Nothing in football’s vernacular gets my hackles up more than the word elite. What football words / phrases boil your blood?

Shove that up your coefficient you greedy super league loving cheats.

Botman not even vaguely excited about scoring sums up that game, more a case of going through the motions than a competitive fixture. Job done. Shahar looked confident. The BFG didn’t. #NUFC

There is something very wrong with the officiating in the PL. The laws of game have morphed into an incomprehensible jumble of random decisions. Nobody knows what a foul is anymore, or a push, or a shirt pull, or a shoulder charge, or when the offside flag should be raised etc etc

30 min in and the social media rage is being aimed at… Pope Trippier Woltemade Elanga Gordon

Trips is the captain. Gordon should do what he’s told. #NUFC

Woltemade’s best game for #NUFC ?

Final QF Winners SF A run in the League cup unmatched by any other club over the last four years. The world’s most elite manager (Unai Emery) has managed one domestic cup SF in the same period. Way to go Eddie Howe. #NUFC

Elanga has looked better last few games. Good tracking back, much more positive on the ball. Ramsey has been showing a lot more too. Amazing what a decent amount of game time can do.

Going to be a tsunami of ‘everything is shit and we need to burn down SJP’ posts on the back of this game. If our support can’t rally round the club when the going gets tough, don’t expect the players to. #NUFC

The pitch at the shed of shite looks like it was borrowed from a pub team. Might explain the massive disparity between their home and away form.

If #NUFC hadn’t caved in and sold AI, what would be happening now? Would he still be on strike?

Gifted them the points tonight. These fuckers are the last hoodoo to break. #NUFC

The CL playoff draw is complicated, think we either get Monaco or Qarabag. #NUFC

Spuds 6th in CL with 45 min to go. Finished one place above a relegation spot last season, currently 14th in the PL this time around. The Champions League, it’s a bit shit.

Not (very serious) NUFC team for PSG. Apparently they don’t like a high press and struggle a bit with set pieces… so went with pace and energy up top, height and a solid midfield.

Disappointing result but a decent performance from #NUFC Can’t be arsed to engage with the ‘everything is shit’ doom mongering. Football is a game of fine margins and seasons like this come along now and again, that’s how it is. Looking for someone to blame changes nothing

Moaners out in force again. The incessant negatively is so fucking tiresome. Villa shaded the first half but not much in it. #NUFC

Not thinking about NUFC here, but this season has boring written all over it. The long throws / corner bollocks stuff isn’t helping, but generally nothing interesting seems to be happening.

#NUFC were 19th, winless and five points off safety when Howe was appointed. Four years on we are being told our manager is crap, the academy is shit and all our signings are dross. If so, how do we explain two CL qualifications, two cup finals and a trophy?

More VAR nonsense. Latest ‘confusion’ is at what point a pass is made - when a foot touches the ball, or when the ball leaves the foot. Madness, it is. www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...

There is no such thing as technically correct - it’s was either the right decision or it wasn’t. Days of brainless media fuss incoming. If Varpool had got the benefit of this decision they wouldn’t be questioning it at all. #NUFC

Talk of fielding the kids in the second leg is way off the mark. Anything can happen in a one off game. City could have somebody sent off in the first minute for all we know. Chances are we go out, but giving up before a ball is kicked is not how you build a successful club. #NUFC

Another bounce of the ball game. Get the first goal in the next leg and it’s all to play for. Elanga had a terrible 30 min - needs proper game time. As does Wissa. Should start both against Wolves. Couple of signings this window seems essential. #NUFC

PSG Varpool City Spurs Villa City Chelsea One tough run of away games. Need some new faces in Jan. #NUFC

Has Barnes’ game suffered playing down the right? He’s played RW a few times now and is still linking up play, getting crosses in and scoring goals. #NUFC

Everton wearing their fourth kit at home. Deserve to lose for that.

Does Bluesky’s following tab work? Been following @footballcliches.bsky.social for ages and never see any of their posts.

