tmonkey

CL win was a fluke.

I think De Bruyne in current form is the best CM this league has ever seen. By a country mile.

Elliott beaten at the near post by a miss hit soft shot. Quality keeper tho.

87% possession atm.

Men against boys. It's like those videos where 2 adult pros take on 50 kids and destroy them.

Reckon they'll tear us apart and this will be a thrashing.

Time to edit FM and make us unbelievably rich.

When I say "mediocre" I'm going by the dictionary definition of distinctly average. And I view his set pieces as average because I'm judging by what I see when it comes to technical execution of e.g. corners - I think he floats it more than he whips it, at a higher trajectory that makes it harder to score and easier to defend. Better set piece takers can whip the into an area at a trajectory/pace that causes far more problems. You must be blind or partially sighted. We're probably the best we've been for 15 years + at attacking set pieces and a lot of that is down to the delivery from Ritchie. So far this season it is his one redeeming feature. No need to be a cunt if you can't understand simple arguments and also fail to actually bring up any relevant points already not covered.

This is why Rafa should really have quit after the last transfer window debacle, as memories are short in this sport. 3 months after being left with a dire squad full of Championship standard players and peanuts to spend on 8th/9th/10th choice targets who noone else wanted (since we won't compete with the likes of Swansea for wages for loanees like Abraham) and the knives are already out for him.

When I say "mediocre" I'm going by the dictionary definition of distinctly average. And I view his set pieces as average because I'm judging by what I see when it comes to technical execution of e.g. corners - I think he floats it more than he whips it, at a higher trajectory that makes it harder to score and easier to defend. Better set piece takers can whip the into an area at a trajectory/pace that causes far more problems. Stats wise I recognize that Ritchie will look good at set pieces, and because he's decent/average as opposed to being s*** at them we will continue to get the odd goal from his set pieces, but that's more because those on the end of the corners are making the most of average balls into the box, plus set piece routines have considerably improved under Rafa. My point with Ritchie's set piece assists is that I don't think they're good enough to compensate for his flaws in open play. Sort of like Ryan Taylor (who was several degrees better than Ritchie when it came to dead balls). With regards to the bold point above, I'm fairly certain if we stuck Shelvey on all set pieces we'd have a similar amount of goals from them. Sometimes when Ritchie has been taking poor corners and Shelvey is playing we've seen him take them, and they're at a similar standard if not slightly better.

Wasn't convinced with Ritchie earlier on in the season, despite him being "in form", and wanted to see more of him at this level to make a more informed opinion - so this isn't knee jerk. But imo, given the performances in the past few months (in addition to his entire career with NUFC so far), I think it'd be fair to conclude that whilst he's a very good player in the Championship, he's borderline severely lacking in the Premiership, with a couple of half decent performances and mediocre set piece assists being the few straws to clutch at that might suggest otherwise. The lack of pace is the real killer, as a winger he just can't do anything on the flanks and is overly reliant on the full back doing all the penetrative attacking for him. The lack of pace plus dribbling ability puts alot of pressure on the team as we can't exploit space or fortunate breaks, or carve out chances. Ultimately it's like nothing is coming from his flank for huge periods of a game, and all too often the entire game. On top of the lack of pace/dribbling, whilst we know he can strike a ball well and has the reputation for being a sweet hitter, he has consistently flopped good shooting and crossing opportunities. If it was the case that "yes, he's slow and won't beat players, but 3 out of 6 crosses and 1 out of 3 shots are going to be absolute pearlers" then there'd be no issue because they'd compensate for him not tearing fullbacks up or wasting counter attacking opportunities. But this entire season so far he's frequently shown that he's the opposite of clutch when it comes to making the most of decent or promising situations. If he gets into a good crossing position once in a blue moon I'm certain he'll float it in poorly, and it's more of a surprise when he does put a rare decent cross in (from either flank). To be brutally honest, I reckon he's the type of player Keegan would have ruthlessly moved on at the first opportunity, like David Kelly or Scott Sellars. Good in a lower division, heart in the right place and really does try hard, capable of decent performances in the top flight now and again, but overall just not good enough if we have any ambition. Fans would wonder and question why the sale was made, but then forget about the player when it turns out the replacement is in a different league. Whilst we have considerably worse players in the team that are a priority to replace, the thing with Ritchie and "priorities" is that this team badly needs an injection of pace and quality, neither of which Ritchie provides, and yet Ritchie is probably one of the most valuable and saleable assets we have because of this "he has genuine quality" aura. His reputation alone will mean some desperate team in the Championship or lower end of the Premiership will be willing to pay good money for him (like us with Alan Smith for example). If it's the case that we can sell to buy a winger of e.g. Townsend's calibre, then we be stupid not to cash in on Ritchie and just have Jonjo taking corners or more free kicks or something (probably slightly better at them anyway). In that situation the only reason not to is the possibility of needing him next season if we're back in the Championship.

