Away Toon

Only a matter of time.

This thread needs locking immediately.

BBC are reporting they think he's failed a medical and its off.

To stay up I'm pretty sure we have to finish above Swansea, Brighton and Huddersfield, and that is looking less likely game by game. We have to win tomorrow. The good news we won't be losing to the mackems next season for the 25th time in a row as with a bit of luck they'll be dropping down a division.

Well Guardiola is never going to join us. The other three are maybe unlikely under the fat man but it's not out of the question. Howe is the one I'd like, he's committed to playing good football and his side is always pretty attacking.

You do know you cant criticise Rafa at all so please refrain In a hypothetical world where Rafa is gone, who would you have here (working under the same constraints)? Howe, Silva, Puel for starters. Well Howe and Puel aren't touching us with a 10 foot barge pole for starters. Silva will undoubtedly have better offers from clubs that actually try to invest in their playing staff. Try again? The question wasn't whether or not they would come here.

You do know you cant criticise Rafa at all so please refrain In a hypothetical world where Rafa is gone, who would you have here (working under the same constraints)? Howe, Silva, Puel for starters.

Love the billboards

Newcastle are set to beat Liverpool to the signature of Brazil forward Luan, 24, from Gremio for £17.5m. (Sun) From the BBC transfer gossip page. Sounds more exciting than the Dane from Holland.

You see what happens when you attack City, it's not all that bad.

Could do what Bristol City did and actually take them on at football. How would you have set up then? How would you have set up then?

We are so uncompetitive its embarrassing, completely fucked over by Ashley and our boring negative tactics. It's going to take 3 extremely bad teams for us not to get relegated.

The worst three teams are probably Swansea, Brighton and NUFC, so in all likelihood all three of us will go down.

He needs to play as a wingback where his lack of defensive nous is not so important.

It's becoming more and more likely that Rafa's not walking purely because of the rumoured amount of compensation he has to pay the fat man if he breaks his contract. If someone, even Stoke for fuck's sake offer to pay it then who knows if he stays or not. He is definitely getting royally fucked over that's for sure and as much as I dont like the football we play, he deserves a medal for staying if he does and another one if he keeps us up with the pile of shite we have playing for us.

If the fat man manages to sell us for 300m and not strengthen in January and we then get relegated it will be the greatest con since the Usual Suspects.

Seasonal greetings from Antigua, have a great holiday everyone.

Would any of the top 6 managers or Dyche, Howe, Puel, Silva etc be doing worse than Rafa with this squad? Just a question. Puts Kevlar suit and tin hat on.

Solid 8 from before the season started. Maybe we'll get a new manager bounce to help us escape at some point.

Play him in the Perez role where apparently Spain do and his lack of pace is possibly not so problematic.

We need to spend around 40-50m on 3 or 4 players or we will be toast. No way is there three worse teams in the division

Mbemba is the best CB we have IMO. Go figure what Rafa is thinking.

No shame losing to Leicester, we don't have a player who would get into their team.

We need Shelvey, Merino and Hayden playing together, we are far too open with only Two in the middle.

Merino looks like he should be a good player, cultured left foot, strolls around with the ball looking cool, but he's slow, shit off the ball and makes some awful decisions that cost us goals, today and Huddersfield the obvious ones. I know he's young and maybe Rafa can improve him, but his lack of pace, that's hard to ever get past.