Agree with that. I think VAR should be in place in the Premier League, but if the cup opponents don't have it at their place, it shouldn't be available for the home leg.

£50m is a pittance for a Premier League these days. Our 1st eleven regularly cost less than one of our opposition's players. Celebration Police never take a day off, do they? Think that's generous. Joselu's goal was offside, no doubt. Don't think the refereeing was particularly good for either team though. Thought we made hard work of it, all too often a lack of quality or confidence lead to our lot making the wrong decisions at key moments. Pleased that three Newcastle Academy kids got goals. No surprises that big changes to the squad lead to such a fractured display, especially with two kids in the centre of the park. Going to extra time wasn't ideal, looks like we've lost two more players to injuries. To be honest deciding the game at St James' would have been better, whichever way it went. We could well have done with a week off after the Chelsea game, instead of having to face you lot. But we didn't do enough then and we barely did enough last night. We'll no doubt field another weakened side against Watford, so it begs the question, what's the fucking point? Good luck with the rest of the season lads.

Benitez saw our potential, he speaks openly about the "project". To be fair he's an elite coach (goes on the annual UEFA Elite Coach Forum) with limited options given his criteria; Has to be an English club (wants his family to stay in the North West where they're settled.) Won't go back to Liverpool, won't join Everton of Man Utd because of his ties to Liverpool. Won't go back to Chelsea. Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Man City, Man Utd and Spurs wouldn't want him for a variety of reasons. So who does that leave? He wants a "big" club (I'm not getting into a boring big club debate), with potential to grow. A sleeping giant. So really it's a club like ours, Aston Villa, or... well that's about it really. A lot of the other clubs have a glass ceiling they cannot realistically break in his time. Wolves, Watford, Bournemouth, Leicester, and their ilk are surpassing us at the minute, but there comes a point when geography and ... renown? stymies their progress further. I honestly believe that with an owner who has ambition beyond Premier League survival Rafa Benitez could push Newcastle United into the top half of the Premier League. To join Everton as the best of the rest. He genuinely seems to have an affection for the club, has worked hard on rebuilding a relationship between the club and the fans, spent a lot of time getting to know the area and so on. Were we to be taken over by someone who permitted Benitez to spend the money he recouped from transfers, and tv deals I'm sure we'd be watching better footballers play better football in the upper reaches of the Premier League, in the later stages of the Cups and on pitches across Europe.

This is the crux of it for me, I'm a 37yr old Geordie and have never seen my club lift anything more impressive than the Intertoto Cup certificate. Now, that's fine if you're ultimately not good enough, but I've watched some genuinely good sides pull on the black and white shirt. It's criminal that Shearer won nowt at St James'. Dalglish ripped that title chasing side apart, Gullit doubled down on that, Robson had us dreaming of silverware again, but then came Souness, Roeder, Allardyce and so on. The best nights are the cup nights, domestic or European. And to win something, anything? That's why we do this to ourselves. So when the mouthpiece of the owner comes up with some made up factoid that teams that go for it in the cup get relegated, it just makes you wonder what's the point? We're never going to win the league, we should be able to establish ourselves as a top flight team, so with all that resolved, what's the fucking point? I've mates who can't afford it but get a season ticket every year, and for the past decade we haven't even tried to end the trophy drought. Why're they wasting their money? My club aside, fans of teams outside the elite clamour for that one day when they can celebrate a reward for their team's endeavour. Staying up is a relief, promotion is exciting, but a cup? That's manna from heaven.

The cost of relegation is perceived to be so great by owners (and subsequently managers) that survival has to be the priority. That the Premier League has become a microcosm of English football, in terms of the haves and have-nots, is why you're seeing so few top flight teams take the competition seriously. It doesn't help that the prize of European football in the UEFA cup (or whatever it's called now), is viewed as an unwanted distraction by the same teams. The FA Cup should be a crown jewel in domestic football. The prize should be big enough to encourage all teams to take it seriously. Not necessarily money and a european spot, but what about money, Europe + bonus points for the following season? I dunno, but to be honest, the Premier League clubs who've been dumped out deserve that "embarrassment" because they've not taken it seriously. I think there should also be some kind of limit on the rotation, to prevent clubs who've stockpiled players fielding an array of bench-warming internationals to put away less fortunate opposition.