Bruno now joint fifth top scorer in the PL this season. Level with Etikite, scored more than Mbeumo, Gyokeres and Pedro. #NUFC

Properly wound up by the VAR nonsense tonight. Being tackled is not a pass. Players shouldn’t be awarded a penalty for head butting an opponents arm. Chuck in the Wirtz 5cm drivel and that’s three horrendous VAR interventions in a few days. VAR is creating confusion, not clarity. Get rid of it.

Why does normal weather now have to come with official warnings and media scaremongering?

Florian Wirtz’s offside 5cm tolerance thing. With all the stupidly tight decisions given, why has this never been mentioned before? And what do the graphics they show represent if not reality? Are the completely fictional images where the attacker has been moved backwards 5cm?

Sacking season has arrived.

#NUFC were never going to rediscover their best form quickly. There was no magic wand to wave, no miracle plan B hiding in plain sight. Grinding out a few results and rebuilding confidence was the first step to recovery. Not quite there yet, but heading in the right direction. Keep the faith.

Has Wissa shrunk? #NUFC

Think it’s now reasonable to conclude Isak was our cutting edge and without him #NUFC are going to struggle for goals until they add some unpredictability to their play. Unclear where that is going to come from. Been banging on about two up front all season, but can’t see that happening.

Year end not here yet but would like to extend much gratitude to @greyeyemagpie.bsky.social for their contribution to the #NUFC timeline in 2025. Our numbers are relatively small on BlueSky and without their input it would be dull as dishwater on here a lot of the time. Cheers GreyEye.

Wish we could get rid of VAR. It was brought in to address clearly wrong decisions but what is has delivered is confusion about what a correct decision is. The bias towards the sky six hasn’t stopped. All it has done is disrupt the flow of the game and stifle the joy of a goal. Pile of shit.

Ramming into an opponent at high speed whilst making no attempt to get the ball ✅ Pulling back an opponent clean through on goal ✅ Handling the ball in your own box preventing a goal scoring opportunity ✅ The PGMOL change what is / is not a foul every week to suit their bias. #NUFC

Frustrating day / season but important to remember changing managers doesn’t guarantee a change of fortune. Indeed it can make things worse and I suspect a few of our better players would see Howe’s departure as a reason to move on. #NUFC

There is always of talk of tactics, formations and player selection, but sometimes none of that matters and a team just needs the rub of the green. Kind of where #NUFC are - just need a few games where the ball breaks a bit more favourably, shots sneak in instead of hitting the post etc.

Foul on Dan Burn for the pen - harsh by current standards but 100% the correct decision. Corners in the PL have become a tedious and time consuming farce.

Bottom line? Ballsak messed up our summer transfer window and fucked up our start to the season. Then Wissa’s injury forced a change of playing style and deprived the team of a cutting edge. The team has lost a bit of confidence and there’s not much we can do about it until January. #NUFC

Fair few injury time goals #NUFC have conceded this season. Kind of thing that starts messing with the players heads and becomes self fulfilling. May as well dump the shutting up shop thing. It’s not working, heaping pressure on the team and painful to watch.

I’m firmly in the happy clapping camp, but the amount of times we have given the ball away cheaply this season is doing my head in. A lot of our passing has been Sunday league standard. Probably a confidence thing. #NUFC

Lost count of how many crap passes NUFC have made in this game. The mid block holding a shape thing isn’t sustainable either.

Our great run of results last season coincided with Dubs being in goal. Hard to make a clear connection between the two, but can’t rule out the better distribution from the back being an important factor in our good form either. All things considered, probably time to bring Ramsdale in. #NUFC

With SSR being based on revenue over a season not losses over three, are clubs going to max out their losses to stock pile players before SSR comes in. Or more importantly, should #NUFC spend every penny they can under PSR in this winter’s transfer window?

This is why certain teams get more favourable decisions over a season. Wouldn’t be this much fuss (or any) if this decision had gone against most teams - the media obsessively going on about it puts pressure on refs. www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...

Two months on and I’m still not sure about Woltemade. He’s got some nice touches but seems to play in slow motion. Comes across as a good lad and has something unique to offer, hopefully Howe finds a way to bring the best out of him.