Wallsendmag

The Barnsley game won't make general sale like. Not a chance. The Leeds game doesn't go on general sale until tomorrow and there's fewer than 1,000 tickets remaining and it's live on Sky.

Yeah it was a good header from him. He's got a striker's instinct for finding the target. We might need to consider going for him and Gayle up front against some of the weaker sides. Ideally in the next 2 games but it's not going to happen.

Your mate is right. Thought Murphy was outstanding once again.

I've had a little saver bet on them as well. Not quite 50 sheets though.

Huddersfield will beat Bristol City tonight no bother. Bristol are hopeless. They couldn't even beat us at SJP the other week.

That's why I've repeatedly put in pretty much everyone post that assuming Rafa wants to keep him then I don't see the problem. IF we get promoted and IF we pursue Gray to reinforce the front line I don't think Gayle, Gray and Mitrovic would be terrible options to have in the Premier League. Mitrovic hasn't been a good option in the Championship.

Would be marvellous if Defoe got injured on International duty having gone through his entire sunderland career without picking up barely a scratch.

Good news. Hopefully they get the same sort of new manager bounce Leicester, Hull and Swansea got.

Going to this. Would usually mean a defeat but I'm unbeaten in my last 3 away games. 1-1

He looked an absolute beast that time he dropped back into central midfield. Would happily see him played there instead of Colback for these next 2 home games with Murphy partnering Gayle up top. Not happening like but i'd love to see Rafa try it. He's a waste of a shirt playing just off the striker.

Boro will finish bottom. Crystal Palace 19th, Hull 18th.

Exactly. He gets all the acclaim for how he sets us up away from home, and rightly so because he's played that to perfection, so it's only right that we can also discuss where we think things are going wrong at home because performances and results at SJP have been well under par this season. What has baffled a lot of people is his refusal to try something different at home. A perfectly reasonable topic to discuss.

I don't actually think he's really getting any stick on here Paully mate. It's mainly constructive criticism aimed at what has been a largely dispappointing season on home soil. I love Rafa. He's up there with Keegan and Sir Bobby for me. Not as much for what we've done on the pitch so far but for the way he's galvanised the entire city and for the first time in over a decade made it enjoyable again to be a Newcastle supporter. However any argument needs a bit of balance and for all his tactical masterclass has given us our most successful season on the road it has to be said that his same tactics have hampered us at home going right back to Huddersfield in August. On the very rare occasions that we've had 2 recognised forwards on the pitch at the same time at home we've looked a completely different team than when he's played either Diame or Perez behind a lone front man, both of whom have been largely ineffective this season anyway and are hardly deserving of a first team place. Next 2 home games are v Wigan and Burton and we'll go into them with a lone striker and no doubt struggle yet again. Just wish he'd be a bit more adventurous at home against, let's face it, pretty poor opposition. It's been a feature of our home performances for a long time now. We start off poorly, the opposition realise they've nothing to be afraid of and grow in confidence and then we struggle to get a foothold in the game. We should be going at teams from the off, get them under pressure and force them into mistakes, just like in the 09/10 season.

Deluded about what exactly? I haven't read the whole thread, but from what I can see, most people are discussing tactics after a bad home defeat. A lot of the thread has posts about him not having a plan B, which just shows a lack of basic football knowledge when you think about his most famous victory. Then... Discussing tactics is fine, and it's not that discussion that I'm referring to, but there comes a point where you need to take a step back and look at the situation. Horrific owner, terrible scout, average unsuited players, no money spent in January and yet here we are, with Rafa Benitez as our manager sitting 6 points clear in the automatic promotion places with people still finding a way to moan, when in another far more realistic alternative universe we're sitting mid to lower table with Nigel Pearson as our manager, or in our 6th year with Pardew as manager. There's looking a gift horse in the mouth and then there's just pure delusion. Deluded about what exactly? I haven't read the whole thread, but from what I can see, most people are discussing tactics after a bad home defeat. He's best off ignored. Plenty of good, reasoned debate on here. His "contribution" isn't really worthy of a response. When your contribution is anything other than links to RTG threads, let me know. Less than 1% of my contribution is links to other sites. Carry on being pointless. Well that's a lie. Even your sig. Just took a sample of my previous 100 posts. 0% links to RTG or any other site for that matter. Now on the subject of signatures, yours says it all.

