Kanji

MB stadium is fucking gorgeous.

I’m normally such a big fan of his because I like him as a young learning player with potential but he’s got to show something besides letting the ball be passed around him or making the super safe pass.

I hated his game plan today, felt the team selection was probably the right players - did not expect to see nearly every single player in attack trip over their own feet, fail to control passes, make passes, make tackles, make runs into space, shoot when they should have passed, crossed when they should have dribbled etc. I'm just praying signings will fix this squad, we're not going to do much better with the current crop.

Negative tactics don’t help when the players can’t stay on their feet, control a ball, pass the ball, take a clean shot, or win the ball back.

We’re fucking shit man. No quality in this team apart from less than a handful. Lord Christ almighty.

Don’t see the purpose in Hayden. He doesn’t do a single thing on the pitch.

They are all shit.

Well it's 0-0 at half time. If we win, I won't be giving a f*** about a boring first half. This 100%

Gayle is absolutely trash in general play

This is the worst half of football I’ve seen in years.

Hopefully we get taken over, we get some sound investment over the summer and we don’t ever have to play the way we did again at home and we have proper quality players on the pitch who can play football. What’s done is done ffs let’s look on to tomorrow!

AYE, a HUGE blow to not get a Chelsea backup wingback on loan.

Is the match tomorrow in danger of any postponement due to weather?

You're weird man

Attempting to chip a keeper that would have gone in if not for someone saving it off the line, what the fuck do you expect him to do? If he hit it any other way he had to get it over Ederson or around him with a near perfect finish. Watch the replay again man, City players were surrounding all easy options for him, christ ffs. "Frustrating"

It's his own fucking fault if he can't follow directions or do what his boss is asking him to do to get on the pitch more.

Every player bar Kompany > than our "record" fee.

Every single time he's been called upon under Rafa he's basically underwhelmed - missed tons of point blank chances too last season ala Joselu this season.

His daft elbow on Lanzini likely cost his career here. By all accounts he was ahead of Gayle in the pecking order at that time too. He's been more miss than hit under Rafa and he's wasting wages and a place on the bench - wish him the best of luck when he's out of the country playing abroad somewhere - enjoyed the mad bastard and his love of this club/our fans but I'd rather have a striker who fits our system better and can be relied upon.

weirdo

so you can't ever say "if we had more quality in this team we'd have a better result" ? or something like that, ever, on this forum? Half of our threads are hypothetical ffs. You structured it like it was a matter of fact, not an opinion imo. Jesus Christ dude fucking chill

Agree with you mate. Honestly, we were fortunate for that post and a few other instances - however same stuff happens to us in previous matches too. At the end of the day, our team battled well in the final 20 minutes and even if we're pissed off about how terrible the first 30 mins were, hopefully, our players are at our training ground raring to go this weekend and will get us 3 points versus Brighton. I'm with you on football though, Heron's post previously was well thought-out - the gulf in talent due the extreme sums of money in this league is staggering, smash & grabs, draws etc are celebrated - we can't even do that because of the man who owns our club. World Class manager has to resort to extreme tactics in the hope the players he has at his disposal are capable of executing the plan and making the right decision more than the wrong. Modern football is shit like that, but sadly is the reality in which the sport stands right now.

so you can't ever say "if we had more quality in this team we'd have a better result" ? or something like that, ever, on this forum? Half of our threads are hypothetical ffs.

Give Rafa 1 or 2 of their attacking players and we run the SAME tactic we walk away with a draw.

Thanks for the compliments, but no need. I’m not upset about us not taking the game to them or having a go, I’m upset about how for 35 minutes or so we basically from the first whistle laid down and against a team like this it will only ever result in a guaranteed defeat and an almost guaranteed heavy defeat. The fact it didn’t happen doesn’t make it all the more right or acceptable. Again, that first 35 was the worst I’ve ever seen us play, ever, we were not bad in that we were sloppy in possession or we were making huge mistakes we were that bad because we did nothing and nothing whatsoever. I counted maybe 3 passes together, every time the ball come in we just lumped it as far away from our box as possible with zero thought or intent on engaging City or trying to compete. They are a great side we know, but they are not invincible. Their players are not superman FFS. Maybe it’s just me, but that’s not what I want to see from any NUFC side at any time regardless of the opposition or how crap we are. If we went into every game like that we would go down easily because again it begs the opposition to score and score again and again. If you don’t have the ball you are not in the game and for 35 minutes it was that way. There was no opposition, just black and white shirts standing, jockeying and doing f*** all on the ball. All Man City who thankfully didn’t take us to the cleaners. We got lucky, we got away with it and we move on. If I see a Rafa side play like that again though I’ll start questioning the man. I now want to see the reverse against Brighton. You make valid points RE former managers and of course I shouldn’t bring them into it because it’s not comparable, but even with this side, against City, it Pardew set up like that for the first 35 there would be hell on here. It should never be acceptable for a NUFC team at home to simply turn up not to play, the fans deserve better. Understood on your points - agree with a ton of it to be honest in the whole. Honestly if Pardew set us up the same with the same players we'd have been 5-0 down after 60 minutes. For every half chance they didn't score, they'd have created more because our defensive shape would have fallen to pieces, or even after that first goal conceded we'd have fallen right apart in typical fashion.