Conjo

What about hockle on a cunt, Cunt? http://i.imgur.com/PvDUpO8.png

Too desperate to score atm.

Holy shit, what a goal!! Get him signed permanently!!!!

Is it? I thought to myself that I kind of understand where they are now when I saw their line-up. Was of the impression that their squad was better. That is nothing special, some decent players but none of them seem to be the kind that controls matches. Kind of like a team of 11 Winjaldums.

Rafa, the coaches, Joselus teammates and some supporters. If Shelvey see that Mitrovic is being picked ahead of Joselu when Joselu out performs him in training, maybe he too will put in less effort because he knows he will get picked anyway. Lascelles see that Shelvey and Mitro are picked ahead of Joselu and Merino/Hayden and puts in less effort etc etc. Joselu gets angry that he is not picked and stops making any effort because why should he if he isn't getting picked anyway. Poor training results in poor match performances and we go down. One of the few advantages we have this season is fighting attitude and team spirit. I don't see why Rafa would risk spoiling that in order to accommodate one player. I wonder how much it helped team morale to see a striker picked every week that never seemed to trouble a keeper. I would assume it was a feeling of collective responsibility that nobody did good enough rather than players pointing at individuals. I’m inclined to think that team morale with an extra six points in the bag would be a tad higher than it is now. I am willing to bet when a player looks at their pay packet at the end of the season if we go down they may not take the simplistic view that you have. I’ve never heard the likes of Alex Ferguson say Give me the player who runs around in training but can’t hit a barn door on Saturday afternoon because its good for morale. FFS. Do you honestly think that if Ferguson or any top manager was staring relegation in the face they wouldn’t use every resource at their disposal to try to avoid it? It made no sense to get rid of Mitrovic and persist with the others up front. Even less if the reason was he didn’t train hard enough. And then to panic and bring in a player with what could be a long term injury? I have no clue man.

Rafa, the coaches, Joselus teammates and some supporters. If Shelvey see that Mitrovic is being picked ahead of Joselu when Joselu out performs him in training, maybe he too will put in less effort because he knows he will get picked anyway. Lascelles see that Shelvey and Mitro are picked ahead of Joselu and Merino/Hayden and puts in less effort etc etc. Joselu gets angry that he is not picked and stops making any effort because why should he if he isn't getting picked anyway. Poor training results in poor match performances and we go down. One of the few advantages we have this season is fighting attitude and team spirit. I don't see why Rafa would risk spoiling that in order to accommodate one player. I wonder how much it helped team morale to see a striker picked every week that never seemed to trouble a keeper. I would assume it was a feeling of collective responsibility that nobody did good enough rather than players pointing at individuals. I’m inclined to think that team morale with an extra six points in the bag would be a tad higher than it is now. I am willing to bet when a player looks at their pay packet at the end of the season if we go down they may not take the simplistic view that you have. I’ve never heard the likes of Alex Ferguson say Give me the player who runs around in training but can’t hit a barn door on Saturday afternoon because its good for morale. FFS.

Rafa, the coaches, Joselus teammates and some supporters. If Shelvey see that Mitrovic is being picked ahead of Joselu when Joselu out performs him in training, maybe he too will put in less effort because he knows he will get picked anyway. Lascelles see that Shelvey and Mitro are picked ahead of Joselu and Merino/Hayden and puts in less effort etc etc. Joselu gets angry that he is not picked and stops making any effort because why should he if he isn't getting picked anyway. Poor training results in poor match performances and we go down. One of the few advantages we have this season is fighting attitude and team spirit. I don't see why Rafa would risk spoiling that in order to accommodate one player. I wonder how much it helped team morale to see a striker picked every week that never seemed to trouble a keeper. I would assume it was a feeling of collective responsibility that nobody did good enough rather than players pointing at individuals.

Rafa, the coaches, Joselus teammates and some supporters. If Shelvey see that Mitrovic is being picked ahead of Joselu when Joselu out performs him in training, maybe he too will put in less effort because he knows he will get picked anyway. Lascelles see that Shelvey and Mitro are picked ahead of Joselu and Merino/Hayden and puts in less effort etc etc. Joselu gets angry that he is not picked and stops making any effort because why should he if he isn't getting picked anyway. Poor training results in poor match performances and we go down. One of the few advantages we have this season is fighting attitude and team spirit. I don't see why Rafa would risk spoiling that in order to accommodate one player.

Fixed your post, but point still stands. The "doesn't suit the system" argument is something Mitrovic have said. For the greater good and team atmosphere I 100% support Benitez that he does not select people that are not performing in training simply based on ability. Imagine if all our most talented players stopped giving a fuck in training because they know they will get picked anyway. We've seen this before, and we'd already be down this season. I am very frustrated with Mitro because I like him as a player and person (based on what I know at least) and want to see him do great here. Suck it up and bust a gut in training, engage with Benitez to discuss how he wants to use him and try and follow his advices. Im sure Benitez is contacting Mitro after each match to give him some feedback on how his positioning would be even more optimal if he ran in 1cm longer leaps etc, while also congratulating him on his performance.

This

He'll be a big miss. End of an era for PFMs. Not as long as Allardyce and Moyes have jobs.

Both of you are correct

Basically we should just bin Rafa then. If it is fair that he isn't allowed to buy players of a higher value until he can prove to Ashley that the players of lower value he allows Rafa to purchase is as good as the ones that are valued higher, then why even bother spending more if we get the same for less?

It's pretty simple. If Rafa didn't have any integrity, Mitrovic would have been ahead of Joselu this season. Mitrovic was/is not being left out due to on pitch discipline issues. He is being left out due to lacklusture attitude to training between games. Whether that ends up hurting us in the end is left to see, but I believe Rafa has made the right choice in showing all the other players that what they do in training is rewarded. Even if we had better results short term, the attitude that it doesn't really matter what you do in traning as long as you are the better player will most likely have worse long term effect. I struggle to see how anyone can justify Joselu being a better player than Mitrovic, but I also struggle to see how anyone can be advocating using Mitro ahead of Joselu based on the information we have.

Oh lookie the cunt has actually scored a goal. I'd like 70k a week to score a goal once a year. Scored in his last match too.

Watched the taped game. Stopped watching at 1-2 just knew they would get one more. Fucking dissapointing.... Up until the goal we were so much better than Bournemouth.

Alan Oliver

Im in the keep him at all costs camp. The transfer fee (and only the transfer fee, nothing else) might be allocated to new players but that will as usual also have to include wages so we can at best get in a replacement that might or might not be as good, or we can get in 2 or 3 mediocre players to try and strengthen the whole squad who are unlikely to be good enough anyway.

Setting himself up for a "will rise again"-reference, either for WBA or himself, whomever drops first.

Wages, old players not delivering what they have paid for and young players not living up to their potential.

Random thought unrelated to anything being discussed, but I thought it was weird how Dyer was explaining and standing up for the "kid". Dyer was what, 19-20 at the time, and Bassedas was 29 and an Argentinian international player Don't know why, but that annoyed me a bit.

Not really. Fat Sam was manager then, right? He had a history of prolonging careers, so its no stranger than Hierro, Jay-Jay, Campo, Djorkaeff, Speed etc. at Bolton.

The first reply Fair play, that is really funny. Aye that's class Liked this one better

Im still impressed that the term managerial merry-go-round was invented by someone on this forum.