I suppose that's fair enough. If I'm honest the nonsense that the Venky's came out with (Signing Ronaldinho etc.) was pretty entertaining for an outsider. But I honestly don't know of anyone who was particularly bothered about how you treated Kean. I wouldn't say Ashley has spent a lot of money. Most if not all of the transfer spend can be attributed to funds recouped from transfers, and of course the monies rec'd from tv deals. We're £150m in debt to him because he didn't do due diligence before buying Sir John Hall out. Also, Benitez approached NUFC about the job, Ashley didn't seek him out and convince him. It's not as rosy a picture as some may assume. There were a few raised eyebrows when we signed him for north of £12m, when he'd hardly pulled up any trees. He's got no confidence and, as you probably saw on Saturday, that's knackered his game. He's got a poor first touch, terrible decision making, can't finish. It's a shame because the lad's a Newcastle fan (kind of) and showed flashes of being a promising footballer when at Norwich. Perhaps we got the wrong Murphy? Indeed

Well that was about as crap as I predicted. You can see our second string are bereft of confidence. Game changed when we brought Perez and Shelvey on. Was a penalty for me, but I think it's fair to say we didn't deserve a draw. Your lot were up for it from the off and while we had 19 shots, none of them really troubled your 'keeper. Hope the lads who travelled had a good time in Newcastle. re: not having sympathy for fans of clubs with shit owners. I don't get it? I know I speak for Newcastle fans when I say we feel for you having to suffer the Venky's, and for the Blackpool fans suffering Oyston, and Charlton with Duchâtelet. It shouldn't be "We can't feel bad for you because we think our owner is worse", should it? Everybody's battles are their own and I'm sure there's an owner out there who's worse than our fat chancer, your lot, and so on. Doesn't mean your owners aren't shit, or ours, or Charltons. It's not shit-owner Top Trumps.

Morning all, Geordie in peace here. Newcastle are a shadow of their former selves, we're a Championship team in the top flight and are getting financially outmuscled by heavyweights like Bournemouth and Huddersfield. Benitez is doing his best with what he's got, but a decade of terrible decisions in the boardroom has left him with a squad thin on quality. We've been playing a defensive 4-4-1-1 or 5-4-1. Dubravka is a quality goalkeeper for our level and has kept us in games we really should have lost heavily. We're good at the back with Lascelles, Schar, Fernandez and Clark all decent centre halves, Yedlin can really make a difference down the right flank if he's fit and full of running. Rondon up top will work his bollocks off but is often starved of any real service. It's the creative side of things that's lacking. Shelvey has unbelievable passing range, but is an idiot with a short fuse. Diame is old, slow and a bit shit quite frankly, offers very little going forward. Hayden is very limited defensive midfielder who's prone to a rash challenge and offers nothing in the final 3rd. Ki is off to the Asian cup which is a shame because he's been decent. I wouldn't be surprised to see the young lad Longstaff given a go in the middle, positive and full of youthful confidence that hasn't yet been ground out of him by Ashley's reign. Perez, Kenedy, Atsu, Murphy and Ritchie are all decent in their own way, but none of them are playing well. For this game I'd expect Benitez to ring the changes with one eye on our relegation concerns. Fringe players like Atsu, Clark, Longstaff, Manquillo, Murphy, Muto, to be given a chance to impress. I'd probably predict a low scoring game, low on chances, low on quality, low on entertainment. From our end anyway. Off the pitch the club is, yet again, in turmoil. Ashley saying he wants to sell but making no progress and refusing to invest, Benitez stating (correctly) that the club needs investment or it'll need a miracle to survive, the club destroying £4,500 worth of banners and flags that the fans raised money for, players saying they want to move closer to the family (Hayden), fan groups arguing amongst themselves. Pretty hard to be excited about a cup game at the minute, so I'd not expect a big crowd, and certainly not a vocal one should the game pan out as dry as expected. For the lads travelling to Newcastle, there's a stack of great pubs, bars, and whatnot. Away fans usually congregate in the Union Rooms and the Mile Castle before the game. They're big, cheap, near to the Central Station and about a 10-15 minute walk from St James'. Anyone wanting a quieter pint of better quality try the Forth Hotel, The Town Wall, Tilley's. If you're interested in football history and memorabilia pop into the BackPage store on St Andrews st. Grab yourself some Gregg's sausage rolls on the way into the ground, have your fill of beer before you go into the ground, give nowt to that fat, southern, shitehawk.