triggs

If Ozil and Sanchez are gone, we have to target that Arsenal home game as at least a draw

Still Bournemouth as well

They would if they played this starting 11 against us

Arsenal need a major rebuild in the summer. I actually think they've looked really good at times this season when Sanchez and Ozil have been available but they're a midtable team in quality without those two

City don't want him as much is the simple answer. Man Utd are offering Arsenal what they want and Sanchez what he wants in terms of money

Its gonna be another grim one

Aye but Ritchie is a very competent passer of the ball and keeps the ball well. So maybe that's the reason for it... Ball retention. I'd have to see more of Murphy but for me Ritchie is probably still our most competent winger if not outright, one of them at least. Ball retention isn't really important for us given the way we play. We need wingers who can get us up the pitch

Hasn't got one in ten games

This strikes me as just outright hatred as opposed to rational perspective of today's performance

West Brom away Clark goal. Only ten games ago then, and even back then he was terrible in general play. Tbf it is slightly harsh as if his great pass in the first half had resulted in a goal as it should have he'd probably be getting praised but that's just the way football is

When was Ritchie's last assist? Did he get one over Christmas?

Wrong. Feel free to tell me why. Settled for a point?! We should have been 3 up at half time and if we didn't have two 1 goal in 3 chances strikers we would have been. Swansea deserved nowt but to be beat today and we failed to put them to the sword because in my opinion ion lack of confidence and not quality. We do shit at home because half of the fans are utter fucking Doyls who should fuck off to Warner brothers if they want to be entertained. We clearly settled for the point once we got it back to 1-1 which is completely the wrong thing to do when playing the worst team in the league at home IMO Na. Certain players lacked urge cy but that wasn't tactical. I'm fairly certain. Ritchie is terrified of taking a man on any time of the game and that's what stand sour for me most... I think its clear that it was tactical at that point considering he took off Shelvey for a more defensive player and didn't even use our last sub Who came on for Shelvey? Merino. If so...then your talking shit...but I'm not certain. Merino isn't more defensive than Shelvey in your opinion?

I'm with this. I feel Rafa is just papering over the cracks really. It's no surprise we're more at ease away from home where there's generally more space, than at home where we're naturally expected to be a bit more adventurous. We have precious little creative quality in our squad, let alone goal scoring ability. The only thing keeping us in it right now is our team spirit and our defensive organisation. Player for player this is by some distance our weakest Premier League squad I've seen since I started following NUFC. I don't subscribe to the notion that Rafa Benitez is some sort of saint who can do no wrong, but it's plain to see he's forced to be pragmatic here and is pretty much wringing everything possible from a Championship squad with maybe a handful of PL quality players. Years and years of underinvestment are taking their toll, and it's painfully clear we are in desperate need of reinforcements. Just imagine for one moment what a difference a creative midfielder like Ben Arfa or a striker like Demba Ba would make to our team and our survival chances. We're a team of plodders, so it should be no surprise we play like one. Also, as I've said in the other thread what do people think will happen if we try to attack teams? We've no attacking quality whatsoever and our defence is hanging together by a spiders web but aye fuck it lets go at them We were playing the worst team in the league, who have scored 14 goals or something this season, at home. I'm not saying go gung-ho and forget about defending but in that scenario you simply have to go for the win IMO

Wrong. Feel free to tell me why. Settled for a point?! We should have been 3 up at half time and if we didn't have two 1 goal in 3 chances strikers we would have been. Swansea deserved nowt but to be beat today and we failed to put them to the sword because in my opinion ion lack of confidence and not quality. We do shit at home because half of the fans are utter fucking Doyls who should fuck off to Warner brothers if they want to be entertained. We clearly settled for the point once we got it back to 1-1 which is completely the wrong thing to do when playing the worst team in the league at home IMO Na. Certain players lacked urge cy but that wasn't tactical. I'm fairly certain. Ritchie is terrified of taking a man on any time of the game and that's what stand sour for me most... I think its clear that it was tactical at that point considering he took off Shelvey for a more defensive player and didn't even use our last sub, which would've been a great time to get Ritchie off for Murphy if we were going for it

Could he get banned for that?

