Tiotes Witch Doctor

I miss Rafa as much as the next man, and trust me I "get it" but the football is a mirror image of the first half of last season, only with more points on the board, we didn't look remotely exciting to watch until the second half of the season.

It's absolutely no different to many games last season mind.

My heart

Our form this season is showing us one of three things, Rafa really was past his best and could have got more out of the players last season (dreadful early season form) OR Bruce is doing quite well, so far accumulating more points than last with an arguably weaker team depending on how you prefer to look at it. OR The players are still drilled to play and train a certain way learned under Rafa and his coaches, and in time this will be coached out of them and regimes, fitness, tactics etc... will be tweaked and pulled apart.

If we win this today, through gritted teeth I'll have to admit we've actually had a decent start under him, be 3 points off top 6 if scoreline stays the same.

No decent sides seem to want to hire him.

Dubravka should have done better with their goal, just like against Liverpool and the 3 or 4 howlers he made last season too, average goalkeeper living off a great debut.

We played relatively well, didn't really create anything which is nothing new and we looked fairly solid and comfortable at the back, pretty much standard Rafa Benitez type away day performance. Need to try and get Maximin on the ball as much as possible second half, looks dangerous every time he gets it.

This quote sums up why Ashley will never leave and probably wakes up and laughs his tits off every single day.

He knows who the problem is but is a club mouth piece.

Can just imagine him going on Youtube and watching highlight reels of their three best players.

Hate him now

First this and next this dodgy "£47m" Joelinton deal will hopefully come out in the wash. Something is minging and I think its that fat sweaty cunt.

Can't wait to watch Colback spraying passes into him.

I miss Rafa

Best long passer at the club, his short range passing isn't all that impressive tbh.

The fat mackem cunt will probably give this ginger mackem cunt a new 4 year contract aswell, he'll be exactly his kind of player.

He's going to suprise us all and guide this squad, without Perez and Rondon to a 10th placed finish.

If this falls through its probably gonna be Hughes.

Could be another McClaren style season without Rafa coming in at the end to give us hope

Even with Rafa, and with Perez, Rondon and the players playing his way to grind out the wins we still looked vulnerable and very poor at times. Now take Rafa and his gameplan, discpline and infleunce away, take away our two top scorers, add in Redfearn and a toxic atmosphere and Jack Colback and Joselu, and we could be relegated on record points. Not to mention we'll probably be losing some of our best players from last season in Hayden, probably Schar and Dubravka if they have any sense. Grim. 20th.

Said this ages ago and was given shit for it, seems nailed on now, just replace Allarydce with Readfearn.

If we were a normal club who reinvested transfer profit on players, and we had a manager and coaches and stuff, I'd say 30 million is decent little earner, we could spent the money on a more consistent performer. As well as Perez did at the back end of last season I can't really see him developing much further than he has and certainly has his limitations. But ultimately who gives a fuck.

This is absolutely grim, we had it all there in front of us, an extremely talented manager, the foundations of a decent squad, full houses and people falling in love with NUFC again. Now its the complete opposite, by far the worst feeling I've had in my 20 or so years of watching football.

I've actually had a change of heart and I think it could be a half decent managerial appointment, but as has been said 1000x it really doesn't matter who it is the outcome will be the same.