Wallsendmag

Aye Caulkin is one of the most accurate and respected journos around. Doesn't get much wrong.

I don't think there's any doubt that he's available anyway.

I reckon it would be the final straw for an awful lot of people. Rafa Benitez is our best chance of this club doing anything notable in the future and more importantly he gives us hope and something to believe in. We even started acting like a football club again. If he were to walk because Ashley goes back on previous promises I think you'd be looking at upwards of 20k people simply packing up and calling it a day. I actually think that would have happened in the summer if he hadn't agreed to stay on.

They've already got that by signing Schluup. Not to mention they have Sako, Zaha & Puncheon who can play out wide. Exactly. If Palace were to lose Townsend they wouldn't need to replace him.

Expect a routine win here which usually means we'll get beat. Could do with winning these 2 home games to fend off the chasing pack.

If they stay up after all this I'm giving up on football.

We'll see. A leopard doesn't change its spots and until Rafa we've only had losers prepared to work under Ashley, except for Keegan who soon saw through him. Rafa will get us up, no doubt he'll (wrongly) feel partly responsible for our relegation but a manager of his calibre won't stick around and work under the Mike Ashley model.

This is where the problem lies. The ambitions of Rafa Benitez and Mike Ashley couldn't be further apart. Benitez wants to challenge for European places and Cups, Ashley wants 17th and upwards and doesn't want cup competitors getting in the way. I'm pretty certain Rafa won't be here next season. He won't get anywhere near what he wants to spend to get us challenging at the top half of the PL table. He'll get us back up and then move on to a club more suited to his ambitions. He won't be short of takers.

he lost a few friends yesterday im afraid, i just think we all want him to succeed but however the kid isnt top class and will be away next season regardless. lets not pick on this fellow though, the defending was f***ing shocking yesterday, shocking I like the lad, I really do. He's desperate to be a success here and it's clear he's loves playing for Newcastle United but the sad reality is he's not good enough and never will be. He's not a natural finisher and he's too slow. There's nothing even a coach as good as Rafa can do about that.

I said it over a year ago and I'll say it again. He lacks the characteristics to be a good centre forward, he's a poor finisher with a chronic lack of pace. Add his questionable temperament to that and I don't think his future here looks all that bright.

Which is fair enough, isn't it? See Ronaldos reply.

Tbf it's looking more and more like the huge transfer profit made in the summer is being put towards filling the big financial black hole of being relegated.

They'll still find some way of staying up, as unlikely as it seems.

Still say he needs us more than we need him. He's not getting in their starting XI, his team are in the relegation zone and the Palace fans don't like him. If he stays there I'd say there's more chance of him being a Championship player in the summer than if he joins us this month so if he'll only move on a loan deal he's cutting his nose off to spite his face. Anyway I'd rather we concentrated on improving things in the centre of the pitch. Colback and Hayden showed themselves as hopelessly inadequate to step up to the plate in Shelveys absence and that needs addressing more urgently than signing a wide player which can wait until the summer. A creative central midfielder should be our priority.

Rafa ain't desperate for the job, like the last 3 clowns were, so if it is the case we'll soon find out because he won't be hanging around for long.

His stock has fallen since he left us, he's 25 years old and already played for something like a dozen clubs. He's the epitome of a journeyman player. He had a bit of a purple patch at the back end of last season and I would have loved to see if he could have carried it on onto this season and done what he hasn't managed to do in his career to date, which is have a full, good season but we didn't get a chance to find out and now I'm not bothered either way. We're going up regardless of whether we sign him or not and Gouffran will be gone in the summer anyway so if it's not Townsend Rafa will be bringing in another wide player anyway.

Average Championship wingers are doing this on a regular basis.

Ah well, C'est la vie.

Never heard of him till today.

Aye 2 assists from him and 2 goals from Richie suggests a very productive day down our right hand side. Felt a bit sorry for their left back as he was their best player but I don't think there's any full back in this league who could have done any better against those two on Saturday.

We're seeing what he can do now when he's played in front of a proper wing back. I thought him and Yedlin would compliment each other well and that's how it's turning out. I noticed on Saturday he's happy for Yedlin to get beyond him and then he just tucks inside and usually ended up with the ball anyway.

Why? Well as things stand he's probably now our 3rd choice striker which he wouldn't have envisaged at the start of the season. Even before his injury and Murphy coming in and scoring in every game the signs were there when Rafa didn't even include him in the squad for Blackburn.

Mourinho complained about them last season. Reckoned they were doing it on purpose because we were winning.

I think he'd work well with Gayle up top. Rafa won't though.