I meant he needs to start every game if fit. If you want us to get relegated. 0.45 - Points Per Game when Gayle starts 1.50 - Points Per Game when Gayle doesn't start I’m saying if people want Gayle to start scoring regularly, he has to play regularly, and not in fits and starts which is what has happened this season. Your stats btw, you could say the same for Hayden, for Shelvey, for half the team. It’s irrelevent. Doesn’t mean we are losing games not winning because Gayle is playing or even vice versa. Play Gayle and we get relegated is that what you are saying, or rather your stats? Basically I’m just defending him today. I thought he was a goal threat, a nuisance and generally played really well. Put one or two of them chances away and it’s MOTM and 8/10. He was awful today, 4 good chances, cocked them all up. He's played plenty of football recently. He's not good enough. He didn't have 4 good chances mind Watching it back now, certainly had 3 good chances. Considering how pedantic you are at times I stand by what I said

I meant he needs to start every game if fit. If you want us to get relegated. 0.45 - Points Per Game when Gayle starts 1.50 - Points Per Game when Gayle doesn't start I’m saying if people want Gayle to start scoring regularly, he has to play regularly, and not in fits and starts which is what has happened this season. Your stats btw, you could say the same for Hayden, for Shelvey, for half the team. It’s irrelevent. Doesn’t mean we are losing games not winning because Gayle is playing or even vice versa. Play Gayle and we get relegated is that what you are saying, or rather your stats? Basically I’m just defending him today. I thought he was a goal threat, a nuisance and generally played really well. Put one or two of them chances away and it’s MOTM and 8/10. He was awful today, 4 good chances, cocked them all up. He's played plenty of football recently. He's not good enough. He didn't have 4 good chances mind

Wrong. Feel free to tell me why. Settled for a point?! We should have been 3 up at half time and if we didn't have two 1 goal in 3 chances strikers we would have been. Swansea deserved nowt but to be beat today and we failed to put them to the sword because in my opinion ion lack of confidence and not quality. We do shit at home because half of the fans are utter fucking Doyls who should fuck off to Warner brothers if they want to be entertained. We clearly settled for the point once we got it back to 1-1 which is completely the wrong thing to do when playing the worst team in the league at home IMO

