merlin

If Rafa can't make a decent LB out of this lad, nobody can but my money is on him emerging as a genuine LB competitor by Christmas....he has genuine attacking ability with the ability to cross on the run with his left foot, but defensive side needs lots of work If I'm wrong, he'll be on his bike during the Jan window.

Revised to an 8 and this is as high as I'll go this early in the season. This is also based on being hard to beat rather than us being a top side...yet.

An excellent professional performance away from home against a side who have been a hoodoo in the past. Derby were very poor but we never had to get out of second gear to get a result. Defence looks strong and Lascelles is so far justifying my choice of him as potential player of the season. Ritchie a class above and all the side showed a great willingness to track back and tackle, which is something which was sadly lacking in previous years. We look a side constructed to achieve what we need, which is promotion back to the PL this season - as I have said before, I cannot see some of these players surviving a return to the PL if Rafa has his way in the transfer market but we DO have a sound base to work on. Great strike for the goal and all credit to Gouffran who has had a difficult time at SJP, some of it down to poor positioning by his managers. Although the second goal looked a mess, it showed commitment from Yedlin to get into the box so late on and that sort of commitment is what is needed to achieve promotion from this league. Well done to all and now we need at least a point from QPR, a game I believe will be more difficult than this one was.

Don't get complacent - there WILL be shocks along the way but we should make it in the end.

Rafa's almost unrivalled experience and success is showing itself for all to see now - we are far from a great side, but he is getting the best out of the players at his disposal and although there will be upsets along the way, I fully expect his first full season to end with promotion. Not taking anything for granted but we look a professionally assembled TEAM rather than a motley collection of individuals. Just hope Ashley gives him the maximum support when and if we go back up because he will make NUFC a force to be reckoned with.

Agreed - think back to 1988(if you are old enough)and remember how the SJP crowd turned on the old board at the Coventry game when they were resisting SJH's takeover bid - those fans with fire in their bellies have mostly gone to be replaced by apathetic accepters of second rate stuff. Cannot believe how they just accepted that 6-0 stuffing(the worst at home for 82 years)by Liverpool just after a 3-0 home defeat by the Mackems, and justified it by saying they were supporting the team and not the regime... Pathetic.

A win in this game would really underline the club's intentions to win promotion this season and strike fear into our rivals. It won't be easy and we have a poor record there but its there to be won. The following game at QPR is also a real tough one too so not losing either would be quite acceptable for me.

You are 100% right - I was at the game and his goal was, without doubt, the best I've ever seen for power of shot over such a distance ; if I remember correctly, Mark Wallington was in the Leicester goal and he was still diving in mid-air when Supermac's incredible 35 yarder was in the back of the net. The crowd was simply stunned and there was at least a second's silence before an eruption of wild celebration. The saddest thing is that no cameras were there to witness it all and the goal came as a result of a great move involving 4 players from our own penalty area after a Leicester corner, Nattrass, Bruce, Mickey Burns(who jumped over the diagonal cross after a shout from Macdonald)and Supermac himself. Macdonald was one of the club's greatest-ever CFs, fantastic pace, power of shot, lethal with his left foot and almost as dangerous on his right by the time he left us as well as being great in the air..brave too, as his collision with Ray Clemence proved during his home league debut v Liverpool, where he scored that famous hat-trick. Shearer was a better leader of the line, but for excitement Macdonald just edges it for me because of his amazing pace. A great player who gave us many moments of excitement even though we failed to win anything in the 70s despite 2 Cup Finals although he spoke too brashly on many occasions. I apologize if I have duplicated some of my comments from 7 years ago, but I maintain that its worth hearing again and many newer contributors to the site will not have read them unless they have been through the whole thread.

You are 100% right - I was at the game and his goal was, without doubt, the best I've ever seen for power of shot over such a distance ; if I remember correctly, Mark Wallington was in the Leicester goal and he was still diving in mid-air when Supermac's incredible 35 yarder was in the back of the net. The crowd was simply stunned and there was at least a second's silence before an eruption of wild celebration. The saddest thing is that no cameras were there to witness it all and the goal came as a result of a great move involving 4 players from our own penalty area after a Leicester corner, Nattrass, Bruce, Mickey Burns(who jumped over the diagonal cross after a shout from Macdonald)and Supermac himself. Macdonald was one of the club's greatest-ever CFs, fantastic pace, power of shot, lethal with his left foot and almost as dangerous on his right by the time he left us as well as being great in the air..brave too, as his collision with Ray Clemence proved during his home league debut v Liverpool, where he scored that famous hat-trick. Shearer was a better leader of the line, but for excitement Macdonald just edges it for me because of his amazing pace. A great player who gave us many moments of excitement even though we failed to win anything in the 70s despite 2 Cup Finals although he spoke too brashly on many occasions.

