DJ_NUFC

Really? He can't even control a ball at times, or make simple passes. You must be watching a different player from the rest of us. He's brought the ball down beautifully many times this season alone, often balls he shouldn't even be able to bring down (hoofs from Clark). His balls out to Ritchie have resulted in actual goals, balls he's played while finding pockets of space, being pressured, falling, etc. He's not been having the best season so far, and to be honest I don't think the role Rafa has him playing suits his game at all. But he's unfortunately the best we have in that area unless Murphy suddenly steps up. Currently we'll have to make do. I'd probably drop him on current form, kid looks like he needs a break.

Watch out, Perez fans will jump on ye! He's so f***ing feeble like I'm a Perez fan and today even I'm like... stay on your feet man!!!

I'd throw Gayle on second half.

Rivière strikes again ?

Still better than Rafa. Too early to tell.

The bigger the game the bigger he likes to score.

This one is absolutely brilliant

I like it.

Misselu. Have we exhausted the bad nicknames yet?

The managerial appointments were always polar opposites of the last guy. Robson was considered too soft and pally with the players... #HitzfeldIn will forever be a shattered dream.

I don't know who that is but fair point

Man, what kind of responses will there be when there's a similar thread for Ashley?

Exactly my feelings. R.I.P All fair emotions.

Whoaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Holy shit. RIP, Freddie. We had some tumultuous times with lots of name-calling, but you did want the best for the club.

At least Rafa was honest when his signing was announced. He said something along the lines of..."if a player can run, it's 5m, if he can score, it's 20m." He told us we signed someone who is just great at running.

But no one has said anything, no fans have. It's the media saying it....it's so infuriating This. My Liverpool supporting buddy went off at me for no reason last week saying "you guys think you're all that now, we can't wait to play you!" And I was like ? Every single NUFC fan I know is just focused on staying up. No idea what's wrong with these retarded PL fans. They seem so easily manipulated by the media.

It was a Clark foul wasn't it?

This is such bullshit. We've not played badly. Should've scored. Yet one stupid set piece where mbemba was potentially fouled and we could potentially walk away with nothing. Fuck.

We simply don't seem to have door openers going forward (to borrow a souness term)

I think what people are saying is it's far better than having wonga. At least they're thinking about how they come across to fans, or just thinking about it in general. Of course it's just all a marketing strategy, why wouldn't it be? But I for one am having at least 88x more fun than I did when wonga was the sponsor ?

The Comments The comments are gold. "But you're on the new GTA" had me creasing.

Fair points about potentially having a minor regulation about amount of players you're allowed to loan out -- this would solve the problem of Chelsea hoarding players.

Interesting stuff. Almost justifies Ashley's model of buying players with sell-on value

Grumpy has been leading the charge for a while to explain to those RTG Dim Wits who think that Short is trousering all the "para shoot " (sic) money and all the Pickford money, and explaining how Short has been propping up the club year after year. Of course anyone who even slightly challenges the notion that Short/Bain are to blame for the financial state and more so the state of the team, is immediately labeled a Mag and the pitchfork and torch Mob set upon them. His new series of posts looking at the financial situation of several clubs are great - and really explain the predicament that Sunderland find themselves in. The penny is now dropping for them (although based on their financial state, they might want to save those pennies) For those of us who don't wish to venture into the wasteland that is RTG, what is the gist of this bloke's assessment? Is it mismanagement or, in the case of Sunderland, not enough bums on seats and regular fans to make enough from ticket sales? A dearth of sponsorships? Interested to hear where these clubs have gone wrong.