Carlito

Spanish Tony Pulis :lol: What trophies did Pulis ever win?

So in your eyes hes basically untouchable if he takes us down whos fault is it then? Mike Ashley is at fault. The only clubs you can logically compare us to in terms of finance and quality are Brighton and Huddersfield, because the rest have had a head-start on us with 2 seasons to build on what they had when we were relegated. We missed out on that TV money. We then sold to buy in the Championship to get us straight back up, and Rafa was given minimal funding when we actually came back up. As of the summer window, both Brighton and Huddersfield have a net spend that is £15m higher than ours, and yet they're only 3-5 points ahead of us in the table. The fact that we're not bottom is a fucking miracle, and a testament to how lucky we are to have someone like Rafa right now.

Pretty sure this is how the meeting went down for the summer transfer budget

Well that's just brilliant. Firmino is my VC

This makes no sense to me at all. If anything it would make it easier on our midfield and defenders as there's arguably less ground to cover. Merino doesn't look quite the player he did in that early period when we were getting points on the board.

Well it worked for us 2 seasons ago...

This right here should speak volumes about why he's the right person for us. In an era where the club has been rotten to the core, he's done a lot to initially unite the fans and bring some level of hope back to the city. Now after 3 months of his squad performing like he said they would before a ball was kicked this season, people are actually calling for him to be sacked. It's ridiculous. Most of the players he has wouldn't be getting a sniff of the first team if he was able to get his summer targets in.

Yeah I'm sure under Pardew, Kinnear or McClanger we'd have battered Brighton today. Have a word man.

Look at history. As I mentioned earlier, Keegan had players pushed upon him that he didn't want. Pardew even said he had players he wanted but didn't get. Also, its always been Ashley's lackies that actually do the deals... hence reports of them throwing in paltry low bids for players who command much higher fees. Rafa can ask for whoever he wants, but if they won't/don't want to pay the fees/wages, what can he do?? Exactly. That's how we end up with 57th choice strikers like Joselu.

Look at history. As I mentioned earlier, Keegan had players pushed upon him that he didn't want. Pardew even said he had players he wanted but didn't get.

He does decide because Rafa aint got 100mil in his back pocket to sign a prime Fernando Torres. He gives a budget just like any other owner/chairman who runs a business and then the manager works with that budget. He does not decide who is recruited with that budget. Rafa chose to sign these useless f***ers he was not forced to what cant you understand about that So why did Keegan win his case for constructive dismissal then? Ashley's a fucking crook man. Are all of our previous managers just lying about wanting their own players that we never got and Ashley is right?

Probably because we lost to them last time. The tactics he's using are damage control until the window opens. If he's not backed he'll walk before it shuts.

Was Joselu his first choice? Or a last resort due to financial restrictions from Ashley? It doesn't f***ing matter he decided to sign him, he wasn't forced at gunpoint to say yes. He sold a guy in Darryl Murphy who would have been far more effective than this plank He was essentially forced to sign dross like Joselu and Manq due to having no other option, you monumental toss pot I'm sure he would of loved Cenk Tosun and Luke Shaw, but guess what? NEWSFLASH. MIKE ASHELY OWNS US. Youre the tosspot for thinking Mike Ashley decides who we sign. A manager can say no you know. Do a bit of f***ing research and look at some of the absolute s**** that he signed for Liverpool too Oh I suppose Hicks and Gillet forced him to sign that s**** too :lol: :lol: You seem to be forgetting when players were signed over Keegan's head which resulted in his departure. Even Pardew wanted different players to what we actually got.

Exactly. Ashley has screwed over everyone he's brought in.

Funny how Hughton didn't get Aguero money or a cool 50 million to spend in their promotion season and Brighton are still doing well isn't it. Rafa is under performing, and I hope he still turns it around but, things just seem to be getting worse rather than better. They also didn't literally lose 13/14 first team players from the 2015/16 either though. We had about 10 players remaining after all those transfers so had to bring in at least the same number of players to cope with the extra 8 (or 11) league games in the Championship. Brighton's team had been geared for promotion for years and the likes of Dunk would have easily been worth £15m, Knockaert the same (in this market), Dale Stephens £10m or so, whereas the bulk of our signings ranged from £2.5m to £5.5m, bar 2 notable exceptions. Pretty much all our quality was sold to generate that £90m - £55m was put back in to sign 14 players - an average of £3.9m per player and you just need look at transfers in that league from this season to see that that figure really isn't that much - Assombolonga £15, Neves £16m, Rhodes £10m, Braithwaite £10m etc. Brighton were at least equal to us last season, if not better as they were 7 clear with 3 games to go once their bottom line of promotion was secured. Make no mistake, if 1 was promoted and the other 4 went in the playoffs rather than 2 automatically, then we wouldn't have won the league, so we were at least equal and for whatever reason, their transfers this season have been better - Ryan has made a big difference, Davy Propper. We had Atsu last year, Joselu and Manq have arguably made us worse, Murphy non existent, so you could argue we are actually even worse than we were last season as only Merino has come in and had a decent impact. Is location a problem, are we more restricted on wages (really can't see Joselu, Manquillo and Murphy being on more than £100k between them)? But I can guarantee if Rafa had his way, he wouldn't have went to Mike and said 'Mike, whatever you do, please please give me that Joselu lad who can't get a look in at Stoke, he'll make a hell of a difference". We've had a bunch of top championship / fringe Premier League players bundled together in one window and while that cope have coped had 3 or 4 players been brought in at £15m-20m a skelp to add a bit of quality to a try hard but limited group, but we all know that didn't happen, so I'd argue that we are at a worse level than Brighton now. People need to realise we are literally operating on a bottom 3 to 4 budget now (far lower than the likes of Everton, Leicester, Palace, West Ham, Watford etc) and if you were born after 1980 or so (which a large chunk of us on here will be) then for the first time in your life this is the first time that has happened - forget the top 6, we are miles behind 75% of the league. well said.

Worse than Luque.

They'll be chuffed to bits with that. They're 100% anti-Rafa.

So we should be grateful that after having spent more money, we are being outperformed by Brighton and Huddersfield who we came up with? They don't have the "world class" Rafa pulling the strings either. They were better *teams* last season and they still are. We’re a slapdash bunch of players. Who built the team? Mike Ashley's transfer budget, obviously. Reminds me of Friday when Smokey's mam is all "get me some cigs", so Smokey is like "this aint enough", then she's all like "make it enough".

Worst Newcastle team I've ever seen, and that's not Rafa's fault. It's all down to Ashley screwing over everyone he's worked with. The media will be chuffed to bits if we bin Rafa before the takeover goes through.

Pretty much. Any other team that has tried it this season but conceded more than 1 didn't get as much backlash.

Rafa talking about FFP needing readjusted in the Chron this morning in order to make the premier league fair game. Could be looking too much into it but it comes across to me like it's a done deal already.

Duel process?

Same here. Got Hegazi coming off the bench as well. Left a load of points on the bench though.

Shame it didn't turn out to be a success for him here, but I wish him well to be honest. Surely Rafa must have someone ready to come in asap?