This Barca team are utter shit. Right bunch of fannies.

Even Joselu would have finished those chances. Maybe. Actually, probably not.

As with Graham Carr, I don't think it's reasonable to criticize someone's transfer activity by just mentioning individual failures. General failure rates in the transfer market are pretty high, and I'd harbour a guess that even the best of the best, e.g. Fergie, Wenger, Guardiola, etc, have signed as many duds as they did stars, if not more. Even managers with massive budgets able to sign experienced and established top tier players from the top leagues, i.e. as close to a guarantee of success as you can normally get, consistently make bad signings. And the lower down the feeding trough you go the higher the percentage of failures because short of exceptional circumstances it's slim pickings and inherent gambles at this point, especially if we're talking about signing youngsters for the future or players with zero experience of football in this country. Whilst that doesn't mean managers and scouts should be excused for high failure rates and ridiculously wasteful spending, it does mean any criticisms need to be within context. There's no use naming individual flops Rafa has signed if it's not within the context of (a) establishing what you think a reasonable success rate in the transfer market should be, and (b)identifying what the current success rate actually is and how it measures to expectations. For example, imo Rafa's bad signings (players who outright failed here) so far would be Sels, Joselu, Manquillo, Lazaar, Hanley, and possibly J.Murphy, though he's arguably one for the future. His average signings (and by that I mean players who have done the job required of them at the point of signing) have been Gayle, Atsu, Ritchie, D.Murphy, Diame, and Gamez. Good signings (i.e. PL calibre players) have been Merino, Lejeune, Clark, and Yedlin. So that's 5 or 6 bad signings out of a possible 16, with 4 of them being good and 6 being decent, which in my books is a 62% success rate in transfers. And before we factor in prices paid, it needs to be remembered that most of these were signings made whilst in the Championship. Rafa has only had one transfer window as a Premiership team, and in that window where Ashley clearly decided he didn't want to spend as he is going to sell the club, Rafa had a ridiculously small budget (given the recent explosion in player valuations and transfer fees), and then on top of that he was duped, misled, and lied to by Ashley, Barnes and Charnley with respects to the preferred targets. Of course we over paid on paper for Murphy et al, in the most recent window. So in short, it's a tad nonsensical to say Rafa has been wasteful in the transfer market at this point in time. You'd need at least the January and Summer 2018 windows, assuming he has money to spend, to even begin to have a reasonable judgement.

Rafa has done a poor job in the transfer market, especially when the likes of Neymar, Salah and Coutinho were available and willing to come to a newly promoted Sports Direct team.

Love it - it's a bit cutthroat from Staveley to use a guy Ashley had seemingly fallen out with (re: the non payment by Ashley to Mort). Ashley must hate that Mort is the one leading negotiations for Staveley against his lot, sitting there smiling at Mike whenever Mike on his way to get some kit kats drifts past the see through office room walls they're all camped in. Staveley is like the lawyer Kobayashi from Usual Suspects, she's probably hired everyone Ashley has ever fallen out with or loved, and reveals them one by one like cards up her sleeve with veiled threats leaving helpless Mike waking up in cold sweats every night. All joking aside,it's the sort of intelligent move you'd expect of a competent business leader. Hire the lawyers who have a great deal of inside knowledge about the club, the tricks Ashley uses, and one with a partner that almost certainly has a slight grudge against Ashley.

Champagne. Now.

Normally I'd agree that Rafa's negativity would be an issue. However, I think (and hope) most of this collection of players will know that they're Championship material and yet to be proven at Premier league level. Some will know that they're flat out not good enough yet, but will have the hope that they can develop further. Others will consider themselves to be borderline good enough to be playing at this level, but will/should still recognize that the team as a whole needs more competition and to be driven by 3-4 top quality key players so that they themselves are able to perform to Premiership standards.

She could be at the training ground to inspect facilities, especially if she intends to actually run NUFC. Wish she would hurry the fuck up about it. Forget the Rafa links, just someone competent and intelligent running NUFC would be enough to be a massive improvement over what we've had in recent times. Felt like we sort of had that briefly with Chris Mort before he quit or was moved on for whatever reason (guessing some sort of dicking about by Ashley).

He has nothing to work with. Our attack is just horrific. Whichever front 4 he selects, the cold hard truth is that they're all Championship standard players who should be subs (at best) at this level. Ideally all of them will be replaced in the first team within the next year or two.

Too stationery too often last night. Wasn't really up for it imo.

Fuck sake.

Be good if Ritchie wasnt invisible in open play.