KaKa

Just now, et tu brute said:

 

We did Rafa and he was the one responsible for getting rid of Carr

Yeah, as much as I like Rafa he was not the manager to bring in under Carr, as he wants his own signings.

Ashley gave Carr a lot of power to recommend a pool of players to pick from, which Rafa was never going to go for, as he wanted to be the one directing the recruitment team and not vice versa.

Just another mess of a situation by Mike Ashley. Getting rid of Carr only to then ultimately get rid of Rafa was just utterly ridiculous.

Palace signing Edouard for £15 million is exceptional business. He's a striker we absolutely should have been bringing in for that kind of money. 

But instead, with Wilson out, we will be playing Gayle or Joelinton.

9 minutes ago, ManDoon said:

Stand by the fact Carr was actually very decent for us 

I really liked Carr man. Thought he was class. The only times he seemingly recommended signings that were poor were in circumstances where they went for options much lower down his list where there was risk involved i.e. more of a gamble e.g. Riviere.

If we had ever had a decent manager when he was here only God knows how good we could have potentially been. Even some of the players considered flops under him might have turned out much better and would have at least been decent squad players.

8 minutes ago, Optimistic Nut said:

Apart from McClaren he’s had the most backing since Souness in 2005. If he didn’t waste money or regress players with his coaching, the squad he assembled with what he’s spent might have been enough for a solid season.

Absolutely. From last summer especially, Fraser and Hendrick have done absolutely nothing, and Lewis has been really poor for him.

Like you said he also completely tanked the value of all the players that looked decent under Rafa. Schar, LeJeune, Lascelles, Longstaff, Almiron etc.

The guy has cost the club money big time. Don't think he's justified in thinking he can get what he wants at all. It serves him right.

1 minute ago, TRon said:

 

 

This is probably quite close to the truth. We've always been told that NUFC's transfer policy is fluid, if the right player comes along at the right age, we would go for it. Hamza is only 23, so the only reason I can think of for us to be saying no, is because Ashley thinks he's shit, and people at the club don't trust Bruce's judgement. 

 

Bruce still won't walk, we are stuck with him unless Ashley pulls the trigger, and we already know he will just sit on it for as long as possible hoping we fluke enough wins to stay up. 

Every window we see the links to young players with pretty decent reputations in France/Belgium/Denmark/Netherlands in particular, and they are always in that 21-23 years old range and have good reputations, but seem the sorts to need to prove themselves at a higher level first, but could potentially then go on to be sold for much more. This is what Ashley has always wanted.

The one manager we brought in that allowed the recruitment team to sign whoever was McLaren and that summer we did pretty decent business in hindsight, but the manager failed miserably and did not get the best out of the players at all. If McLaren had been anywhere near half decent we would have been doing okay by now, as I think the recruitment typically identified decent talent.

That summer we signed Mbemba, Wijnaldum, Mitrovic, Thauvin and Toney. 

Ashley sick of Bruce now too. Brings in a PFM that just wants to sign British cloggers and then he gets mad at them 

Seems like the Kamara at Marseille and Cajuste at Midtjylland were likely who Nickson and his lot recommended when Bruce asked for a DM, but he's wanted Choudhury for ages now and thought he could convince Ashley with his sucking up and grovelling. Unlucky! 

So here we are yet again ... with another manager that does not want to sign the types of players Ashley prefers to bring in. Now we are left with a very shaky squad for the season AGAIN!

Hopefully this leads to a huge blow up and Bruce gets flung out on his arse. At least let something good come of this please.

1 minute ago, TRon said:

Luke Egghead's reputation on the line if Bruce can't get the Leicester reject in after wasting two transfer periods trying to make it happen. They don't even want him there, how hard can it be?

The club is just so pathetically inept with transfers 

That Telegraph article saying Bruce's mood had darkened over transfer failings was very amusing. Guy really thought his sucking up to Ashley was going to continue to pay off with whatever signings he wanted

8 minutes ago, nbthree3 said:

"It's all kicking off" is a stretch

Absolutely shameless. It's such a basic move 

Bruce has seemingly been after this guy since he came in. I'm genuinely fascinated to see how he ends up performing. I know he's pretty aggressive and strong in the tackle, just not sure if he adds much to our ability to pass the ball and build up play, which continues to be an issue. Going to be very interesting.

Yeah, you may well be right. Lingard has always seemed to have decent spells followed by pretty dry ones too. If he was younger they probably pull the trigger but he's getting older now and likely would command a lot more in wages too.