Deluded about what exactly? I haven't read the whole thread, but from what I can see, most people are discussing tactics after a bad home defeat. A lot of the thread has posts about him not having a plan B, which just shows a lack of basic football knowledge when you think about his most famous victory. Then... Discussing tactics is fine, and it's not that discussion that I'm referring to, but there comes a point where you need to take a step back and look at the situation. Horrific owner, terrible scout, average unsuited players, no money spent in January and yet here we are, with Rafa Benitez as our manager sitting 6 points clear in the automatic promotion places with people still finding a way to moan, when in another far more realistic alternative universe we're sitting mid to lower table with Nigel Pearson as our manager, or in our 6th year with Pardew as manager. There's looking a gift horse in the mouth and then there's just pure delusion. Deluded about what exactly? I haven't read the whole thread, but from what I can see, most people are discussing tactics after a bad home defeat. He's best off ignored. Plenty of good, reasoned debate on here. His "contribution" isn't really worthy of a response. When your contribution is anything other than links to RTG threads, let me know. Less than 1% of my contribution is links to other sites. Carry on being pointless.

I wonder who won him the two league titles in Spain with a club that wasn't one of the big 2? He didn't win it once which you could put down as a fluke but you don't usually fluke your way to two titles. I guess he could have treated the league season as a cup competition though. Won it with 70 something points twice. 1 of them Deportivo finished 2nd. Neither were flukes. But it just goes to show the best seasons in his career - his team still dropped a lot of points. He regularly got similar amount of points at Liverpool but that wasn't enough to win league titles. His best ever season in terms of points was at Liverpool which they lost against a very strong Man Utd side. Again you would say being too defensive at home cost them the league. Too many home draws. It's a pattern in his career. He's a fine manager but his teams have never dominated a league. Is there a manager who dominates a league ready to take the job? I'm not advocating that we can do better. I'm saying - rafa making harder work of this league than we might have imagined isn't an indication he's not still a top manager or we should be worried long-term. It's actually consistent in his career. It's not his style to steamroller any division. Another Championship manager could do a better job in this division imo. But medium/long term? He's the best man for sure. Another championship manager like Steve Bruce? Or Alex Neil? Norwich and Villa fans would happily swap places with you right now. At the season's start, I thought Norwich had a stronger side than you and were better suited to the Champo, fwiw. But really, who? Gary Monk? I think some of you forget how on your arse you were when you went down and how downright godawful, p*ss-stinking, laughing-stock s*** you've been for more than a decade. And that's not even considering the off the field fuckery. You could easily be where Villa are now, with 30,000 every week moaning their arse off, in absolute pieces. In fact I'll stick my neck out and say that if you hadn't got Rafa, and if he hadn't got you a couple of good players like Clark and Ritchie and others, you'd be absolutely Freddie f***ed right now. Having watched over 50 Championship games this season, 20 odd involving us and loads as a neutral on TV I think you're talking rubbish. Any team that can call on Gayle, Shelvey, Ritchie and Yedlin is going to be up at the tip end of this league even if most of the other players are pretty much run of the mill Championship standard. This is madness. Gayle, Ritchie and Yedlin wouldn't be anywhere near you without Rafa. He brought them to you!! We're the biggest club in the division by some distance and we had a a large transfer pot in the summer due to player sales. To suggest we couldn't have brought in a squad player from Crystal Palace, who hardly featured last season, a Bournemouth player and a player who spent the end of last season at Sunderland and had no future at his parent club is ridiculous.

Deluded about what exactly? I haven't read the whole thread, but from what I can see, most people are discussing tactics after a bad home defeat. He's best off ignored. Plenty of good, reasoned debate on here. His "contribution" isn't really worthy of a response.

