John P

The next 4 away games are obviously really tough and we want to be winning them, but I can see Rafa setting us up very cautiously for these games with the primary objective being not to lose the game. They are 4 vitally important games but they aren't must win, so long as we can get through those games without letting all those teams make too much ground on us we'll be in a great position. We're tough to break down away from home so a couple of draws from those games would do us fine.

In a word, no.

I bet Obertan will be decent in this league. Nailed on to score against us.

That'll be the investment of roughly -£30m then?

Ayoze seems to have lost a lot of his agility that he had when he first joined. He often looks slow and cumbersome in possession now and very indecisive, so different to his first season when everything he did was done quickly. From my memory he often did quick little one touch turns to shift the ball, haven't seen him do that for ages.

Just seen the interview. Fuuuuuuuuuck.

Relatively encouraging if Rafa is confident.

Apparently he's actually undergoing a medical at Leverkusen. Silva was correct, but he meant at another club

Same

If it's an initial loan I'd imagine it would be Delph. Doubt Everton would be willing to loan McCarthy out.

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/sport/sport-headlines/moyes-urged-to-tone-down-utter-contempt-for-sunderland-20170124120811 Sorry if Giggs.

Usually because he's just chucked himself into a crunching tackle though.

It's absolutely comical man. Sammy Ameobi got on the pitch on Saturday for Christ's sake.

What's Yakubu up to these days?

Swapping Townsend for Downing? Mental.

Their agents will though.

And bailed out for Palace, slapped Rafa in the face, we brought him back to life. f*** him ..not wanted or needed

http://i1.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article1402809.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/Paul-Merson-on-Sky-Sports.jpg Where's the most punchable faces in the media thread gone?

I thought he was an all-round great guy who helped the homeless and stuff?

Transfer market is absolutely mental at the minute. £20m+ for Tom Cairney and Callum Wilson ffs.

The sort of manager who needs to hit the ground running, otherwise the usual morons in the media will be calling for him to be sacked and criticising Hull for not appointing Neil Warnock.

So fucking obvious. They were probably sat there thinking 'let's give them a little bit of information, but not too much, we don't want everyone guessing straight away.'

Fat Sam's head killed me when I first scrolled down and saw it.

Surely everyone who has managed Colback must have told him not to give away needless free kicks in dangerous positions, whether that be on the edge of the box or out wide when a player has his back to him. It's blatantly obvious to everyone who watches him for only a couple of games that he does it far far too often. I simply refuse to believe that our previous managers (including Pardew) didn't notice it and tell him to stop doing it, Benitez would certainly have told him, yet he still does it over and over again. The only conclusion is that he's completely stupid beyond belief and is just blatantly ignoring instructions from the manager. He's obviously got away with doing it under our last few managers, but I'm hoping his quick substitution yesterday means that Rafa is not going to forgive and that's the end of him.

Hope he isn't on good terms with Mapou and Remy Don't Montpellier particularly hate us after M'biwa and Cabella? Yep, their president hates us and I can't imagine those 2 players have much good to say about the club from their time here.