LoveItIfWeBeatU

He's dressed as a pearly king?

Close to where he lives, and Liverpool fans will get over it. Someone send a link to Rafa of that Everton fan forum with the Sunderland love in thread. Those Everton fans hate Rafa.

"Penny wise, Pound foolish" fits Ashley's ownership of NUFC. The fees wasted on the likes of Thauvin, Cabella, etc. would have easily paid for a top manager's wages, the redevelopment of the training ground, refurbishing SJP, employing quality coaches at all levels and an experienced, competent executive board. The most frustrating thing is he could have made a little profit every year while having a decent set up designed to compete. His penny pinching and short sightedness has ended up costing him millions and made him very unpopular. Hopefully he'll persuade Rafa to stay, give him what he needs and leave him to it. As for what relegation will cost him, stick it on the tab Mike. It's your fault for employing incompetent people and you owe the money to yourself anyway. What's another £50m or so?

It is wishful thinking. It's all we've got. No one thought he'd ever come to us in the first place. He's already bucked the expectation of a top manager only wanting a job at a top team.

Rafa bought him for Liverpool Fair enough, I didn't know. Crouch doesn't exactly fill the mobile, pressing, lone striker Rafa seems to prefer now.

He's 56. International management is more of an older coaches role. Rafa loves the day to day of football management. I don't think he'd want to be an International manager at this point in his career. As for managing Everton, going by their fan forum, their fans hate Rafa for his Liverpool association. Why go somewhere he isn't liked when he could (hopefully) stay somewhere he'll be loved?

I'm not saying Rafa will stay but a season in the Championship is 9 months (August to May). If he stayed and was given free reign over the whole club to put his rebuild plans into place, surely he'd be confident that he'd get us promotion at his first attempt? He was interested in taking us on as a project. Is a 9 month stay in the Championship really a deal breaker on a 3 year project (his contract is for 3 years)? At least he may be able to get rid of the losing mentality from the club if we were winning most games. We'd get back to the Premiership with a positive outlook and a well tested playing style in place.

Let's throw a load of balloons and inflatables on the pitch. Apparently the league doesn't give a shit about people doing that.

"Ha'way the paedophile supporters" There's no justice in the world.

We could possibly get Peter Crouch. He'd barely cost a transfer fee and he can hold the ball up, win headers and scores. Not sure he's a Rafa sort of player though (if Rafa stays). You'd think we'd be able to play two strikers in the Championship. I don't want to be relying on our current strikers for goals after they've failed to find the net frequently in the Premiership. Maybe loan some players off Arsenal, Man City, Chelsea, etc. If Rafa stays playing for him would be a big draw.

I'd imagine the odds on Sunderland and Norwich losing their final two games and Newcastle beating Tottenham are up there with Leicester's odds at the start of the season for winning the league.

Well Mike Ashley said last season that if we got relegated he'd do whatever it takes to get us promoted (he'd be insane not to given the money on offer). Who knows, maybe Rafa will stay, be given full control and he'll rebuild the club. Winning every game in the Championship under Rafa would be a good thing to take your kids to. Positivity and expecting to see wins would be a nice change. Over to you Fat Mike. You know it makes sense.

All those fans of other teams and people in the media who seem happy Newcastle are going to get relegated rather than Sunderland. I hope the media enjoy watching Allardyce football every week and I hope the rival fans enjoy their away day in lovely Sunderland. What's that? They'll be staying in Newcastle as usual? Thought so. A paedophile helped them get a third of their points and we're the team people want relegated? I'd laugh if Norwich or Newcastle pulled off a miracle and Sunderland went down.

Completely agree. How good do you have to be to win with a team that already win? Rafa has more respect from me for taking on NUFC than Mourhinio and the like will ever have. What Claudio Ranieri has achieved with Leicester vastly out ways anything Pep Guardiola has ever done in management.

It says here giving Dummett a new contract was decided before Rafa arrived: - http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/newcastle-united-fans-could-know-11306181

Better make it a cup game or a dead rubber qualifying round game if it's to see Ben Arfa play. Will he get into the usual first 11? He will have some of the best players in the world to get past. Stranger things have happened though I suppose.

It has been previously reported that the club have the option to extend Aarons' contract for another year.

Contract end dates based on: - http://www.nufc.com/2015-16html/squad.html Out of Contract Summer 2016 Steven Taylor Seydou Doumbia (end of loan) Kevin Mbabu Sylvain Marveaux (already released) Gabriel Obertan (already released) Maybe offer Mbabu a new contract? He does seem very injury prone though and he's only played a couple of games for us. Out of Contract Summer 2017 Tim Krul Fabricio Coloccini Paul Dummett (contract has been extended now according to ICNewcastle) Vurnon Anita Papiss Demba Cissé Yoan Gouffran Cheick Tiote Freddie Woodman Samuel Ameobi (while on loan he was not a regular starter for Championship Cardiff) Gael Bigirimana (while on loan he was not a regular starter for League One Coventry) Haris Vučkić (while on loan he was not a regular starter for League One Wigan) I think the club will try to sell as many of these players as possible so they don't leave for free in a year. That will be easier said than done with most of them due to Premiership wages and lack of interest in them from other clubs. That list illustrates the sheer stupidity of NUFC constantly signing players to 5 year contracts. NUFC could be stuck with a relatively good (on paper) Championship squad by default of not being able to sell most of these players. As for the players with more than one year to run on their contracts, Georginio Wijnaldum, Moussa Sissoko and Daryl Janmaat are almost certain to leave. There are question marks over the majority of the rest of the squad on whether they will leave or not.

I sort of agree that Rafa got his tactics wrong for the Aston Villa game but then again, our attacking players are so poor even if we'd went for it from the start it's no guarantee that we would have scored. As an example, Sissoko has scored one goal all season. Our cutting edge is pretty much blunt.

http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/incoming/newcastle-united-news-live-rafa-11300842#25187442350

Who authorised Paul Dummett's contract extension? Why would Rafa do that if he then planned to leave? Dummett still had a year to run on his contract so it's not like it couldn't have been sorted at the end of the season. A possible indication that Rafa might stay? If our relegation is confirmed on Wednesday I hope NUFC/Rafa make a quick announcement on whether he is staying or not. Rafa staying would give everyone a huge lift and we'd almost be going into the Championship on a positive.

Cisse missed a massive chunk of the season, played half as much as Mitrovic and was only 5 goals behind him...as s*** as he has been, he's not the biggest problem this season that we had up front. I've criticised all of our strikers. None of them were up to the job they were employed to do.

Going out on a massive low then. Why he was so desperate we sign Florian Thauvin I'll never know. That £12m could have gone a long way elsewhere.

You think Sissoko would stay with us in the Championship? He's been talking about a move to a Champions League club half the time he's been with us in the Premiership.