Hanshithispantz

Mind blown. It's asif Ashley doesn't exist and Rafa wasted 20mil of Joselu for the laugh. Do you think the chairman decides who a team signs??.....The manager decides on who he wants to recruit just like in any business. If you think Ashley forced these players on him then youre blinded *bites tongue* and who do you think sets the transfer budget which in turn dictates the players that the manager can sign? And when and where that budget can be used as well as who does the negotiating, hence us not getting Tammy Abraham and Willy Caballero because we were too slow.

Completely forgot about that Southampton loanee we never got about a day before all of our left backs collapsed too

For me, he would have to travel back in time ten years and alter the course of history resulting in an owner that runs the club in an intelligent, professional manner, maximising its commercial revenue and allowing that to be invested back into the playing staff. Who exactly do you think would do better with this current squad? Pardew? McClaren? Kinnear? Carver? That is the quality of alternatives under Ashley. I think the guy in the opposite dugout today could do just as good a job as Rafa is doing today with this squad to be honest Im sick to death of him being absolved of any blame for shite performances week in week out. The 2 performances we have just put in this week are 2 of the most insipid, pathetic,gutless and toothless performances ive ever ever witnessed. Dress the Man City one up all you want but we conceded that game before wed even kicked off that is not football and Rafa is the guy who tells these useless fuckwits to play this way Im sick to death of watching this negative approach to every game as if we are little old Newcatsle from the northern premier league taking on the big boys...its shit I think most blamed him for our horrific 9 game winless run like.

forgot about that. Townsend would have improved us no end this season too.

Funny how Hughton didn't get Aguero money or a cool 50 million to spend in their promotion season and Brighton are still doing well isn't it. Rafa is under performing, and I hope he still turns it around but, things just seem to be getting worse rather than better. They also didn't literally lose 13/14 first team players from the 2015/16 either though. We had about 10 players remaining after all those transfers so had to bring in at least the same number of players to cope with the extra 8 (or 11) league games in the Championship. Brighton's team had been geared for promotion for years and the likes of Dunk would have easily been worth £15m, Knockaert the same (in this market), Dale Stephens £10m or so, whereas the bulk of our signings ranged from £2.5m to £5.5m, bar 2 notable exceptions. Pretty much all our quality was sold to generate that £90m - £55m was put back in to sign 14 players - an average of £3.9m per player and you just need look at transfers in that league from this season to see that that figure really isn't that much - Assombolonga £15, Neves £16m, Rhodes £10m, Braithwaite £10m etc. Brighton were at least equal to us last season, if not better as they were 7 clear with 3 games to go once their bottom line of promotion was secured. Make no mistake, if 1 was promoted and the other 4 went in the playoffs rather than 2 automatically, then we wouldn't have won the league, so we were at least equal and for whatever reason, their transfers this season have been better - Ryan has made a big difference, Davy Propper. We had Atsu last year, Joselu and Manq have arguably made us worse, Murphy non existent, so you could argue we are actually even worse than we were last season as only Merino has come in and had a decent impact. Is location a problem, are we more restricted on wages (really can't see Joselu, Manquillo and Murphy being on more than £100k between them)? But I can guarantee if Rafa had his way, he wouldn't have went to Mike and said 'Mike, whatever you do, please please give me that Joselu lad who can't get a look in at Stoke, he'll make a hell of a difference". We've had a bunch of top championship / fringe Premier League players bundled together in one window and while that cope have coped had 3 or 4 players been brought in at £15m-20m a skelp to add a bit of quality to a try hard but limited group, but we all know that didn't happen, so I'd argue that we are at a worse level than Brighton now. People need to realise we are literally operating on a bottom 3 to 4 budget now (far lower than the likes of Everton, Leicester, Palace, West Ham, Watford etc) and if you were born after 1980 or so (which a large chunk of us on here will be) then for the first time in your life this is the first time that has happened - forget the top 6, we are miles behind 75% of the league. When Keegan took over and in a far worse position he bought players he thought could get us out of the league but would also make an impact in the premier league and the rest is history. Don’t think that happened last year and compounded by the fact tha Yes. The footballing landscape allows us to replicate that on our budget. Aye, Ritchie pretty much fits that and cost us £12m Rafa could have bought better, definitely. His transfers have never been anywhere close to 100% throughout his career but he has a habit of building a squad that works when he actually has money to spend. We not only asking him to build a squad on a negative transfer budget but to do it if and when he sells, it's ridiculous.

