gordon (as striker) wasn't getting on the end of. Then the media started asking Howe about his "poor form" (no goals/assists) and it seems that got to him because then he actually had poor form after that. But I think all of our wingers were much worse when our full-backs were out.

 

My suspicion, with absolutely nothing to back it up other than an ancient quote about him being happy to join Isak at Newcastle, is that the nonsense saga threw him off when he'd been expecting to be crossing to a player he'd been teammates with for Sweden. He's won a couple of penalties, put in some good deliveries, hit the post, and been involved in good moves a fair few times, but I am a little disappointed with his performances so far. I'd have thought Woltemade, as a physically strong striker, would actually suit his game after how well he dovetailed with Chris Wood last year, but we'll see.

[charlierc]

8 minutes ago, kaosmark2 said:

My suspicion, with absolutely nothing to back it up other than an ancient quote about him being happy to join Isak at Newcastle, is that the nonsense saga threw him off when he'd been expecting to be crossing to a player he'd been teammates with for Sweden. He's won a couple of penalties, put in some good deliveries, hit the post, and been involved in good moves a fair few times, but I am a little disappointed with his performances so far. I'd have thought Woltemade, as a physically strong striker, would actually suit his game after how well he dovetailed with Chris Wood last year, but we'll see.

Thing with that though is that Woltemade is a different profile of striker. I've seen the suggestion we might be better placed trying him as a number 10 hanging deep off Wissa, or perhaps an old school 2-up-top tactic where he has somebody else to play with. What this has does is made me ponder if Elanga is better suited to playing with a striker that stays up top rather than Woltemade, who likes dropping deep. Which, tbf, you can see why Bayern Munich saw him as a long-term successor to Harry Kane as a striker who likes doing that.

 

I do seem to recall that Isak was public in welcoming Elanga to SJP the literal week before he threw the first stage of his hissy fit that earned him his big budget move to, judging by today, the Liverpool bench. It's likely this could be one of those things that comes out in the wash in a couple of months or years from now that Elanga was a little bummed out to be sold on playing with Isak only to then not get to be on a teamsheet with him at all.

[Skip997]

12 hours ago, charlierc said:

I do seem to recall that Isak was public in welcoming Elanga to SJP the literal week before he threw the first stage of his hissy fit that earned him his big budget move to, judging by today, the Liverpool bench

Newcastle played a blinder there. Reminds me of Torres move from Liverpool to Chelsea. As I said at the time, a huge mistake from Liverpool. 

[Crazyfool01]

25 minutes ago, Skip997 said:

Newcastle played a blinder there. Reminds me of Torres move from Liverpool to Chelsea. As I said at the time, a huge mistake from Liverpool. 

You were also saying Liverpool would be relegated a week or so ago . Isaac will come good in time 

[charlierc]

2 hours ago, Skip997 said:

Newcastle played a blinder there. Reminds me of Torres move from Liverpool to Chelsea. As I said at the time, a huge mistake from Liverpool. 

It kinda feels like a lose-lose-lose at this point tbh - Isak has shredded his reputation for a move that is yet to catch fire, Liverpool have spent huge money on a player they didn't need at the expense of the positions they were more in need of options in and we lost our main striker, in the process creating a funk it's taken time to adapt to. I like Woltemade and have hopes Wissa will come good but it wasn't an ideal start. 

 

My instinct is that Isak and Salah both want to be the main man and can't really play together so I guess we'll see if that circle can be squared or something. 

[charlierc]

18 hours ago, kaosmark2 said:

First few games he was putting good crosses in that Gordon (as striker) wasn't getting on the end of. Then the media started asking Howe about his "poor form" (no goals/assists) and it seems that got to him because then he actually had poor form after that. But I think all of our wingers were much worse when our full-backs were out.

I think the questions will have to be asked after that one because while he wasn't alone in this, holy sh*t Elanga was dreadful today.

 

It's unfortunate for Woltemade to be the own goal scorer because it's one of the luckless things that can happen to someone when facing their own goal like that but we genuinely seemed to be playing for a 0-0, scored for them, then barely tested their keeper. It's like it was 2015 again and we had one of the many hopeless derby performances in that run where we lost 6 in a row and were always one step behind Sunderland. Just... ffs.

[kaosmark2]

3 minutes ago, charlierc said:

I think the questions will have to be asked after that one because while he wasn't alone in this, holy sh*t Elanga was dreadful today.

