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®Êby PAUL BROWN to buy your house but you’ll have to do a loft conversion and fit a new kitchen before I pay up’.

I think all this takeover talk has really hurt Newcastle. The players have lost their focus. They seem to think they’ll suddenly be flying up the league once it goes through.

But they should be playing for their futures, busting a gut for the club. I’m not seeing that at the moment.

If you can’t raise your game playing in front of 50,000 Geordies, when can you?

Bournemouth, who get about 12,000 through the gate, have already beaten them at St James’ Park this season, in front of 52,000.

But how many Newcastle players would get in the Bournemouth team? How does that work? They need to stop pennypinching.

At the same time, though, it’s too easy to blame Ashley. Rafa gets an easy ride because it’s everybody else’s fault.

Well, I thought he would stop the rot because he’s a good manager. But he’s making some strange decisions.

Where is Aleksandar Mitrovic? He wasn’t even on the bench against Everton and they need him in the team, in my opinion.

Dwight Gayle is lively, quick and sharp, and Joselu is the same. But they need someone who’s going to put himself about and do the dirty work.

I think he has to play. He gives them something different. I don’t know what’s gone on there but Rafa needs to swallow his pride and put him back in the team.

Ruthless

Okay, maybe he can’t always be trusted but it’s time to take a chance.

It’s going horribly wrong at the moment. We’ve seen a million slides like this and they don’t often end well. The Premier League is ruthless.

Look at the teams around them. There aren’t too many others on a run like this. Crystal Palace have turned things around. So have West Ham.

Newcastle need to do the same quickly because they are in freefall at the moment and you can’t see where their next win is coming from.