Every game is the same. It's what we do, surrender possession so we can try and not get beat. Funny that, we beat West Ham just the other week with 35% possession whilst apparently 'trying not to get beat' That's what we do. We go out to not get beat and if we score then brilliant. We never go out to try and take it to a team. I will never warm to this kind of football like, always detested the "not get beat" style. Just takes any kind of enjoyment out of the game of football. I was taking the p*ss, you'd have to be a bit daft to think that we went out to not get beaten in that West Ham match. I'm mainly talking about playing this way at home. It isn't right. I don't agree, Rafa's working with what he has, if you think we should take it to teams indiscriminately, godspeed. So are you happy with two banks of four in front of our box and letting a team as s*** as Brighton have all the possession? I just don't get it. It's not how it should be done at home, which is why our record is so s***. I didn't say I was happy, I said Rafa's working with what he has. He is, I agree with you, but I wish we would do it with the ball more. We set up at home like you would expect for an away game. You should never let the opposition have more of the ball than you at home like, but we set up like that. For me it is nowhere near good enough. It's been said countless times, but I can't work out why people can agree that Rafa's working with what he has and then complain that we don't dominate possession or take it to teams at home. Which one is it? Is Rafa working with what he has or should we be attacking teams? For me there's a crucial link between the two and a bit of contradiction in terms from people who keep forgetting time and time and time again that these players are nowhere near good enough. Sorry but that's bollocks. This was Brighton we were playing. We could pass it off when it was Man City but not when it's a s*** team like Brighton. We are a crap team but we are more than capable of pressing a s*** team like Brighton and showing more desire to get forward. To sit back and let such a s*** team have so much of the ball at home is inexcusable. No idea what you were watching but 'letting' didn't come into it, they're just not good enough. If you think that's bollocks, like I said, godspeed, but I don't and it's as simple as that. I do think that's bollocks because Brighton are not a better team than us. We are better than we are showing (not much like) but we are more than capable of taking a game to a team like Brighton at home. And letting the opposition have the ball is right, it's what we do and how we set up, then hoping to hit teams on the counter, which for me is disgusting at home. (Love playing that way away from home as it has had a form of success). But at home it's awful, no matter how shit you think our players are. Debatable, but in any case we were picking up more points than Brighton playing exactly like we did today before Lascelles got injured and our defence went to pot.

Aslong as they aren't about Rafa you should be alright. Why do people keep saying this? I WANT TO CALL RAFA BENITEZ 'THE SPANISH TONY PULIS' IN PEACE WITHOUT ANYONE BRINGING UP ANY COUNTER ARGUMENTS FOR WHY HE MAY HAVE US PLAYING LIKE HE HAS

Express them all you want and argue your fucking points instead of being a whinging drip.

A few games ago people were pretty much begging for us to return back to this A solid looking side defensively who look like they could never score in a month of sundays.

We only lost to Bournemouth in the last minute after lascelles went off injured. Does that not count as a loss like? We were awful 2nd half in that game. Can add Leicester and a Watford side who went on a horrific run after the beat us to that too - we'd lost our last 5 at home. We could have lost today, obviously, but we quite clearly set out just to not concede as best we could which is what worked for us before our bad run with Lascelles out.

I don't know what people are expecting like, that's exactly how we played for the first 1/4 of the season when we were actually picking up regular points. It's absolutely shite to watch and borders on embarrassing but the alternative seems to be shipping 3 goals a game and/or being beaten at home to the likes of Bournemouth.

Other than Merino we're so bad man

He's too slow to be a good workhorse I don't think every grafting winger needs to be up and down the pitch like Jonas Gutierrez.

If we had shown the same application as they did or we did against Liverpool or Tottenham or City you would not have heard a buzz from me even if we had let in 3 or 4. Nobody is denying their quality and that’s exactly why I am saying you don’t allow teams like that to be allowed to walk the ball into our third of the pitch without even a challenge or a token effort to put pressure onto their team and to not give them the time or space to pick their pass. The last 15 minutes is exactly how the previous 75 should have been played as we then started to put the pressure on and the challenges in. We were chasing the game at 0-1 down, their defenders were tiring and we put pacey players on as subs in Gayle and Atsu. I think it's quite easy to say "we should have played like that the whole game" but it just wouldn't have worked like that. We would've tired with them playing passes around our press we would've gotten done 3 or 4+. We tried rushing Man Utd, Bournemouth and Leicester and ended up getting dicked after 20 minutes (well, 45 against Bournemouth). It's likely City would have double fisted us. Up until the first goal at Man Utd we were excellent and then fell to pieces. Leicester in parts we played ok also. That's the thing though, rushing them like we did in those games is the only other real alternative I can think of, and it never worked out well against worse sides. In terms of pressing well and catching them on the break we haven't been able to do that effectively for most of the season (West Ham 3-0 and Stoke 2-1?), I cannot imagine it working suddenly against City.

