afar

Absolutely it's all about fit and situations with managers. Rafa is exactly the manager we need right now.

This is the only window of opportunity for a takeover for them. I think these consortiums are only interested in PL clubs. Villa were the exception to the rule there because of their heritage and they are in the words of their fans "the biggest club ever to be relegated from the PL". Anyway if they don't get bought out before the January window, there's no way any sane person would bank on them staying up assuming the level of investment from Short continues to be woefully inadequate. Mind you entrusting Moyes with more money to waste on ill fits is a risky business. Strange how he generally bought pretty well at Everton.

Trying to change the subject as this thread is getting somewhat side tracked into the world of nonsense. To have a perfect window, I still think we need to focus on getting up (unless come Jan we are like 20 points clear at the top or something), with that in mind, I would like to see Judge brought in, with Will Hughes and a more defensive midfielder to replace Tiote in the squad and provide competition for Colback's spot. I don't think we need to spend a whole lot unless we get some long term injuries or form has nose dived between now and then.

I'm ashamed to admit, I too question Rafa after the sluggish start to the season. What a fucking idiot I am, never again, the man has forgotten more about the game than I will ever know.

I know, optimism and reality eating away at my inner pessimism. When we are 500 points ahead with 2 games to go I may move to a 10

Their scouting department has been horrific, no wonder they are a mess financially as well as on the pitch. We may have had a flawed plan to transfers prior to Rafa, but at least there was a plan there, that financially worked out pretty well. With Sunderland scatter gun approach is the only way to sum it up, add in a few loans and that's their plan, if you can call it that.

Honestly, is this the fate of every football fan? Me in 2045: "The last decent left back we signed was Pistone followed by Didier Domi!" Unfortunately it is, I still have nightmares about Wayne Fereday, think Imre Varadi was vastly under rated, thought we should have given John Robertson and Dave Beasant more time and think Kevin Dillon wasn't given a fair crack because he was born in Sunderland. The players of your youth are etched into your brain for life.

This new nonsense that they have invented that our squad is full of championship crap, is just another outright lie. The only signing we've made that you could throw that remark at is Murphy and he's our 4th Choice centre forward who's barely played, they haven't even got 4 fowards themselves and zero depth at that position ! Hayden and Hanley are the only two in our squad that don't have PL experience. Hayden is going to be a star, no doubt in my mind on that one. Hanley is a back up CB, that under Rafa could be an astute signing for us. I may have my black and white specs on here but, I don't think our squad is any worse than the likes of Bournemouth, Swansea, Stoke, Watford, Hull, Boro, Burnley, WBA and of course those dirty Mackems.

34 points from From 15 games is way better than I thought we would be at at this point (1/3 or so of the way through the season). We are on course for North of the 100 point mark. Before a ball had been kicked I thought around November/December we would satrt to show what we are made of, with our depth in the squad, smaller teams would start to fall away as the schedule started to take bite. A good couple of months now and we'll be standing good, it's already going to be tough for at least two teams to catch us and a shocking run of form, akin to McClaren's Derby for us not to at very least make the playoffs now.

It's really not like. He's not brilliant, but that squad is absolutely shocking. I don't even think our fans can appreciate the level of crap they have. Remember they've relied heavily on loans over the past few years, that short term policy is well and truly catching up to them now. Looking closer at their so called star players, Pickford: The kid is 21 or so, for a keeper that's young, he's shown like a lot of young keepers that he's a good shot stopper, but his all round game still needs work. There is no evidence yet that he's any better than some other 21 year old you throw in to face 20 plus shots a game. Defoe, was playing MLS, when they signed him. He scores goals but really his strike rate is nothing spectactular, he's scored 23 goals in 56 PL appearances for them, over a 38 game PL season that's 15.6 goals ! It's not fantastic for your sole goalscorer. Borini is never fit and only really plays well against us. Kirchoff is made of glass too, and even when he has been fit this season, he's been average at best. Kone, is awful, I've seen nothing in him to suggest he was just a player in great form towards the end of last season under a manager who knew how to utilise his limited skill set. PVA, way better going forward than in defence and he's just average, no better than Janmaat or Yedlin going forward. I'm stuggling now to think who else they could class as PL quality let alone a star in that team. Fat Sam did a good job buying what he needed in that Jan window and keeping his gameplan simple that did not expose the limitations of his squad. He knew he needed serious money to elevate them anywhere above the 17th position they strive towards, when that money was obviously not forthcoming I'm sure he had some choice words with the owner and when England came calling, he seemed to just give up on fixing anything. Hell it would only make the job he did look much better should someone else come in and try to get anything out of that squad. The manager and owner left a mess of a squad but Moyes has to share some of the blame too, firstly for being too desperate to take a job in the PL that he didn't do his due diligence and see what he was getting himself into. Then he was just awful in the transfer window, buying players he knew from Manure reserves and other players who had no pedigree to them at all, seem ill fits and over paid for them. He compounds that by telling everyone in August they are in a relegation fight, high fives for realism, kick in the head for putting perspective signing off and demotivating fanbase and players ! He's set his teams up wrong at every opportunity and has shown to be as dour and unmotivational as his demeanor suggest his is. If they weren't such a loathsome lot, I would feel a great deal of sympathy for them, but that fanbase really does deserve what they are getting right now, long may it continue.

I have no doubt he will next season if we go up, in fact I would not be shocked in the slightest if he's back in a Necastle shirt come the start of 2017/18.

