tmonkey

It was a horrific performance where every aspect of the basics failed on his part (touch, control, awareness, passing, dribbling, tricks, all failed repeatedly with no attempt to adjust), but you'd hope he'll learn that he can't always turn up and dribble/trick every team easily. Needs to mix it up, play a basic game sometimes and keep teams guessing as to when he's going to try something. To be honest, and this is the pessimistic side of me, it was the type of performance that does make me a little worried. This is NUFC and given our bad luck being pessimistic is often the more reliable stance. Without Kenedy last season we'd probably have been down near the bottom 3, as the only other consistent source of creativity/"making things happen" was a Shelvey ball over the top, which is rendered a bit moot with the standard our striking options and can be easy to defend against if it's the only gameplan. Due to not bringing Townsend in we've sort of put all our eggs in one basket for this season with Kenedy in terms of having a bit of pace + quality + unpredictability/drive on the ball - Ritchie is non-existent in this regard (did literally nothing good against Cardiff too), and Atsu/Murphy aren't good enough at this level. The worry therefore is that this was the kind of performance that could really dent a players belief and self-confidence. We've seen players go downhill rapidly due to losing confidence or self-belief (Viana, Tomasson and Cisse spring to mind), and the truth is Kenedy is not truly established at PL level (could just have been a purple patch for all we know) so we don't know how stable that confidence is over the long term should he hit poor form. Can he bounce back? Not all players do. It would be just our luck to see a permanent dip in form with Kenedy so we're back to being a very one dimensional team where the only bit of consistent quality on the ball is Shelvey. Hopefully this is all bollocks though.

One of the worst individual performances in recent years, topped off with a shiite penalty that cost us a guaranteed first win of the season.

Dawhore has been horrific.

Unfair on her tbf RIP, by the way. Still too soon.

The good news at the moment is even with 10 men this Cardiff side have been so bad in attack it might not make any difference.

Bet it will be reversed. Way too harsh a red card imo.

Hayden

Can see what he was trying there. Outside of the boot, ball shoots up 50 yards into the air, Cardiff player has no idea where the ball is, gives up and goes home, Perez then retrieves the ball as gravity does its magic.

We're really missing Yedlin. Zero penetration from deep especially with Kenedy looking like he's having a bad game.

Dawhore should've done better there.

Dull game, really poor quality from both teams.

"He just stood up, without saying a word or even making eye contact and walked off." :lol:

Cabaye's passing and shooting technique was superior to Rob Lee's, but technique is only theoretical in the sense that it doesn't mean it's consistently applied since players can frequently fail to apply the technique they do have due to e.g. pressure, form, etc - it's one of my pet peeves with Matt Ritchie, he has good shooting/crossing technique but frequently flops opportunities. Felt like Cabaye only really hit 3 months worth of genuine top quality form whilst in an NUFC shirt too,. Lee had much better movement, mobility, stamina, dribbling/ball carrying, and significantly greater consistency in applying the good technique he had. In a free flowing passing side Lee is comfortably the better player imo.

Ben Arfa > Robert and Ginola imo. Robert was a better winger, Ginola a more classy footballer, but Ben Arfa imo was the better playmaker. Greater ability to cut teams open consistently from nothing positions so much so that giving the ball to Ben Arfa and having him beat one, two or three players was at times our only gameplan beyond hoofball. Also, Ben Arfa had: - a serious leg break; - mediocre teammates compared to the Sir Bobby/Keegan teams, meaning if he didn't have a good game it would stand out like a sore thumb (e.g. Robert had plenty of poor/anonymous/frustrating performances where he'd be selfish and blast the ball into row Z, constantly hit the first man with his crosses, dribble into brick walls etc, but who remembers it if Nobby/Bellamy/Dyer/Shearer/etc are winning you games?); - a genuinely terrible manager in Pardew (whereas the others had Sir Bobby and Keegan) who scapegoated him at every opportunity, constantly dropping him or moving him around and trying stupid anti-opposition tactics. How often did Ben Arfa play as a front 3? Not often, and the rare time we did we went on a 11+ game unbeaten streak playing decent free flowing football for once. That's about two to three months out of 4+ years where Ben Arfa was played in a position/system that suited him; - played in a team where the primary tactic was to launch it into the skies, so he'd be watching the ball sail over his head constantly; - was rarely played in his best position (winger in a front 3). And despite all of this he had a better goals to games ratio than Ginola and a similar goals:games ratio to Robert. Robert had significantly better crossing/free kick technique, and somewhat better shooting, and many of Robert's goals were free kicks. Yet Hatem matches him in goals despite a leg break, despite terrible management, piss poor teammates by comparison, having to do everything solo, etc etc? That should tell you just how dangerous a player Ben Arfa was in open play.

