The College Dropout

Salah needs semi-regular double-digit points to justify his inclusion. At the moment he's not worth the price difference to Sterling, Hazard and a number of others.

Out the NO top 20

Agree to a point. I actually think it's very difficult to find defenders that are good at the basics 98% of the time. Marking, heading, pushing up etc.

Only reason I want us to stay up is that I don't want this relegation on Rafa's record. He doesn't deserve it. The first it was too late to make a difference.

You've just listed 7 of the bottom 8 there, not sure it's much insight to say they could all go down Point is... Cardiff will get relegated regardless.

There it is.

Hope Cardiff win. Because they've got no chance of getting 35 points. No guile. No skill. No magic. Us Huddersfield Cardiff Have the least quality in the division and will struggle to score goals no matter who the manager. But Fulham, Southampton, Burnley and Palace will be down there too, maybe Brighton as well.

Its still crap though. People have being saying that for years yet we get absolute stonewallers just waved away. Aye, I can think of a few stonewall penalties we should've got. But we don't have any players that look to commit defenders 2 or 1v1 in the box.

I say that to say - it has little to do with how we play. The penalty thing aye, that's partly our own doing.

Most red cards these days are from tackles in the middle of the pitch being "out of control and dangerous". Often coming from attempting to make a tackle after a bad first touch.

Don't have him but I think Arnautovic is a great shout.

Must have one of the worst win percentages of any NUFC manager bar Carver. Utter fraud. Had the best squad that we’ve had since the Remy/Cabaye year.

That Bentancur is a beautiful baller.

Raheem shrugs off a couple defenders and puts it in the top bins.

This is what is making you lose hope? I’ve been lost hope but regardless. Diame is our first choice CM. Getting a new contract is ok. We need to shift Hayden and get someone in to make Diame the back up.

In a struggling team a player like Shelvey will always come a bit to deep to get the ball. After the great Wham debut he did this a lot in his first season and did it a fair bit during our great run too.

Originally planned to bring in Sterling and Jimenez for Lacazette and Maddison and make Raheem captain. Ended up taking Richarlison out for Sterling, bringing in Jiménez but making Aguero captain. A good week regardless but could’ve been 110+ week. Into the top 10% of the NO league. 58 points in the lead in a paid league (which swayed me to choose a conservative captain that would keep me in the lead) and barely atop my old work league. Considering Arnautovic for Aguero. Then improve the squad over the coming weeks. Also tempted to stick then make a double change the next week.

Agree with the Shelvey / Ki takes here. One thing to add - the players know each others game. With Ki the lads know he wants to play it short and move so you play accordingly.

A lot of it is due to the fact that we often don't have a lot of possession which means our midfielders don't make that many passes in general. And we are also pretty direct, not much in the way of build-up. A lot of our attacks are get the ball to Shelvey, he'll ping it behind the defence and hopefully create a goalscoring opportunity.

Statistically Burnley have always conceded a lot of shots on target. Even last season. Much like the Pardew era a lot of their good results are down to heroic last ditch, bodies on the line defending which is difficult to maintain. I don't think they'll be relegated but they'll be down with us lot. Same with Southampton. They're just bad.

It's just human nature and Neville's style is combative. Redknapp managed Spurs to a top 4 finish.. maybe even 2. He also got them into the CL quarter finals. That ranks high in his achievements in a 30-year career as a football manager which was largely successful. Then Gary Neville saunters on TV calling pre-Pocchettino Spurs "spineless", "soft" etc. I think Gary was overly loose-lipped with that comment. Especially as I think it's mostly in reference to the Spurs sides he faced in the PL and not the Modric and Bale team that Redknapp managed. Redknapp's well in his rights to be upset over those comments. Especially from a man that failed miserably in his own managerial career at a big club. Generally, I think Neville's analysis is thoughtful but he's wrong in this one. That reminds me how people in the media often forget about Sir Bobby's time with us. Battling for the CL 3 years in a row. It wasn't just the KK years we had good teams after that.

It's very easy for certain types of people to get labelled "flash" and difficult for some others.

I don’t think it’s true. But Puma could still design it and not manufacture it... I guess.

Freddie Shephard was more David Sullivan than Daniel Levy. He made one excellent appointment that was easy to make. The rest were bad/ok. He had standards mind you. Vastly superior to Ashley. He was at least ambitious for the club.

It's come to the point where i'm disappointed when our players sign new contracts