Greg

Waterloo Square where a new bar opens in the same venue every 10 minutes after another failure.

One of the most reputable players in the game tbh but not exactly known for their exclusives etc.

What tweet? The Downie one, quoting a 'source close to Ashley' Oh, you mean the motivation for Ashley's so called statement. Ah yeah, thought you were referencing some other tweet.

What tweet?

It seems to have gone wider, just SSN reacting the quickest or they may have received it first. He's in bed with them, remember that stupid interview?

So The Guardian are claiming Staveley just turned up at that curry house unannounced knowing Ashley would be there?

It's not FM, the two didn't have to be mutually exclusive. This announcement gives me no further confidence the club will strengthen appropriately in this window.

SSN saying the deal is off "for now".

Some people never learn. Could play a wedge of Ashley's £50 notes on the wing when Murphy and Ritchie are underperforming or injured.

Without Rafa I think they would drop, the did after the 2010 relegation but our good form helped them lift up again. e.g. 36,944 first game against Reading, 38,813 against Leicester, 38,923 against QPR etc. Whether you consider that significant is a different matter. If we kept getting beat I think they would drop further below these levels.

Tackling is usually a sign of bad defending tbh. Top defenders don't need to make many tackles.

They have far more ability in their squad than we do, so it wouldn't exactly be a surprise. Crap manager or not.

Well for a start you’ve totally misunderstood what he said.

Is there any evidence that he 'likes' this style? Away from two seasons when the objective of promotion/survival was/is literally the only thing worth considering? Did his teams routinely play like this at other clubs? Just going off what I have seen with us Dave. Yes, we needed promotion at the first attemp last season, but our team/squad was so much more superior to other teams coming here,yet that’s the way we played (and we lost/drawn far too many games at home for a championship winning team. That’s why I was thinking it is his way of playing, because that’s all I have seen. It’s just what football is like now, so much more importance in not getting beat and teams set up accordingly. Other words, football is dull as f*** nowadays. You know - it really wasn’t - not all of them. And it was made ever more difficult by every single team treating it like their cup final.

35 will be enough imo and I think we’ll get enough.

Well this was our first league game since then. Presume Rafa doesn't think that set up will work at home when we won't have as many chances to counter but I agree, would have liked to see something similar. Not sure how to approach Man City but should be similar approach to Stoke (or West Ham actually) when we go to Palace. Ah f***, so it was. Games have come so thick and fast lately I got mixed up That definitely needs trying again, there was promise there. That pesky FA Cup confusing you!

Well this was our first league game since then. Presume Rafa doesn't think that set up will work at home when we won't have as many chances to counter but I agree, would have liked to see something similar. Not sure how to approach Man City but should be similar approach to Stoke (or West Ham actually) when we go to Palace.

Is the search function goosed?

His time at Extremadura didn't happen? Not to jinx it but when he was in this situation, Extremadura went down. As always with Rafa his big brain will know what to do different. Aye. Finished 17th and went down via play offs. I’d take 17th this season if offered it now.

I'm with this. I feel Rafa is just papering over the cracks really. It's no surprise we're more at ease away from home where there's generally more space, than at home where we're naturally expected to be a bit more adventurous. We have precious little creative quality in our squad, let alone goal scoring ability. The only thing keeping us in it right now is our team spirit and our defensive organisation. Player for player this is by some distance our weakest Premier League squad I've seen since I started following NUFC. I don't subscribe to the notion that Rafa Benitez is some sort of saint who can do no wrong, but it's plain to see he's forced to be pragmatic here and is pretty much wringing everything possible from a Championship squad with maybe a handful of PL quality players. Years and years of underinvestment are taking their toll, and it's painfully clear we are in desperate need of reinforcements. Just imagine for one moment what a difference a creative midfielder like Ben Arfa or a striker like Demba Ba would make to our team and our survival chances. We're a team of plodders, so it should be no surprise we play like one. Also, as I've said in the other thread what do people think will happen if we try to attack teams? We've no attacking quality whatsoever and our defence is hanging together by a spiders web but aye f*** it lets go at them We were playing the worst team in the league, who have scored 14 goals or something this season, at home. I'm not saying go gung-ho and forget about defending but in that scenario you simply have to go for the win IMO Normally I'd agree. However if you then take into consideration how little quality we have going forward and how easily we fall apart defensively when we try and open up the likelihood of zero points rather than all three perhaps becomes a whole lot bigger. So let's assume Rafa's thinking was is it worth taking a 20% shot on a win risking a 50% chance of a loss, would "going for it" given those sort of odds still have been the sensible solution in a game against a fellow relegation threatened team where not losing was perhaps more important than winning? I mean, we've all seen in the first half how clinical our forwards are and that was when there was actually some space for them to move into. I think us piling forward would have suited Swansea just fine. They would have brought Narsing on sooner and been waiting for their lucky break as we huffed and puffed. Rafa will have been wary of what happened two weeks ago when Swansea scored twice in the last 5 minutes to win away at Watford. He should be thinking they’ve only scored 14 goals all season, we’ve dominated, created chances and are well on top, more of the same second half. But he probably was thinking they scored twice away to Watford. So a game we could and should have won comfortably based on the first half becomes a point we kind of did well to get. Sums us up at home under Rafa. Again it’s like he’s happy not to lose at home as if it’s some kind of spring board to success. After 5 straight defeats at home I can understand why he is taking this approach.

His time at Extremadura didn't happen?

I'm with this. I feel Rafa is just papering over the cracks really. It's no surprise we're more at ease away from home where there's generally more space, than at home where we're naturally expected to be a bit more adventurous. We have precious little creative quality in our squad, let alone goal scoring ability. The only thing keeping us in it right now is our team spirit and our defensive organisation. Player for player this is by some distance our weakest Premier League squad I've seen since I started following NUFC. I don't subscribe to the notion that Rafa Benitez is some sort of saint who can do no wrong, but it's plain to see he's forced to be pragmatic here and is pretty much wringing everything possible from a Championship squad with maybe a handful of PL quality players. Years and years of underinvestment are taking their toll, and it's painfully clear we are in desperate need of reinforcements. Just imagine for one moment what a difference a creative midfielder like Ben Arfa or a striker like Demba Ba would make to our team and our survival chances. We're a team of plodders, so it should be no surprise we play like one. Also, as I've said in the other thread what do people think will happen if we try to attack teams? We've no attacking quality whatsoever and our defence is hanging together by a spiders web but aye f*** it lets go at them We were playing the worst team in the league, who have scored 14 goals or something this season, at home. I'm not saying go gung-ho and forget about defending but in that scenario you simply have to go for the win IMO Normally I'd agree. However if you then take into consideration how little quality we have going forward and how easily we fall apart defensively when we try and open up the likelihood of zero points rather than all three perhaps becomes a whole lot bigger. So let's assume Rafa's thinking was is it worth taking a 20% shot on a win risking a 50% chance of a loss, would "going for it" given those sort of odds still have been the sensible solution in a game against a fellow relegation threatened team where not losing was perhaps more important than winning? I mean, we've all seen in the first half how clinical our forwards are and that was when there was actually some space for them to move into. I think us piling forward would have suited Swansea just fine. They would have brought Narsing on sooner and been waiting for their lucky break as we huffed and puffed. Rafa will have been wary of what happened two weeks ago when Swansea scored twice in the last 5 minutes to win away at Watford.

No. Unless we were in Scotland.