West Ham are not messing about. 

Looks like they opted for Vlasic ahead of Lingard due to the age I imagine, be interesting to see how he gets on. Lingard was so good for them last season, can't help but feel they should have tied up a deal for him, seemed a perfect fit in their team, but haven't seen much of Vlasic recently, maybe he does really well also.

38 minutes ago, Yorkie said:

 

You must've missed the bit where Southampton's attacker smashed one over the bar from two yards out.

Yeah, that was a shocking miss 

But despite all those misses in the first half and taking a 2-1 lead in the 90th minute, we still couldn't even win a match under those circumstances, at home!

As many others have already said the luck has run out. Indications of this every week now. If Bruce isn't canned by Christmas we'll be going down for sure.

17 minutes ago, Super Duper Branko Strupar said:

 

Bielsa will have him aal awa the shop. He'll not stop running all year I bet. Will create opportunities for them just doing that despite not being overly adept with the ball at his feet. 

I agree think he's going to look really good in that team and will fit their system.

5 minutes ago, Joey Linton said:

Agreed. There were some positives. We can't turn this around overnight. 

Seemed to be a weird arrangement where he was bought by both Barcelona and Betis (with each paying half the fee) and him then going to Betis initially, with Barcelona then having an option to sign him outright from Betis this summer for 6 million Euros I think it was.

Just now, Ben said:

If Bruce does leave this season (I know) is it a given that Jones will take over or will they go for someone like Howe? 

Pretty sure they'd just let Jones take charge.

Considering Bruce is very likely going to take us down anyway, quite honestly, they might as well just put Jones in charge.

Think Jones is more likely to figure something out, and even if he doesn't and we suffer the same fate as we would have under Bruce, at least we won't have to suffer hearing the drivel Bruce spouts every single week.

6 minutes ago, nbthree3 said:

Tbf they had a red card really early on, same as in the Leicester 9-0. But to lose twice by that scoreline

This is true, and so I'm sure our bunch of clowns will settle for 6-0 instead.

Well ... that's if we aren't in such disarray that we get an early red ourselves and suffer a similar fate.

Rafa looking at Maitland-Niles from Arsenal. Such a talented athlete, couldn't think of a better manager to help him sharpen up his decision making and positioning on the pitch. Would be very interesting to see how he develops if he goes there.

17 minutes ago, Ben said:

Has Ole ever annihilated a team as a manager ? 

They beat Southampton 9 - 0 at home last season man

We'll get annihilated and he'll come out after bloviating about Cristiano Ronaldo and what a top player he is and how Man United spent a lot of money and we cannot compete with top clubs.

He'll also then make excuses for how early it is and excuse our bottom 3 position by then, by comparing us to Arsenal and saying how we are doing well by keeping up with them in the bottom three as they are a top club.

15 minutes ago, Froggy said:

Unbelievable Pogba is being played as a CDM here after getting 5 assists in 2 games.

Thought it would be more of a 4-3-3 to give both Pogba and Fernandes some chances to be involved in forward play, think that would have worked well. I agree Pogba playing so deep is neither good offensively or defensively.

Arsenal keep taking Ls.

Spurs top now with them rock bottom 

1 minute ago, et tu brute said:

I disagree I think this is his system. The way Bruce was just casually walking around on Wednesday whilst Jones was in the middle of the players was a tell tale sign for me. 

Go back and read over the Jones thread when he first came in.

We switched to 4 at the back and a diamond midfield with Almiron in the number 10 just behind Wilson and ASM. We pressed higher up the pitch and were using the ball much better too.

Jones was getting a lot of praise at the time and I think it annoyed Bruce. Once safety looked a certainty we seemed to switch back to the 5-3-2 Bruce had been trying to get going beforehand and we've now started stinking it up again.

1 hour ago, Cronky said:

 

Hayden is a cross between a centre back and a central midfielder. Choudhury has the sort of quick movements, energy and agility of a DM like Kante, though obviously not in the same league. Unlike Hayden, even when he gets beaten, he can recover to put in another challenge. Our defence doesn't get the right protection, and he can do a decent job for us there.

Fair enough 

Just now, et tu brute said:

So why was he given the team talk on Wednesday and he was the one instructing Joelington. 

All I know is the system he put in place when he first came in, and that was serving us really well has been completely ditched. He's now seemingly been relegated to being one of the Steve's, surprised he hasn't changed his name yet, and so I imagine he's following whatever instructions Bruce has given him and the other goons.