I wonder who won him the two league titles in Spain with a club that wasn't one of the big 2? He didn't win it once which you could put down as a fluke but you don't usually fluke your way to two titles. I guess he could have treated the league season as a cup competition though. Won it with 70 something points twice. 1 of them Deportivo finished 2nd. Neither were flukes. But it just goes to show the best seasons in his career - his team still dropped a lot of points. He regularly got similar amount of points at Liverpool but that wasn't enough to win league titles. His best ever season in terms of points was at Liverpool which they lost against a very strong Man Utd side. Again you would say being too defensive at home cost them the league. Too many home draws. It's a pattern in his career. He's a fine manager but his teams have never dominated a league. Is there a manager who dominates a league ready to take the job? I'm not advocating that we can do better. I'm saying - rafa making harder work of this league than we might have imagined isn't an indication he's not still a top manager or we should be worried long-term. It's actually consistent in his career. It's not his style to steamroller any division. Another Championship manager could do a better job in this division imo. But medium/long term? He's the best man for sure. Another championship manager like Steve Bruce? Or Alex Neil? Norwich and Villa fans would happily swap places with you right now. At the season's start, I thought Norwich had a stronger side than you and were better suited to the Champo, fwiw. But really, who? Gary Monk? I think some of you forget how on your arse you were when you went down and how downright godawful, p*ss-stinking, laughing-stock s*** you've been for more than a decade. And that's not even considering the off the field fuckery. You could easily be where Villa are now, with 30,000 every week moaning their arse off, in absolute pieces. In fact I'll stick my neck out and say that if you hadn't got Rafa, and if he hadn't got you a couple of good players like Clark and Ritchie and others, you'd be absolutely Freddie f***ed right now. Having watched over 50 Championship games this season, 20 odd involving us and loads as a neutral on TV I think you're talking rubbish. Any team that can call on Gayle, Shelvey, Ritchie and Yedlin is going to be up at the tip end of this league even if most of the other players are pretty much run of the mill Championship standard. I've watched Brighton 6 times, twice against us and 4 times against other teams and the only time they've convinced was on Friday v a completely uninterested Derby. A team of grafters with one or two quality players, for this league. Huddersfield, not a particularly good team. 3rd in the table with a +6 goal difference. They've got loads of endeavour and their pressing game is clearly too much for a lot of teams in this league but they're not a particularly good side. Nor are we for that matter but a more attacking approach in home games and I very much doubt we would have lost/dropped points to the likes of Wolves, Blackburn, QPR & Bristol City. I'm a massive Rafa fan. I got my season ticket back because of him but it's been clear since the very first home game of the season, back in August v Huddersfield that he's struggled with setting up the team at SJP. The players at times look like they haven't got a clue what they're supposed to be doing, the polar opposite to away games where we look so well drilled and organised. Yes there's been the odd knee jerk reaction on here but most of what I've read had been fair and balanced. He's a terrific manager, a brilliant bloke as well, but nobody, including him, is above scrutiny when he's failed to address problems at home which can be traced right back to August.

Good to hear. They mentioned that they've had positive talks with the club about a proper singing area for next season. I know they're currently in the corner which is an unofficial singing area but the problem there is that there's fans in amongst them who've sat there for years but aren't bothered about standing/singing which dilutes the atmosphere somewhat. It'll be interesting to see where they're going to go. Level 7 was the obvious choice with the away fans moving to pitchside in the event of us being promoted but apparently it's definitely not going to be there which is pleasing. Gallowgate upper tier! Hope it is! Would be brilliant there and mightbeven get the rest of the Gallowgate going. I'd definitely move my seat to there if it happened.

Steve McClaren 7/2 favourite for the Derby job.

Hoying it forward wasn't the problem, it was the way that we did it that was the problem and I doubt he told them to just hoy it forward anyway. I would expect that he did tell them to get at them and try to hit them early and on the break which we didn't do. We either hit it too long or hit it into space where nobody was or was prepared to run into. At least you've hit the nail on the head with your last sentence. I can't stand direct football like yesterdays. I'm not a Barcelona tika taka lover or anything i just like decent football and there's nothing wrong with a long pass, just not over the top balls all the time. Rafa is better than that, and to be fair so are the players. You're quite right the plan was poorly executed yesterday, but i thought the plan itself was horrendous. And we've played good stuff this season, it just seems since the turn of the year we've had a real downturn in performances (results have held up ok to be fair except for yesterdays obviously). Just imo at the moment we're too direct and idea less in our attacking play at home, and are giving up too much possession in general. We're top of the league so it can't be that bad and Rafa is the man to take us forward, just for me i can see things that concern me in our play. Was awful watching us punt 60 yard high balls up to Gayle for an hour. Such a pointless tactic and dreadful to watch.

Good to hear. They mentioned that they've had positive talks with the club about a proper singing area for next season. I know they're currently in the corner which is an unofficial singing area but the problem there is that there's fans in amongst them who've sat there for years but aren't bothered about standing/singing which dilutes the atmosphere somewhat. It'll be interesting to see where they're going to go. Level 7 was the obvious choice with the away fans moving to pitchside in the event of us being promoted but apparently it's definitely not going to be there which is pleasing.

Glad to see he's improving then. Bring him home.

He's one of probably only 3 or 4 PL quality players we have in our squad.

In his defence he's not a natural right back and fair play to Fulham because they certainly exposed that. Caught out of position time and time again but lacking the pace to get himself out of trouble and destroyed by a 16 year old kid. Problem is he doesn't appear to look 100% comfortable in any one given position. He only got moved to right back because he wasn't up to the job as a central midfielder.