He's so going to ruin another promising career isn't he ? It's amazing how the bloke is still in employment, those little runs of 3 or 4 wins always seem to save him and pull the wool over peoples eyes, his mismanagement of players is second to none.

Absolutely, he was dreadful in that game and had started the season a little sloppy. Rafa doesn't suffer fools, and he'll have to work his way back into the team, Clark and Lascelles are playing very well and there is no need to change that right now.

They lie to themselves to try and make themselves feel better. It's as simple as that. They know what is just around the corner for them and us... The whole Rafa sent us down crap they spout is so factless it's beyond comprehension. He had 10 games to sort out the horrific mess that McClaren had left him. We went the last 6 games unbeaten, including beating Spuds 5-1 and a draw at Liverpool, both teams were in form and had something to play for. Unlike the disgraceful show Everton put on at their stadium , which confirmed their safety. The fat git was appointed in October FFS, he had practically all season to sort out their mess and still only just hit 17th. Credit though where it is due, he bought well for the short term in January (those same signings are looking pretty suspect this season, one too fat to play, another oft injured and only average when he was fit and the third has probably been the worst CB in the PL this season) and their run of form in the run in was incredible, especially when compared to their form over the rest of the season. This is why they are so anxious to get his underhand dealing back. Shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a football club again in my opinion, a one year ban from all forms should be the minimum he got.

I'm staggered by this thread. Seriously, I don't think the reality has hit them just how downright awful their squad is. There are weak players everywhere, Pickford is getting a lot of praise, but it's the Rob Elliot effect, get stuck been a terrible defence make a few highlight saves and suddenly your player of the season, his all round game looks suspect to me from the small amount I've seen of him, that's understandable though as he's only young. Defoe is 105 and quite frankly showing it at the moment, he's their only goal threat, that's why everyone thinks he's so great, but he's not, he's really is not, just the only player in that team that can score. Goal at the weekend was a penalty. The rest of them, honestly it is about as weak as I have ever seen in the PL. I read 4 clubs were going to pay them 10 million for Kone, ffs do these clubs not watch the games ? It's all about how they finished last season with one more point than us, so naturally they are a better team. Long may their heads stay firmly planted in the sand hopefully the management and ownership think that when the 3 or so players (which is now according to them half a team) return from injuries they'll be fine. We had a better team and squad then them last year but were managed by an absolute kretin for the bulk of the season, while they employed some 17th place specialist in October and had teams like Everton rolling over for them in the run in. Since then they've actually weakened their squad in the window, they've bought absolutely no quality, lost the key loans they had, while we have managed to get rid of the deadwood, replaced the lost players with quality and filled out our squad. Our players are getting way better coached and are in way better condition. Yes we are playing in a weaker division but I have no doubt in my mind that if you swap situations we would be doing better than 2 points from 10 games in the PL with our team while they wouldn't be anywhere near our 34 from 15, with the shambles of a squad they've put together. Crossing paths at the end of the season, if it happens, will be so sweet, lets hope nothing changes between now and then. http://www.readytogo.net/smb/threads/this-place-really-does-have-an-inferiority-complex.1292041/

True right now but under Rafa, I have zero doubts he will become that, I'm pretty sure the change in Clark since he joined us has a lot to do with the coaching he's recieving. I've certainly not seen anything from John Stones to suggest he is worth the money Man City paid and that's your benchmark right now for young English CBs.

I bet it's us older folks that are lower on the scale. Think we've been beaten to death over our lives following this team to take nothing for granted. If I were a betting man though, far safer bet to put money on us winning promotion rather than other bets such as Sunderland going down, Man City winning the PL or Barca winning the CL. Outside of Celtic winning the SPL, PSG winning the French title or Bayern winning in Germany , I can't think of a safer way to invest your fiver on us finishing top 2.

They are putting a lot of stock in the players that are due to return from injury, that are going to turn around their season. I guess they are talking mostly about Borini (who seems to play best against us, unlucky again Sunderland ), Kirchoff (who was great in the run in for them last season, but I remember his debut, which was one of the worst I had ever seen) and Catermole (who will given them some bite in midfield, they need to get the possession numbers sorted but he's such a limited player, relying on him as your saviour is crazy). They need a big January window, need suddenly for their players to buy into what Moyes is trying to do and the manager needs to buy a hell of a lot smarter than he did in the summer, they talk about him not getting much time or money but we recruited better players in the championship, hell even Villa brought in better players than them. He had more than enough time to evaluate what was missing.

Yeah I think 21 point gap, even at this stage will be too big a gap for them to breach They'll be top of the table in terms of fans though, everybody thinks so I think whoever puts together the stats for these football games needs to be sacked. According to Moyes they stuck with Arsenal in the first half and deservedly equalised in the 2nd. the 66% to 34% possession and the 21 shots to 3 in favour of Arsenal, is obviously wrong because surely Moyes isn't talking out of his arse !! http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/37737719

Need to look at the fixture list but may move up to an 8 after today

Crap, nervy last few minutes.

Dangerous place for a free kick

Don't want to temp any fate here, but wasn't it around this time in the promotion season that Carroll started to find form ?

Wow Brighton. Norwich season imploding a bit at the moment. Not a bad thing for us but Brighton on fire.

Crazy that 5 now. Fulham could be a good bet to make at least the playoffs. At some point Huddersfield were gonna start to run out of steam, they've done remarkably well to keep up their form up until now. This is the point in the season it starts to get tough for clubs with smaller squads.