Chris_R

Would be the perfect end to a beautiful day. I've been cutting down on the booze lately, but if Rafa said he was staying after that Sunderland game, I think I'd clear out the local off-license.

Perfect game. From the own goal, that they didn't even score, giving them false hope early on, to the equaliser bringing them back to Earth and then the winning goal coming just 6 seconds from the end of stoppage time. Glorious. I couldn't stop laughing when it went in. Small-time, bitter bunch of weirdos. Enjoy your continued slide into the obscurity you deserve.

This. Remember when we sold Cabaye for £20m and speculated about how we'd reinvest the money?

They can and will book him in for loads of things, he's still contracted here. It's his job. I get why people want to read stuff into this kind of thing, but you really can't. An incredibly professional man going to meetings that his boss has organised or doing legitimate club-related work whilst still under contract are not in themselves indicative of anything positive. I wish they were, but they're just not.

He was just talking about Game of Thrones.

Guarantee that if they win, about 80,000 will claim to have been there.

Is this your first time clicking a Chronicle article?

So? He always sees out his contracts. We know this about him. He could have walked away at any point for a fee, maybe from February for no fee. But he would never do either, it's not what he does. He was always going to be our manager until the day his contract expired, unless he was sacked. That remains the case, and he'll conduct himself with the utmost decorum and professionalism until that day comes. If that includes going to pointless meetings with fatso, then that's what he'll do because that's the man he is. To attempt to read anything in to him continuing to do what he has always done at every club is to completely missjudge the entire essence of Rafa Benitez. That said, I get why people are doing that, we all want to believe. Me included. But let's be realistic here, Rafa is just being Rafa here, there's nothing we can read into his continued attendance of meetings and failure to say "fuck it" and stomp off.

Exactly this. Doesn't mean it still wont end with him walking but still talking means there is willingness and something to talk about... ..hopefully not severance lol. It absolutely doesn't. It just means he's doing what his bosses ask him to do whilst still under contract. Of course it doesn't mean there's NOT something to sort out either, but you simply cannot read into continued dialogue the things you're trying to. He's simply going to meetings his bosses have asked him to attend. Knowing him as we do, how can he not?

Why do people persist with this? Things we know for certain: - Rafa's a consummate professional who always honours his contract - Rafa is presently under contract Given the above, if you're employed by someone and they ask you to go to a meeting, you go. If they ask you to come back tomorrow, you come back tomorrow. Anything else is breach of contract and Rafa will not do that, we know this. He'll go to every meeting he's invited to, he'll listen to everything said to him. That doesn't mean for one instant that he'll sign anything at the end of it. He'd be mad to, and another thing we know about Rafa is he's clearly not mad. He will continue to attend every meeting the club ask him to, because that's his job and he's been asked to attend these meetings by his bosses. To read anything more in to that is crazy, to suggest that him still attending meetings is a positive is just delusional. I absolutely hope I'm wrong, Rafa is the best thing about the club at the moment, the only thing that keeps me even remotely interested. But he will leave this summer, I'm as sure as I can be about that.

He'd be mad to stay, and he's clearly not mad. To stay he'd need assurances that Ashley will simply never give. He's playing it perfectly though, ensuring he cannot be accused of scuppering anything or of making his position untenable by what he says to the media, but I can imagine no other outcome than him walking away at the end of his contract. And quite rightly, too.

We've tried to read that into every quote of his whenever there's been a takeover rumor for the last 3 years.

Nothing would surprise me less.

Byewtiful

Amdy Faye. Just not a footballer, and signed because of Willie Mackay rather than for any actual footballing reasons. Absolutely shit transfer. At least Butt, Geremi and Smith had some kind of pedigree, even if they turned out to be shit. This guy was a total fraud.

Almost literally.

To be fair, Shola did score a lot of goals for us. They were just spread out over about 4 decades, with half of them penalties and 50% of the rest in the Championship.

This would actually really annoy me. The club would be all "We tried, but PSG" and many would lap it up. I want to see Rafa announce he'd rather sit on the dole than work for these chumps, rather than have them claim he was lured away by the untold riches of a sovereign state. (Once he's done a month on the dole as a statement of intent, as per the above, I'd love to see him get a shot at PSG)

This. He's a consumate professional, he'll say and do nothing until the season is done.

https://www.readytogo.net/smb/threads/top-10-biggest-waste-of-money-safc-and-nufc-have-signed.1470633/ Wijnaldum and Mitrovic a waste of money? Ok. How much profit did we make on both of them? If doubling your money is wasting it, I'd love to waste mine every week. Bunch of weirdos.

Kane should do it if he stops in the league and stays mostly fit. Couple of the others have a chance too. I'll not exactly be pleased when it happens, but records are there to be broken.

They've had 17 of them already.

Fair point.

Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V. Submit.

Half the shots on target have been goals in that match. The goalkeeping in that league must be fucking rank.