I think we started well against Leicester and then they dominated after they scored, we were unlucky to lose in the end but we were by far 2nd best for most of the game. I thought similar 2nd half against Bournemouth. But yeah it isn't really relevant, the point is we never lasted long on top in those games so I agree trying similar against City would have been a bad idea.

If we had shown the same application as they did or we did against Liverpool or Tottenham or City you would not have heard a buzz from me even if we had let in 3 or 4. Nobody is denying their quality and that’s exactly why I am saying you don’t allow teams like that to be allowed to walk the ball into our third of the pitch without even a challenge or a token effort to put pressure onto their team and to not give them the time or space to pick their pass. The last 15 minutes is exactly how the previous 75 should have been played as we then started to put the pressure on and the challenges in. We were chasing the game at 0-1 down, their defenders were tiring and we put pacey players on as subs in Gayle and Atsu. I think it's quite easy to say "we should have played like that the whole game" but it just wouldn't have worked like that. We would've tired with them playing passes around our press we would've gotten done 3 or 4+. We tried rushing Man Utd, Bournemouth and Leicester and ended up getting dicked after 20 minutes (well, 45 against Bournemouth). It's likely City would have double fisted us.

We only put pressure on them in the last 15 as they dropped back though, that was the point of the plan (or to catch them on the break if they tried to maintain their intensity for the full 90).

I'd definitely keep a few as back up. I know Ritchie get's a lot a stick but with a proper winger on the other side, an AM and top striker I think he'll look a lot better as Rafa's typical workhorse winger.

Difference is restricting them to a few not many like we did against Liverpool and Tottenham. All teams will usually get one or two chances in a game. They got behind us time after time except for the last 15 minutes when we started to actually put pressure onto them. When though? I can think of 4 times, 1 due to really bad individual play (Dummett), another due to some comical team defending, and the other 2 through De Bruyne being on another planet? There might have been more but I cannot remember them, I didn't feel on edge at all like I usually do in these games.

How were we 'cut to shreds'? They created chances because they're a fantastic side, it would have been nigh on impossible to restrict them to creating nothing and we were always going to need a bit of luck, but they hardly got in behind us at will like you're making out. The goal, De Bruyne's 1-2 and Dummett's fuck up to let Aguero in are all I can really think of. EDIT: 1 piece of comical defending after our corner led us to being hit on the break too.

Aye basically. They're the only 2 I can see being regular starters in a couple years time if we get this takeover.

We need to replace our entire squad.

This City side now is literally what everyone thought was going to happen if we gave Pep an infinite budget in this league, they're far beyond anything we've seen before. There isn't any comparison to any other side in Premiership history, not just Manchester City sides of previous years. They're probably not as strong as the Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich sides we've seen over the past decade but I doubt they're miles off. I'm not 'happy' with a 1-0 loss but I'm definitely happy with the effort and tactically I thought it was a wise choice.

What areas of his game are second to none? He's a good passer, that's it Erm, you said it yourself - passing... When we're actually playing on the front foot and have possession for decent stints, Shelvey is comfortably the best & most talented player in our squad. Ah right, I thought when you said "areas" which is plural you might be talking about more than one area. Silly me Terribly sorry friend. Vision would be another, which is a separate attribute to passing, although they go hand-in-hand. His vision is out of this world at times. Brilliant. You're seriously suggesting Shelvey has better vision than Merino when it comes to passes? What? What?! In what world has Merino shown a better eye for a pass than Shelvey? I think Merino looks a potentially very good player, and his ability to see and pick out a pass is obviously pretty great by our standards, but I'm honestly stumped why people think he's a better passer than Shelvey, or even that he can spot a pass better. Its basically all Shelvey is strong at, but he is very, very good at it. Shelvey's biggest problem is his workrate and hiss complete lack of ability to impose himself when the other team have the ball, something Merino is fantastic at. Merino also has far better technique so he's better at getting himself out of a tight spot which means he looks far more comfortable when there isn't much room in the middle. We don't need to go over the top about it though. EDIT: And I've said it before, but replace Shelvey with Hayden in the middle and we're no better defensively - despite Shelvey being blamed for every goal we concede. We're just not strong enough as a unit.

We went on a 9 game winless run as we have an absolutely vile squad. There's basically Lascelles, Gayle and Merino who have looked definitely better.