AlanSkÃrare

Not even a sign of method, system or plan. It's hit and hope and trying to motivate the players. No way he'll survive the whole season.

Predictably no sign of any concept, approach, idea, game plan and substitutions were completely insane. Defence looked a mess, lots of players will regress quickly now that they aren't drilled by Rafa.

So...apart from Krafth, Charnley was at SJP all day today to try and complete deals for a striker and a midfielder for tomorrow, sounds as if both could get done. Don’t know the names though.

He's having his medical today and signing a four year deal as reported by my colleague at Expressen. Nickson (described as a "very sympathetic and nice guy") has been keen to get him from what I know. NUFC thought this was done a few weeks ago but Amiens changed their stance on the transfer fee, so it looked off just a few days ago. Bruce supposedly got involved himslef late on and pushed for it to be done in the past few days. All in all, it's Nickson's idea to sign him though. Krafth is a decent enouhg player, very down to earth and humble – but he offers no real edge if I'm being honest. He's been doing ok when he's stood in for Mikael Lustig at RB in the Swedish national team and done reasonably well in France, but not been able to force Lustig out of the starting eleven. He should take Yedlin out as his positional awareness and tactical orientation is a lot better, he's a much more accomplished footballer, but considering how many teams are using wide players with pace, I'm a bit worried about how he'll get along.

Late twist re Krafth after weeks of arguing about the fee and deal looking dead just the other day. Understand he’ll sign before deadline.

Told the Emil Krafth deal is more or less off now. Amiens have moved goalposts in terms of fee when NUFC and the player himself thought the deal was done.

As is Graham Potter.

I think Emil Krafth from Amiens is very, very close to signing.

Lyon fans seem to mainly despise his football.

They didn't. It's well known that Rafa approached them. They just said "Yes" when we were staring relegation down the barrel and he offered his services. My mistake, of course, what I meant was them considering him with all that he would eventually bring into the equation.

No, I just think they are incompetent. I think they genuinely thought Rafa was gonna bend and stay even after he said he wouldn’t. I agree with this. Incompetence, but with a side order of "if they hire a new manager he will want funds for actual players". And that would ruin the point of this entire smokescreen. Of course they didn't want Rafa to stay, he's a nightmare for Ashley because he wants to progress and his whole tenure turned into a long illustration of what Ashley is doing. He needed to revert to his old model as quickly as possible, i.e. dragging someone from the lower divisions who'd be grateful for the opportunity and not make a fuss. I expect him to be given quite a bit of transfer money (as with McClaren) as that's the only thing that can save us from relegation. Martinez and all the other names that have been thrown around are purely, solely to make this seem as an appropriate recruitment process. What's fascinating is that they even approached Rafa from the beginning. This is the way they want it to work.

Absolutely. I find this baffling. I work for a newspaper myself and I cover football, and I do a fair bit of investigative reporting. I would understand the hesitancy to publish something investigative (i.e. damaging for the club or individuals associated with it) if it wasn’t well sourced, hastily put together and subsequently could mean no access to anything within the club. But none of that should be an issue. 1. It’s been 12 years. There’s plenty of time for a journalist to investigate Ashley and his running of NUFC, build relationships, dig for documentation or get ahold of material. With time on your hands, you should be able to build a comprehensive case that portrays and illustrates how he’s enriched himself and his companies on NUFC’s behalf. 2. There’s no access anyway. I’ve worked in England and covered Premier League. The way it’s regulated is a piss take, players are protected, managers and others speak on their own terms. The same when I’ve been around the England team, it’s set up in a way that doesn’t exactly encourage critical reporting. When someone talks, it’s most often not through the club anyway. In other words, I can’t see the logic in withholding a relationship with the club (especially not Newcastle). Press conference quotes? Match reports? Quotes from Jamal Lascelles and Paul Dummett saying they’re excited for the League Cup tie with Luton? Nick them off others. 3. The lack of critical and investigative reporting on football in general, Newcastle United in particular, presents a golden opportunity brand-wise. From a reader’s perspective (fans) it’s hugely appreciated when irregularities are discovered and presented. There’s so much to gain from it, and it serves one of the core purposes of journalism. Put money and time into it and you’ll be rewarded long term. However, I don’t think this sort of criticism should be aimed at reporters. It’s a strategic question, most probably dealt with by editors and others higher up the hierarchy. Still, with NUFC being such an obvious case, it’s unbelievable that no investigative reporter from another desk, at another newspaper than The Chronicle, has had a real go.

It’s classic from Ashley, getting the other party to portray him as a willing seller as we approach the end of this nonsense. Still don’t believe he wants rid. He’s used a proposed takeover to direct focus elsewhere many, many times before and it’s been successful in terms of him managing the chaos his model provokes. “This time is different”? Why would it be? He knew a long time ago Rafa was trouble as he mobilized the fan base . He needed something to get in the way of that break up. These people seem to be perfect. As was Kenyon. This isn’t how takeovers happen.

Obviously impossible to fault Perez for wanting better after his last season and the absolute shit show this club is. Nobody in their right mind stays, but what’s more troublesome is feeling this enforced numbness to all things NUFC under Ashley starting to crack. I can’t take this, it’s fucking excruciating. Ripping Rafa and everything he meant out of the club, then fucking Leicester cherry picking our best players, release clause or not, while we descend into some psychotic nightmare. It’s torture.

Can't stand the thought of losing Longstaff, Perez, Rafa and sit with Ashley when the season starts. Yet it's a very likely scenario.

Keep coming back to this being Ashley. It only ends one way.

Carroll was tearing the whole country apart in 2010. He never reached those heights again, but he was the best young player the club has fielded in a long, long time. Longstaff could well surpass that within the next year, but not after 9 games.

Amazing how Rafa is even considering working with these people.

Absolutely no reason to sell him whatsoever.

Matty Pattison or Alan O'Brien. Both played under Roeder.

I can see this going two ways: Rafa stays and gets minimum to spend, or he's off and we'll see Alex McLeish coming in with £120m being splashed to compensate for his inadequacies.

The frustrating part is that they haven't been forced to work particularly hard for this. We've defended decent enough but not starting Ki or Shelvey is mind-boggling as we handicap ourselves in games like these when nobody can open them up on the ball. It keeps coming back because we keep giving it away with narrow, poor passing.

Pep didn't really say anything about him, did he? Seen the headlines but seriously can't see Longstaff's name mentioned, just Pep talking about our "holding midfielders" being a problem in a passage.

Reading the stuff about Wise etc it seems as if Sherwood could well replace Rafa then.

Naturally anything but Ashley is worth the risk, but with Keyon we’d get someone who has deep Jorge Mendes links and has been involved in quite serious third-party-ownership setups. You’d probably want to be a bit careful about whose purposes the club would be used for.