The detail in this shows how despicable and genuinely disgusting Ashley really is. The default assumption has to be that he's done the same at NUFC. We already know the online club shop is effective Sports Direct, that the club paid £1.3m to Sports Direct last year for unknown reasons, that Sports Direct has free advertisement worth multi-millions.

The video isn't funny/amusing, but this one comment is when you see it: Jefferies 1 year ago shearer looks like a japanese brudda at 01:05

It's almost like we hadn't been relegated twice (despite being top 7 in terms of income) and nearly relegated a further 3 times! Not to mention the impending blow that will be losing a world class manager because of being messed around/lied to by an owner who won't let the club spend the money the club itself has generated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoFZ--1fQ2U

Not sure Kenedy would want to sign permanently if there's any chance of Rafa leaving at the end of the season.

Klopp

Rafa being stepped over this way reminds me of Sir Bobby towards the end of his tenure here. What a fucked up world we live in that that shitty human beings with zero morals and more money than they can reasonably spend in a lifetime (yet they want even more) can take advantage of good natured, humble, brilliant individuals who conduct themselves with dignity and class and a universal set of ethics. These great managers only ever wanted to improve the club they're employed to manage at, which is ironic considering they're battling the owners for basic improvements, and what do they get for it? They get stepped on, stabbed in the back, dragged through the mud and laughed at by a bunch of incompetent prostitute using drunkards with more money than sense (there's no way someone with Ashley's personality isn't using high class hookers - unsubstantiated opinion). Keegan was so right to walk away from this kind of treatment. Why should he let the snakes above him in the boardroom use his name, leadership, talents, etc, to maintain the status quo whilst they screw over an entire city in their quest for greed? I think Kevin being a great footballer gave him the confidence and self-esteem to not have his time and efforts wasted, to walk away despite knowing what everyone would say. Whilst Sir Bobby and Rafa are far more successful managers than Kevin and their principles will be a key reason as to why, part of me feels it's a bit of a shame that they're too honourable to walk out, as it just enables those above them to carry on taking advantage.

The greatest managers the sport has ever seen fail more frequently in the transfer market than they succeed. Pointing out individual failures is utter bollocks if it's not within the context of successes and/or philosophies that the manager is attempting to establish.

Probably declined a bit, but still, Kenedy and Ben Arfa in the same team.

That triggered the soul out of me. Hate people like him. Such a simple minded cunt. Rafa has won the CL with a complete outsider, La Liga twice with an unfashionable team, the UEFA Cup twice, the FA Cup, and the Italian equivalent of the FA Cup. Because the stars have aligned for once, a world class manager is at NUFC and wants to manage here, wants to win trophies. He wants to spend the money the club has earnt to better the club so that it can at least try to challenge for European spots, to have a good cup run, to compete. But there's one cunt in the way of it all. A cunt by the name of Mike Ashley who owns a retail store and wants to use the football club as one giant advert for the store. A cunt who has no interest in getting the club to compete to the best of its abilities, but to just survive so it can act as an advert. A cunt who has taken a club that when in the PL consistently pulls in the 7th highest revenue in the UK, and top 20 worldwide, to two relegations in a decade and several near misses. A cunt who appoints his gambling mates like Kinnear, Pardew, Llambias, etc, and other Sports Direct related consultants, some of whom have literally zero executive in football, into key senior management positions within the club. A cunt who imposes debilitating policies on the club, like refusing to pay clubs in installments, just because it's the way he wants to do it. A cunt who pays £150k per year for a club secretary to act as chairman, the cheapest wage in the division. A cunt who has been proven in a civil court to be a liar. A cunt who has had MPs after him because he's such a fucking shyster, and had HMRC actually raid his businesses because he's so dodgey. And who does Richard Keys back? The cunt. Because Keys is also a cunt. Cunts stick together.

Mike Ashley is the archetypal football club owner Germany's 50+1 rule is designed to protect clubs from. Absolutely shameful how we don't have something in the UK protecting football clubs.