And yet there are people who have consistently said there was no difference between Rafa's football and Bruce (even on here!). I really can't even begin to grasp what they were watching.
I posted a few weeks ago that the Man City home game in 2017-18 labelled Rafa's Newcastle as this shockingly bad to watch defensive anti football merchants: a game where we were a newly promoted side playing against a Guardiola managed Man City who were looking for their 18th successive league win and would eventually win the title with 100 points. We had around 18% of the ball, lost 0-1, but we almost snuck a result: Aarons had a chip cleared off the line, Gayle should've shot but instead dived and he also had a header go narrowly wide. But think back to the coverage and reaction from that night, Neville's commentary, post match interviews, tweets, even posts on here. The label stuck and that's what is clouding Neville's judgment I think. We did it against Chelsea at home in 2018/19 too, should've drawn the game but lost to a late own goal yet the coverage from Sky lambasted Rafa for it. Those games and how they were portrayed by the likes of Neville, Redknapp etc is the yardstick that they compare Bruceball to what we played under Rafa and because of it they see no difference, or even argue that the former is better.
Its bullshit.
10000000% spot on!