The home form is disgraceful especially when you consider there is only Man City who were a top team all of the other games were certainly what I would class as winnable games. And 2 points out of 21 is not good enough. The fact that there is probably no signings of the required standard to come in it’s essential we beat the teams which you would think we should especially at home. Rafa obviously doesn't trust this group of players to open up and frankly I think he's spot on. Maybe he doesn’t but then again it doesn’t hide the fact that 2 points out of 21 is not good enough He's playing the margins but the s**** he has available to him are missing key chances at key points in games. I don't know what you want, we probably have the poorest squad in the division, if we go at teams at home they'll pick us to bits. Almost certainly. Somebody like a Demba Ba in this side, and we would have been just about safe by now in my opinion. Absolutely. Today is a perfect example of our problems. He's got a load of poor/average players working a system and we created enough chances to win the game in the first half. Striker didn't score any of them because he's not good enough at this level and Rafa knows it. I’ve got every sympathy with the lack of funding but the team was built last year with the sole purpose of getting promoted and I again compare that to Keegan who added players with the intention winning the league but also players he knew could make the step up. Maybe Rafa thought some of the players he bought would but surely with Ashley’s track record he wasn’t expecting another team to be bought A lot easier to do 25 odd years ago, the market was very different and you may recall Rafa tried to bring in Premier League ready players last January but Mike Ashley blocked them. So you think the likes of Andy Cole, Beresford, Bracewell, Venison and Beresford wouldn’t have made it now - really? No not at all, I said the market 2 million in a premiership striker The home form is disgraceful especially when you consider there is only Man City who were a top team all of the other games were certainly what I would class as winnable games. And 2 points out of 21 is not good enough. The fact that there is probably no signings of the required standard to come in it’s essential we beat the teams which you would think we should especially at home. Rafa obviously doesn't trust this group of players to open up and frankly I think he's spot on. Maybe he doesn’t but then again it doesn’t hide the fact that 2 points out of 21 is not good enough He's playing the margins but the s**** he has available to him are missing key chances at key points in games. I don't know what you want, we probably have the poorest squad in the division, if we go at teams at home they'll pick us to bits. Almost certainly. Somebody like a Demba Ba in this side, and we would have been just about safe by now in my opinion. Absolutely. Today is a perfect example of our problems. He's got a load of poor/average players working a system and we created enough chances to win the game in the first half. Striker didn't score any of them because he's not good enough at this level and Rafa knows it. I’ve got every sympathy with the lack of funding but the team was built last year with the sole purpose of getting promoted and I again compare that to Keegan who added players with the intention winning the league but also players he knew could make the step up. Maybe Rafa thought some of the players he bought would but surely with Ashley’s track record he wasn’t expecting another team to be bought A lot easier to do 25 odd years ago, the market was very different and you may recall Rafa tried to bring in Premier League ready players last January but Mike Ashley blocked them. So you think the likes of Andy Cole, Beresford, Bracewell, Venison and Beresford wouldn’t have made it now - really? No not at all, I said the market was different. We'd be looking at around £20m for Andy Cole for example after a decent season at Bristol City. When did we last spend £20m? Oh wait. as different. We'd be looking at around £20m for Andy Cole for example after a decent season at Bristol City. When did we last spend £20m? Oh wait. So Any Cole at that time playing in the Championship with Bristol scoring 12 goals would be worth more than 8 million than a premiership striker like Gayle at that time aye right. Quite possibly yes, much younger and much more potential. The home form is disgraceful especially when you consider there is only Man City who were a top team all of the other games were certainly what I would class as winnable games. And 2 points out of 21 is not good enough. The fact that there is probably no signings of the required standard to come in it’s essential we beat the teams which you would think we should especially at home. Rafa obviously doesn't trust this group of players to open up and frankly I think he's spot on. Maybe he doesn’t but then again it doesn’t hide the fact that 2 points out of 21 is not good enough He's playing the margins but the s**** he has available to him are missing key chances at key points in games. I don't know what you want, we probably have the poorest squad in the division, if we go at teams at home they'll pick us to bits. Almost certainly. Somebody like a Demba Ba in this side, and we would have been just about safe by now in my opinion. Absolutely. Today is a perfect example of our problems. He's got a load of poor/average players working a system and we created enough chances to win the game in the first half. Striker didn't score any of them because he's not good enough at this level and Rafa knows it. I’ve got every sympathy with the lack of funding but the team was built last year with the sole purpose of getting promoted and I again compare that to Keegan who added players with the intention winning the league but also players he knew could make the step up. Maybe Rafa thought some of the players he bought would but surely with Ashley’s track record he wasn’t expecting another team to be bought A lot easier to do 25 odd years ago, the market was very different and you may recall Rafa tried to bring in Premier League ready players last January but Mike Ashley blocked them. So you think the likes of Andy Cole, Beresford, Bracewell, Venison and Beresford wouldn’t have made it now - really? No not at all, I said the market 2 million in a premiership striker The home form is disgraceful especially when you consider there is only Man City who were a top team all of the other games were certainly what I would class as winnable games. And 2 points out of 21 is not good enough. The fact that there is probably no signings of the required standard to come in it’s essential we beat the teams which you would think we should especially at home. Rafa obviously doesn't trust this group of players to open up and frankly I think he's spot on. Maybe he doesn’t but then again it doesn’t hide the fact that 2 points out of 21 is not good enough He's playing the margins but the s**** he has available to him are missing key chances at key points in games. I don't know what you want, we probably have the poorest squad in the division, if we go at teams at home they'll pick us to bits. Almost certainly. Somebody like a Demba Ba in this side, and we would have been just about safe by now in my opinion. Absolutely. Today is a perfect example of our problems. He's got a load of poor/average players working a system and we created enough chances to win the game in the first half. Striker didn't score any of them because he's not good enough at this level and Rafa knows it. I’ve got every sympathy with the lack of funding but the team was built last year with the sole purpose of getting promoted and I again compare that to Keegan who added players with the intention winning the league but also players he knew could make the step up. Maybe Rafa thought some of the players he bought would but surely with Ashley’s track record he wasn’t expecting another team to be bought A lot easier to do 25 odd years ago, the market was very different and you may recall Rafa tried to bring in Premier League ready players last January but Mike Ashley blocked them. So you think the likes of Andy Cole, Beresford, Bracewell, Venison and Beresford wouldn’t have made it now - really? No not at all, I said the market was different. We'd be looking at around £20m for Andy Cole for example after a decent season at Bristol City. When did we last spend £20m? Oh wait. as different. We'd be looking at around £20m for Andy Cole for example after a decent season at Bristol City. When did we last spend £20m? Oh wait. So Any Cole at that time playing in the Championship with Bristol scoring 12 goals would be worth more than 8 million than a premiership striker like Gayle at that time aye right. Quite possibly yes, much younger and much more potential. Not 20 million at that time no chance A 21 year old striker who just scored 1 in 2 in the championship is going for near £20m in this day and age like

Aye we weren't trying to match them for possession. The reason they kept losing the ball in their own half was because that was our plan

Disagree, think his technique and headlessness in attacking areas would get shown up more for a better team. He's good enough for our team but I don't think he's above our team in terms of quality or anything

Aye so he consistently causes problems every game he plays

He's incredibly inconsistent which is just a sign of the type of players we attract. All wingers outside the top seven bar Zaha and Mahrez are basically like that though. Its a position where you're going to do shit things at times but if you're creating a chance or two per game you're doing well

Because he isn't

Diame wasn't awful either, he drove us forward a lot and won his fair share of important challenges. Gave away about 6 silly fouls, gave away the ball quite a bit etc. He did drive us forward, but to little effect. Had a higher pass completion than all bar Yedlin and Perez. Made the most tackles in our team and won the most aerial challenges. I get that he looks awful at times but looking awful doesn't really mean anything. Was our best or second best player IMO