True to a large extent although even Westwood & Co didn't get the club relegated twice in 7 years...! Ashley is hardly a breath of fresh air but he has more money than McKeag & Westwood...neither he nor they can yet approach the way the club was run between 1992 and 1997 when Sir John Hall and KK were in charge.

Ashley, like any other person, will only deserve forgiveness for past 'sins' as long as he is as good as his word and 'repents'...this does not necessarily mean spending all his fortune to buy players but by letting Rafa get on with the job and backing him as far as is possible in both the transfer market and club policy decided by the manager on the playing side. Nobody knows what Ashley really thinks but nobody will care as long as he oversees a constant improvement in the club's fortunes under what everyone knows is a great manager - winning a trophy(and the FA Cup should be a major target after regaining PL status)would give the club a huge lift and maybe even whet Ashley's appetite for more of the same. There is no question that many fans would forget some of the past wrongs if things improve....however, any sign of backsliding or interference in Rafa's running of things, including refusal to back reasonable signings after promotion is obtained, would mean hostilities resumed big-style. If Rafa was to walk after a major dispute, Ashley would see that his last chance of making a success of NUFC would have gone out of the window and the club would fall into a long period of decline until he sold to a more ambitious owner - all of this is in his own hands.

Agree with much of this - we have managed to get a squad which should - should - be in at the death for a promotion place and I believe that this is what has been at the forefront of Rafa's mind when buying many of these players. The promotion attempt this year will be far different from both the previous ones during the past 24 years - the KK one was all about buccaneering attacking football, the 2009/10 model was about a group of senior pros putting right the wrongs of the previous season, aided by the emergence of a home grown young striker. Both previous promotions used many of the players involved after regaining a PL place but I cannot imagine that a number of Rafa's signings will be a major part of a successful return to the PL. Ritchie, yes, Hayden hopefully yes and one or two others ; Lascelles will hopefully develop into a PL defender and Mbemba should continue to improve, but there will be a great necessity for a couple of PL class forwards to be obtained as well as more m/f creativity so the current squad has been assembled for one reason - to obtain promotion and then to use Rafa's undoubted drawing power to sign better players once that is achieved. The season will be full of pragmatic performances rather than all-out attacking football home and away but I believe Rafa is capable of producing this from the players he has obtained.

This - Shelvey is suspect with general fitness but we lack anyone else who can pass accurately over distance. Needs addressing pronto.

This guy is a complete liability - how anyone could even contemplate giving him a contract including guarantees of first team appearances shows how unprofessional and useless the club's backroom staff are...not to say the manager(Pardew)if he had any input with such a clause. Let us hope this is NOT true because he cannot continue to be selected for a side genuinely aiming for promotion to the PL. He lacks pace, skill, awareness and indeed, anything to warrant his being at NUFC other than to make up numbers. Truly awful last Friday and a major contributor to our poor performance - it cannot continue.

Aarons has a lot to prove fitness-wise...undoubtedly has talent but his appearances have been few and far between over the past season especially, although having Pardew as a manager wouldn't do him any favours for selection... Hope that Rafa has seen something he likes and also that maybe the manager is taking a close interest in our medical department who have not got the best record for dealing with injuries - we seem to pick up far more than any similar club.

You simply don't get the time to play the ball round in the Champ unless you have some really top quality players...when we went up in 92/93 we had players like Peacock, Kelly Beresford and Robert Lee ; Lee Clark was a decent player with the ball and the opposition was not as good overall as it is today in that league, so it was easier to impose a passing style on the opposition...more competition now with foreign players in the league too. You are probably correct in that some of the players had the wrong mindset but this comes dangerously close to holding the manager culpable and he is too experienced for that..! Bournemouth Look where they finished last season compared to NUFC - and how they played us off the park at SJP and Dean Court..they are a better side.

This - but he can't make up for the short-comings of the other forwards or his m/f 'suppliers'...