 

It's unfortunate for Woltemade to be the own goal scorer because it's one of the luckless things that can happen to someone when facing their own goal like that but we genuinely seemed to be playing for a 0-0, scored for them, then barely tested their keeper. It's like it was 2015 again and we had one of the many hopeless derby performances in that run where we lost 6 in a row and were always one step behind Sunderland. Just... ffs.

Whole team were awful today. I didn't hate the early sitting back and countering if there was going to be more shown second half. Nothing like a derby to raise fan ire. There's gonna be an actual Howe out group now and the immediate emotion doesn't say they're wrong. One of our worst performances of the year (calendar).

 

I'm gonna stay away from football chat on the internet for a few days, but urgh that was miserable.

[charlierc]

10 minutes ago, kaosmark2 said:

Whole team were awful today. I didn't hate the early sitting back and countering if there was going to be more shown second half. Nothing like a derby to raise fan ire. There's gonna be an actual Howe out group now and the immediate emotion doesn't say they're wrong. One of our worst performances of the year (calendar).

 

I'm gonna stay away from football chat on the internet for a few days, but urgh that was miserable.

I'm not going to join the Howe out bandwagon but it's going to be get a lot more noise behind it given the performance in this game was just hopeless and we clearly need to do something different, especially in away games. It's like we made a conscious decision to try and play with less intensity in matches this season at a time when the league has become a lot more physical, and are getting stung on the arse repeatedly by this choice. It's not just this one - West Ham, Brentford, Brighton, Bournemouth, Leeds, take your pick.

 

There feels like there are reasons prevalent as to why we're the team to drop the most points from winning positions and are also one of the teams yet to gain any points from losing positions. It's all well and good that the underlying data says we're underperforming and could come good eventually, but we need to actually go from theoretically looking good to actually getting results sharpish.

[kaosmark2]

25 minutes ago, charlierc said:

I'm not going to join the Howe out bandwagon but it's going to be get a lot more noise behind it given the performance in this game was just hopeless and we clearly need to do something different, especially in away games. It's like we made a conscious decision to try and play with less intensity in matches this season at a time when the league has become a lot more physical, and are getting stung on the arse repeatedly by this choice. It's not just this one - West Ham, Brentford, Brighton, Bournemouth, Leeds, take your pick.

 

There feels like there are reasons prevalent as to why we're the team to drop the most points from winning positions and are also one of the teams yet to gain any points from losing positions. It's all well and good that the underlying data says we're underperforming and could come good eventually, but we need to actually go from theoretically looking good to actually getting results sharpish.

I'm not joining the bandwagon but I no longer think it's only full of idiots. Something needs to change and there's clearly both tactical and mentality issues right now. I don't the squad is lost or anything terminal, but as you say, we need to start getting actual results, and performances like that make everything look and feel worse, particularly with the emotion of the derby.

[lost]

Aside from the match, after watching the play off final against Sheff utd its very impressive what Sunderland have achieved in one transfer window.

[charlierc]

22 minutes ago, lost said:

Aside from the match, after watching the play off final against Sheff utd its very impressive what Sunderland have achieved in one transfer window.

I distinctly recall some people suggesting they could be the challenger to Derby's infamously poor points total. Weirdly, we do seemingly have a challenger for that in the form of Wolves. But yeah, Sunderland are beating those low expectations.

 

I didn't think it was a good game and that it would've been 0-0 but for the own goal, but they had an assignment to keep us out from scoring to the end and aced it. So, whatever. Well done to them I guess. Hell, they actually had the best chance after the goal when Isidor had one saved by Ramsdale. 

 

Certainly, their recruitment team deserve its flowers, given that Burnley, Sheffield United, Luton, Leicester, Ipswich and Southampton all flubbed their rebuilds as promoted clubs in the last few years.

[charlierc]

1 hour ago, kaosmark2 said:

I'm not joining the bandwagon but I no longer think it's only full of idiots. Something needs to change and there's clearly both tactical and mentality issues right now. I don't the squad is lost or anything terminal, but as you say, we need to start getting actual results, and performances like that make everything look and feel worse, particularly with the emotion of the derby.

Well, I hate losing matches even when we've objectively played well and the noise that surrounds the derby is a layer of salt in that wound given the eyeballs on it as a contest.

 

The team can do better than that insipid morass of a performance and it's time they f**king showed it, ya know? I don't know how we're still only 4 points off the top 5, but that gap is going to grow if our inability to win away matches carries on like this.

Edited December 14, 2025 by charlierc