Tiotes Witch Doctor

There's no reason we can't ask for 20 million for him if Fulham get promoted, I'm very much a Mitro fan but hes never going to be a starter in a Rafa team that's obvious now, but it would be nice addition to the transfer pot Ashley's pocket for next season.

https://www.readytogo.net/smb/threads/are-we-gonna-protest-yet.1425097/

Keep thinking 1-1 draw for this, which just isn't enough.

I just have to keep reminding myself that 4 points from Man Utd and Bournemouth is a good return we would all have taken before the games, if we could repeat that from our next two we would be laughing.

Gutted

Got it wrong. We dominated for 70 minutes and went defensive and we looked weak. 2 points dropped are on him IMO. Bring on the abuse.

Kenedy is going to score his first goal today in a 2-0 victory to us.

See he is good!

Is he gonna be fit for Bournemouth or have we not heard yet?

My dig is more at the people who are saying he is working miracles, when in fact whatever way you swing it we are in serious danger of relegation, throwing away wins due to immediately retreating when going ahead, baffling and negative subs and tactics and IMO wasting most of admittedly mediocre budget he was given on players who mostly sit on the bench every week. We are just about keeping our heads above water and will more than likely be in the bottom 3 after the visit of Man Utd, I'm not for one second saying McClaren is a better manager than Benitez, I'm just saying so far his performance at corresponding points in the season are barely any different, and the proof is in the points hauls of both. I think he is the best we can get especially under this ownership, but he should not be above criticism, there was somebody before literally saying he should take no blame for anything ffs even if we go down Its madness.

For reference sake the season we went down under McClaren we had 24 points at this time in the season, only 1 less than our current amount, I think its debatable whether the team was much better then, you would think for being not far off a world class manager he might be outperforming McClaren by more than a point. At the end of the day it comes down to points on the board, and on that evidence so far he is barely outperforming Schteve.

I'd bludgeon my entire family to death for a 1-1, can't see past a 3-1 defeat at best tbh.

I sometimes wonder if and when he takes us down if people will be banging on about how great the relegation was under Rafa, and that we should be over the moon we got relegated on 37 points and not 33 points because of his footballing acumen. Some people are so desperate to believe our big name manager is working miracles that they can't see whats in front of their eyes, bloke can do no wrong. I love the bloke and what his arrival did to reunite the club but I don't think its out of turn to say his managerial performance has been a bit underwhelming this season, and that hes not done too well with the 45 million he spent in the summer.

Rafa is not working miracles man, if anything his performance this season has been underwhelming, our team isn't THAT much worse than most in the bottom half yet we should all be really grateful we're deeply embroiled in a relegation battle while the bulk of the money he spent in the summer is sat on the bench because they aren't good enough or he doesn't trust them. I want the bloke to succeed here but regardless of not being fully backed he should still be doing a bit better IMO, particularly in how we approach games at home and when we're 1-0 ahead. Would be happy for him to prove me wrong and would happily take the pelters that come with this but I don't have the faith he has it in him to keep us up or that having a capable goalscorer in Slimani will make a big enough difference to outweigh the negative tactics he uses in most games.

Barely anyone in our team is Premier league quality. It would probably go a long way to explaining why we can't string two passes together if you look at it objectively. Don’t buy this and frankly sick of hearing people trot out their trite, half thought through, assertions. Make a f***ing list of the first team players who ‘graced’ the PL this weekend. Is our squad really qualitatively different? Fundamentally less than? Cast your mind back to Wednesday, to Swansea, to Stoke. To the eight games we have lost by a single goal. To the seven we’ve drawn and had chances to win. It is f***ing tough to take like, but newsflash, you’re deluded if you think any positive is Rafa’s genius and any negative is down to our players. They did a f***ing sterling job today. If you stick all the time you rarely win the low probability games. If you twist too much you lose more than you should., but win some you shouldn’t. We’ve got three points from half a dozen winnable home games. If I was the manager, I’d be looking in the mirror, not belittling the players. Rafa will be doing similar. Hope it doesn’t matter come season end.

Hayden

Going to come out of the window with less strikers than we came into it with, that is so NUFC.

Still waiting on the pull of a top manager like Benitez to work in our favour.

This won't happen, it'll be nobody just like we expected, a better club will come in or talks will break down, just more spin to make it look like we're doing all we can, before the usual "we tried"

What always stings with us about these games is that literally nobody thinks we could pull off a shock or even take any decent team to a replay or extra time even, its always a foregone conclusion that we lose to anyone half decent, whereas you see sides at around our level or even less pulling off upsets fairly often, why is it so iron clad with us that we'll go and get battered, especially since we apparently have the better manager too.

Still think our biggest problem is the lack of creativity, would rather a top class number 10 brought in than a striker if I absolutely had to choose, but really we should be getting both.

Shelvey is bang average at best in this league and I honestly think someone like Rafa would be able to pick up a central player abroad somewhere who would be better than him, but because hes english and has premier league experience we could and probably should squeeze more than 12 million from any potential sale, but why would anyone want him, hes not exactly been good so far this season has he?

Probably a couple of new takeover rumours leaked too depending on whether it looks like we're staying up or not.

Seems like he could be another Yedlin if we use him as a fullback, lets just hope he has more end product going forward, would have preferred someone who can play number 10 though, but we might still have someone incoming, who knows.

How much money would have been about acceptable to give him back in the summer do you think? We spent 45 million in the summer after being given 50 million of what we recouped in the championship to spend there too. If by some miracle we do give him about 20-30 million to spend in this window (I know) is 75-80 million not an acceptable amount for a newly promoted club to spend to stay up? Would he be failing if he didn't deliver then? Not an anti or pro Rafa post, just interested in what everyone thinks is acceptable money wise.