Agree with this - I never expected a walkover in this league and would have been happy with a draw from the first away game because it takes time to gel a side when so many new faces have come in.. remember, the 92/93 side and the 2009/10 side had very few additions from the side which was relegated and were consistent from day one. However, there is no doubting the disappointment and rightly-held concern that many fans will be feeling after this game because we never looked like winning it apart from the penalty claims, one of which was outside the area anyway and another which we would have complained about had it been given against NUFC. There was a lack of creativity from m/f(Colback and Anita were dreadful, agree that Rafa cocked this up by selecting them)and the lack of physical presence up front made it easy for Fulham to break up our attacks before we got into their area. For me, only Ritchie looked the part up front and Perez was constantly muscled out of it...Gayle disappeared after a decent start and I was dreading the corner that Fulham scored from because we have given away so many goals from set-pieces in pre-season. Much as I like Lascelles, if the side were told to zonal mark instead of man-mark, the blame for the free header must go down to him as he was the nearest CD to the player. I felt that we had lost from the ,moment they scored because we weren't looking convincing as an attacking force at all and as events proved we failed to score despite many subs. We desperately need a creative m/f player AND a decent striker with physique...neither will come cheap and may be difficult to obtain as we have seen with Knockaert. Vital that 3 points come from the Huddersfield game now - another defeat, especially at home, would cause a loss of confidence both on and off the pitch.

Everyone on this thread has correctly identified the fact that we need a strong target man like Mitro...the problem is that he is always likely to end up with a lengthy period of suspension and we cannot afford this as this game has shown. We could end up losing enough points to prevent us going up unless we also have a replacement when he is out so we still need a strong striker/target man.

You simply don't get the time to play the ball round in the Champ unless you have some really top quality players...when we went up in 92/93 we had players like Peacock, Kelly Beresford and Robert Lee ; Lee Clark was a decent player with the ball and the opposition was not as good overall as it is today in that league, so it was easier to impose a passing style on the opposition...more competition now with foreign players in the league too. You are probably correct in that some of the players had the wrong mindset but this comes dangerously close to holding the manager culpable and he is too experienced for that..!

Absolutely correct and I feared this would be the case before the start....we are especially light up front without Mitrovic and I always thought that his absence(for another 3 games) would mean the existing forwards would struggle to keep the ball when it was played long. Even when played to feet, Anita struggled - the only forward who looked dangerous was Ritchie although Gayle and Perez ran hard. I fear that Ashley is probably reluctant to spend the sort of money necessary to obtain a striker of the requisite ability and in any case, it is always difficult to get these guys to drop into the Champ. Someone like Remy would have made a huge difference with his pace and skill on the ball. Hard to see where we go from here if we cannot get a better striker/target man than we have...we are never going to concede masses of goals but we are going to struggle to score them(the m/f was also poor in creativity) ; don't forget, this Fulham side had just lost their main goal-scorer....

Rafa can get us to win 1-0 in every game as far as I'm concerned, as long as it gets us back in the PL by May next year....'sexy football' got us a long way, didn't it..!?? Results are EVERYTHING this season..we can leave the gung-ho stuff until the last few games as long as we have the necessary points by then. Don't give a toss what the media/other clubs' fans say about it either...

All this stuff is irrelevant - KK, SBR and Rafa are all excellent managers but in terms of trophies Rafa is the winner. That doesn't mean his style of play is always easy on the eye, but NUFC has had quite enough of being everyone's 'second' team and then finishing second, third blah blah - I certainly have. KK finishing 3rd in the PL was a great achievement in our first season back, but people began - rightly - to expect more after that. SBR was a great manager but past his best when he came to SJP with a more difficult job to do than he would have had he taken over from KK in 1997. He did well for us but we still didn't win anything despite a sizeable spend on players. Rafa's job is to get us up this season and it will be tough to do...if he achieves that, we can start raising expectations of what we can do next but that also depends on Ashley..... Rafa is probably the right man for the time and any judgment on him as NUFC manager must wait, at least until the end of the season.

This - will take time for side to properly gel, we will lack physique up front until Mitro is back and we need a better winger/AM. Until I see a few games I am going for a 7-8.

I'm sure we'll get the money at the end of the season if we do go back up so at least the first season will be tough if we buy players now who are not good enough to step up. That's one of the reasons I'm against selling all of our better players now and replacing them with more but lesser players if that's what we end up doing. I agree Mick, but the thing I fear the most is that once we get back into the PL, Ashley will once again start interfering(via Charnley)in Rafa's transfer targets - partly on the grounds of the fees they would inevitably cost to improve the side, but especially on the wage demands that top players will ask for. I too have some doubts as to how some of the signings will perform if we reach the PL but as some of them are still quite young it IS possible that Rafa will be able to improve/get the best out of them. Imperative, though, that we make an instant return this season - failure to do so could have serious repercussions for us as a club in future so there will be enormous pressure on everyone at the club to do the business. As I have already said on other threads, I do not think this season will be any cake-walk and we need to be up for it every game...there will inevitably be injuries and suspensions too - we could well have done without Mitrovic being out for 4 games because we will lack physical presence up front.