Deuce

people getting angry at opinions they don’t like.

Doesn't hurt to have options!

Taking a national team job might not be a terrible idea for Rafa at this point.

I would be very surprised if Howe gets sacked this season.

I don’t believe there’s a single manager we could realistically hire at this point who’d be better positioned to keep up this squad than Howe. Anyone we get in would be starting from square one AGAIN, albeit with the same squad; it’s not plug-n-play. We’ve committed to Howe to let him implement his system come hell or high water. It’ll either come off this season and we’ll stay up, or he’ll be revamping the squad next season in the Championship. Y’all are kidding yourselves if you think Howe was hired as a mercenary manager with the sole mandate to keep the squad in the Premier League. He’s quite clearly someone PIF is investing in with a view to the bigger picture. *Even if that means we’re going down with him.* And it has nothing to do with loyalty to Howe. He’s working with Bruce’s broken squad, trying to get them playing actual football instead of “hoof it up field and run around a bit, lads.” I’m not saying results haven’t been disappointing and we’re not in need of significant investment.

Martinez would be a fool to join them in the state they’re in and to leave Belgium with the WC later this year.

Unless they’re offering silly money, it really makes no sense for us to sell Schar at this point.

Not really. It’s pragmatism.

“Rafa gives us a better chance of avoiding relegation.” Ignoring the fact that Rafa wasn’t able to help us avoid relegation the first time we hired him, with a far better squad than what we have now. I’ll never blame him for that, mind, because Steve McClaren. Sacking Howe to hire Rafa would absolutely be a small-time, knee-jerk, and frankly unprofessional move from our owners, who have shown themselves to be anything but those things to this point. I am fully convinced they are prepared to go down with Howe and have been since the day he was hired. There is no quick, plug-n-play solution. This isn’t FIFA, where you can just pick up the sticks and knock out a few wins after a few bad results on the auto-simulation. Like it or not, the manager best positioned to help us avoid relegation is Eddie Howe. He’s trying to get Steve Bruce’s squad to play an entirely new brand of football (that is, to actually get them playing football). Hopefully it’ll take before we’re relegated, but if not he deserves the chance to build his own team from the Championship.

I’ve been fairly agnostic about whether or not we stay up this season, even after the new owners came in. Relegation is not a death sentence, particularly for a club that will easily weather the financial hit.

Bielsa is such a cantankerous old fossil, love him.

This assumes that relegation is the be-all and end-all, which it’s not. And I don’t think our new owners see it that way either.

I think he’s destined for a return to the Netherlands, as a reset of sorts. I’ve not seen enough of him to know what kind of player he is, but he’s on solid footing to make the argument that he was wasted by OGS and is a better player than it seems.

Dunno why anyone is butthurt he doesn’t want to join this car crash of a club right now. He’s entitled to do whatever he thinks is best for his career and moving to Newcastle for half a season of turgid football may not actually be in his best interest.

Rafa would be wasted as a DoF, it not genuinely poor in the role.

I’m sure Ajax will take him back with open arms when his contract is up.

It would make sense for us to target players performing at a high level in the Championship.

He and Trump are cut from the same cloth.

I’d snap your hand off for him right now

He’s a real menace

He’d be a terrific signing.

Have to say it was cathartic to start up a new FIFA career as us and sell off 75% of the squad right off the bat. Started changing Big Joe into a CM but got impatient and sold him off too.

He’ll be great for us next season in the Champo, too.

Ake?

how about both