Varadi

Merry Christmas everyone! (thank goodness Trump brought that back this year )

Rafa will have a plan to at least make it tough for them but ultimately they just have too many good players - think we'll see a narrow defeat.

This guy is just immense - won a couple of massive headers over Carroll, not many manage that. Really hope he's not injured again.

Rafa said in his pre-match presser: "We have some knocks and little problems with other players." Guess he was downplaying it a bit!

Was just thinking that - imagine if we get a performance like Tiote's debut?

Perez at a push

Well this should be interesting...

tbf they also had significantly more quality than us when we beat them 3 nowt a few months ago, and we still have a vastly superior manager. Not that I'm expecting a win but it wouldn't be a complete surprise.

Think Atsu is decent on set pieces, seem to remember him scoring a cracking free kick last season?

There's plenty of love for Rafa among the fanbase, but equally there's a significant number who are thick as fuck and will turn on both the manager and the players they don't like very easily. You should be able to see that just by reading this thread. I wonder if Rafa had this at Liverpool as well? Their fans who come on here seem very knowledgeable, but I imagine they had their share of knuckledraggers as well. The fact there's pissheads down my local who think they can spot simple magic solutions to our problems that Rafa fucking Benitez is somehow missing is a source of continuous bafflement and irritation to me.

FYP. Beat me to it

Ashley's ideal scenario would probably be to sell us for a big profit then see us relegated so he could gloat about what a great deal he got. At the same time I don't think his ego could stand someone succeeding where he has failed, which means he might hang onto us out of pure spite. The future direction of the whole club is in the balance and I'm really struggling to feel optimistic tbh.

It's nervous tension I reckon - everyone wants to believe but don't quite dare....

If tonight he suddenly goes back to 4-2-3-1 and keeps it tight as fuck I'm sticking to my theory that he's been setting us up to lose games on purpose to force the takeover through

The National have flipped from being the only ones saying it was on to the most pessimistic out there: https://www.thenational.ae/sport/newcastle-takeover-hangs-in-the-balance-as-ashley-holds-out-for-300m-from-staveley-1.684178

For me he kind of is to be honest. Partly because any criticism directed at him is diverted from where it truly belongs, but also because he's by a considerable margin the best manager we'll ever get under this regime. If we get taken over, he spends 50 million+ on new players and still isn't getting results then I might have a few words to say, but until then for me he's bulletproof.

Feel a bit better after that Caulkin update...

Diame aside it's exactly what everyone was asking for. If Diame plays the whole match I'll understand everyone's complaints, but it's unlikely. It's very unlikely that we're getting anything from this match, regardless of the line up. Aye, it's not like we've a plethora of options. Can see why Shelvey isn't in there when we're in for a chasing, plus he looked lively coming off the bench late on against WBA, nice option to have if we're still in it after an hour.

Obviously wants as much pace on the break as possible​ - will be similar tactics to the Man Utd game I reckon

I honestly think there's a chance he's doing it on purpose to try hurry the takeover along - we've been so wide open the last couple of games it almost has to be deliberate.

Would agree if it wasn't for Hayden's suspension, reckon that makes it more likely he'll start here then be on the bench Tuesday.

Aye, he would be 2 in 2 if the one against Bournemouth wasn't incorrectly disallowed, good signs he's getting back into form.

Somehow they could win only two games and be out of the bottom three, just seen 2 -0 Lerl When you've 1 win in 18 winning 2 games could take a canny while tbf

Sounds perfectly reasonable tbh, you would hope the fact he's still willing to negotiate slightly reduces the risk of one of his trademark fuck-yous derailing the whole thing.

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