Ronaldo

I'm not ready to write him off just yet but the early signs are that we've brought Michael Barrymore to a knife fight.

As bad a second half as you'll see from us. Barely deserved the point in the end. Tactically absolutely inept. Heading one way.

Definitely having a go in terms of committing men forward but lacking a lot of quality in and around the box.

Has to be a huge priority to build a new one for practical reasons and would obviously show real long term ambition for the club. Build it somewhere you can’t get the fucking metro train to.

I always liked him. Was stupidly good in the Championship and never forced any of the usual mawkish crap to try and win favour with the fans. He just got his head down and did his best. Lives next to my mum and dad in Medburn. Really nice lad apparently and should leave here with nothing but good wishes.

£20m????

If Howe continues playing Ritchie I’m really going to start losing all faith in him. There’s literally no excuse for it whatsoever.

Good post, but I do think it’s not as simple as who has the mentality and who hasn’t. We’ve got a lot of players on our books who do give it their all but are unfortunately just fucking abject.

I haven’t liked his team selections since he came in, must admit. I’m happy to defer judgment till we’ve made a few signings this window.

Darlow was a disgrace last season and Dubravka did improve us when he came back in. Not saying he’s particularly good.

Nonsense. Darlow has all the same weaknesses and none of the strengths.

Well said. His attitude has been fine and he was easily our best defender in the Championship. He’s just not very good at this level and is still here purely out of the previous owner’s neglect.

Course he is. It takes a long time for him to get a side modelled in his image. There were even some initial teething problems in the Championship and we lost a fair few games in that league. He’s made two bad career decisions since leaving us, and he’s certainly to some extent suffered out of his loyalty to us in the summer of ‘16. I feel for him. He’s far, far better than this.

Watford obliterated this lot. I take very little from the game other than the players are putting the effort in. We’re down without 3 automatic starters.

A striker needs to be very near to our top priority this window. Can’t rely on Wilson to be our main man unfortunately. It’ll just get us relegated, even if we do tighten up the defence a bit.

Asking for trouble a bit when you’ve got both a CM and CB partnership that can’t defend. Shades of previous relegation seasons: nowhere near enough goal threat in attack and far, far too easily played through. Howe needs to find the balls to take the captaincy off Lascslles ASAP. He’s just a nonentity at the back.

Yeah, fine.

Took about 4 games under Rafa if memory serves. Either way he can’t afford many more bedding-in mistakes.

It wasn’t even the most expensive EFL squad that season. ? Not to mention the fact we literally sold about £75m worth of players in pre-season that year.

Based on a poor 6 weeks at an injury-plagued Everton who finished 10th under one of the best managers in history last season? Real were, off the top of my head, 2 points worse off than Barca when he was sacked. He was hardly shite. And do fill us in about your knowledge of Chinese football; where should he have finished there?

Not cherry picked. It was 2 1/2 years ago and that was the only period in his time here where we had a PL standard attack to complement the defence he’d built. The result was good football and a very good points return.

We were the 7th best side in the league in his last half season in charge with mostly the same shit who have us bottom now. There’s nothing remotely suggesting he’s done at top level through any reasonable / unbiased perspective.

The pair of them are an embarrasment. Frauds too.

Quite agree. The midfield just doesn't function at all, we're far too easily cut open and ASM aside there's no directness whatsoever. And that's barely touching on the defence. Need some drastic, drastic changes because in terms of the overall fragility and game mangement this is as bad an NUFC side as I've seen.

Another one? 4 years later he still wouldn’t start for us. Same goes for Armstrong. People talk about them both like they’re huge losses.