Tiresias

They were a little complacent in the window, they probably should have sold erickson and reinvested. All teams have cycles, this one has had a dip but Pochetino still looked to me perfectly capable of building another good team. I wonder if fluffing it quite badly in champions league final was what really cost him

You don't sack a manager who might leave soon. This will cost spurs over £10m. I meant in sense felt he wasn't giving everything and was affecting his performance, but yes if he was literally imminently about to walk that would be mad

Can only assume he's really badly lost the dressing room as at this point surely write teh season off, clear out the squad and give him another opportunity next season. He's no offence to spurs as good a manager as they will get. Possible they sensed he wasn't as committed and thought he'd walk soon enough anyway. Dunno.

I just can't see us coming close to his wages

I mean it's the old debate of should you pick a player based on how good they could be or how good they generally were. Sissoko is a fantastic player, sometimes, and it is clear it's not just that he was erratic for us, his wandering form seems consistent, dropping in and out of teams, impressing then disappearing. I think it's fair to give players in these rankings benefit of the doubt mostly and pick based on them at their best, but really can't give Sissoko that much credit, he played fairly miserably for a while.

Krul Debuchey Schar Colo Enrique Cabaye Tiote HBA Perez Remy Ba Subs: Dubs, Lascelles, Dummet, ASM, Remy, Sissoko, Jonas

One area of the pitch we have loads of cover for tbh, yes does make us a bit more susceptible to pace though

Maybe overrated but Arsenal's strikeforce isn't why they're struggling, it's everything behind them

Yes, and it annoys me that the narrative that we were entirely negative under rafa has taken hold of the media, yes we were safety first but second half of last season we were also very efficient attackers and should have been a taste of things to come this season. Instead we have been knocked backwards, we are not as good as we were in that run second half, partially bruces fault but also no rondon or perez. ASm helps sure but we lack any proper finishers.

Lovely goal

Sigh he's been practical and changed tack to fix things, signs of being capable enough just about. I expect the defensive strength to diminish as I think he lacks rafas attention to detail and Rafas drilling will fade. I think we'll struggle, we've scored a few goals last few games but feels like exception not rule when our front 3 still can't finish. He has clearly kept players on side though. His subs are terrible though and we can't control end of games as whatever we are at he wants us hoofing to carroll at the end. Still he's done ok. If those of us who are boycotting were only upset about Bruce of course this would be reason to double think. Short term thinking is ruining this club, both in how it's run and in fans who think every good patch means everythings looking good forever, the damage has already been done. We should not be fighting relegation, and we will be. We should not even be in the frame, and the absurdity is that we don't need to be even under Ashley's investment levels, the problems are a) not trusting in Rafa to get job done so allowed him to spend on whoever he wanted to, and b) regardless of who the manager is always undermining, always buying speculations etc. I think Joelinton has promise but that £40m could be spent so much better clearly. And then it's all the tackiness, the lack of class etc. I am not celebrating wholeheartedly every loss, and I remain quite happy to see us win, but I am torn cos I know a death spiral would facilitate the end of Ashley quicker. However unfortunately he will always do just enough to avoid it and for some reason a lot of fans think going down to championship every few seasons is perfectly acceptable. Madness of course. I don't get anywhere near the joy out of us winning I did even last season but I won't lie and pretend I'm miserable at it though which is maybe bad. I do get annoyed at people crowing at those who do celebrate, and those who think us boycotters aren't sufficient fans or something. We all want Newcastle to be better, I don't want to contrbute to ashley to perpetuate it but don't think watching from afar does much harm. I won't start tearing into our own fanbase. I am more angry at media continually misrepresenting the arguments and defending ashley for nonsense etc etc.

I think the traditional logic behind the 3-4-3 sort of formation is it's meant to overload 4 at the back sides that have 2 midfield defensive mids, as they either get dragged out wide to help with the overload of winger and full back against their fullback or get bypassed then you have 2 against 1 essentially.

If anything works for Bruce is that deep down it's clear he knows he's not good enough and thus isn't so proud as to be stubbornly sticking to his own stupid ideas and is willing to crib rafa's defensive work from last season. As the players forget Rafas drills etc this will deteriorate.

As if we could afford his wages He'd probably be an improvement he just looks a bit slow and foul happy for a defensive mid

Would it? In tennis or cricket if refs made a blunder and you've already used your allowed appeal it becomes poor management on your team rather than purely the referees fault and or bad luck. It would minimise disruption, and while obviously a really bad ref will stll screw up a game that will always be the case.

Should follow suit of other sports and VAR has to be a decision from the onfield captain or the manager and limited number of uses to prevent this shit. Maybe 1 a half and you don't lose a var appeal if decision successfully overturned. PERHAPS an option for the ref to refer to it himself if it's something super serious he didn't see. It's obscenely pedantic, ruining the flow of games and not clearing up controversy at all. Unfortunately you can't really legislate what a 'really clear obvious error' as opposed to the milimetre offsides that linesmen couldn't possibly tell so you have to make it something that the sides can call upon a limited number of times. Yes it is good it can overrule clear injustices, it should not be interfering with the game regularly.

Remember Stoke fans who would boo ramsey because he had the gall to have his leg broken?

This is strange, can't help but be pleased about winning, also amused at implosion it's almost a win win

prepare to throw it away

yep, was pathetic and no commentator thought it was anything wrong. Also that goal was coming.

To be fair to Bruce I bet it's not just transfers, he's probably so behind on opposition prep he's about to start work on how to beat Man United

Well yes, but this all stems from the fact that Bruce was unable to organise his own style of defence so cribbed Rafa's back 3. Unfortuantely Rafa's back 3 worked because Rondon and Perez were good at bringing the rest of the team into the game when the ball did get up field. ASM looks good but also tries to do it all himself and Joelinton just is not even a striker let alone a hold up man. Perez made up for the absence of third midfielder kind of. With this system our wingers are too isolated to be real threats as have to beat too many players, Joelinton is easy for one centre back to deal with and our 2 man midfield can be matched by 2 midfielders leaving another one free.

Our attack was considerably demonstrably better last season once he was in the team, yes would have been nice if he scored a lot but didn't see many whinging about his contribution at the time, he stretched the opposition and kept hitting the post. This season he has lost confidence and probably gets blanked by Bruce cos he's forren or something on the training ground

It's becoming clear that he's not so much a manager as a walking void where a manager should be. He does not improve players, he offers no tactical plans of his own, his inputs in game are indecisive and basically random. Of course he won't take responsibility for our performances, he has not done anything. He's such an absence of presence he can't even lose the dressing room, they probably don't even notice he's there, just some faint smell of boiled cabbage and white noise.

Blames the players and Rafa, what a cunt.