STM

I genuinely wonder whether he had any intention of selling the club or it was just a way of deflecting attention. Hunt him down and kill him.

Wonder if Rafa's January 20th deadline was all down to MA having the same deadline with PCP.

That's me done like. Waste of my time, money and heart.

Just don't believe anything anymore. Thanks Mike you cunt.

Does this mean that Benitez finally knows his budget?

He's the second last person I want us to sell.

They are all scrambling around ringing their "sources". "We understand that no new bid has been made and negotiations are on going. Both sides remain hopeful of an agreement." Yawn.

We need to avoid a 8/9 game losing streak like we did in the first half of the season. More draws, less losses. More consistency, results wise.

I had us finishing 12th, god knows how. Genuinely thought I'd been tough on us. Had Swansea, Southampton and Huddersfield going down. With 34 points the target.

About as good as we could hope for. I think it depends on how it starts for him at Stoke. They have essentially replaced Mark Hughes with Mark Hughes MK2.

Could be more.

Why's Neymar's name cropping up so often? Is he sick of playing in the shite French league already?

Jesus, it's like a different sport.

We can't sign someone we don't want, never mind someone we do!

At a guess, wins against Bournemouth and Watford away, West Brom and Southampton at home. That would take us to 35 points. We will certainly draw a couple too. I know the first half of the season was poor against the top clubs but I'd be surprised if we didn't take one scalp. Arsenal at home perhaps? Maybe Chelsea at home but that's the last game so we don't want to even go there.

How can you say the teams below us are far better? It's like me saying that we are better than the teams above us.

I actually think we will win a couple on the road and a couple at home. Taking us close to what we need.

Wilshere must go to the world cup. He's our only midfielder who resembles a footballer.

Good. Arsenal's standards have dropped massively mind.

Kenedy Atsu Murphy would be pacey and creative.

This forum is better with HTT in it, than without, but I can't say I've agreed with him much this last couple of days.

I thought we did? Rafa started playing 2 strikers and we started getting beat? We've gone back to 451 and started putting results together.

So they just decided to play that way or Swansea forced us into playing that way then is that it? I was there and saw Rafa telling the players to keep it, Lascelles telling the keeper to keep a hold of it, Rafa instructing Perez to go deeper. As soon as the whistle went we dropped back deeper and stopped pressing. Again this isn’t a one off, we usually start that way at home, only we started that way second half this time. It’s s if because we didn’t score first half Rafa decided a different approach. Again this sums up Rafa. He didn’t trust the team to keep going in the same vein and getting reward so decided he’d try a different way, a way which let Swansea back into it and to take the lead. Then he had to make a change which did work, but by then it was a case of oh well, a point is better than a loss. He didn't trust them to keep going the same way? What are you on about? We played a very compact shape first half and they never looked like scoring from anything other than a set piece. The argument that Rafa wanted to make us more defensive after half time is just mind bogglingly stupid.

Naa, thats totally naive. And almost sounds like a Rafa infatuation. Collectively we they are responsible as a whole.I have heard Benitez cant rember the fixture but admits he got it wrong. We could have done more yesterday, we didnt, but we also didnt lose. I never said hes perfect. Just slightly more perfect than most of our fans. HTT, calm down man. I like your posts, I just happen to disagree with you on this one.

Most of the points we have lost are down to the lack of quality in the squad, not Rafa's tactics. We'd be in Swansea's position without Rafa's tactics.