FustinoSolano

Everyone knew before his appointment how this was going to go, there was never any chance of it succeeding. However I'm an eternal pessimist and even I am quite surprised at how quickly it's unravelled and how much the players and team have regressed and imploded in a couple of months. We all know Bruce is not the overall issue, but saying that Ashley won't be moving on or changing anytime soon so the only option available is to sack Bruce to stand any chance of survival - but then the question is who we'd get... Moyes, Allardyce, Hughes, etc - basically another Bruce so the end result would ultimately be the same! Sad thing is like many others I don't even get angry anymore, a 5 - 0 hammering, especially in that manner would have ruined my weekend, week but I'm sitting here typing this with mainly apathy and a bit of sadness, it's got to the point for me (and many others) that this club just isn't worth caring about anymore and that is the true tragedy of it all, Ashley has managed to alienate and estrange one of the most loyal and fierce fanbases in the country.

Sadly this was inevitable, anyone was fooling themselves if they thought this played out any other way. I've lost count of conversations I've had with friends, colleagues etc who were convinced he'd stay. I never saw the logic. Rafa was always going to get screwed over by the fat man and his deplorable minions. Ashley hasn't changed in 12 years of ownership and will never change. He's had the perfect manager to take the club forward and he's tret him like an absolute mug and shown utter contempt and complete disrespect to the man himself and the fanbase who hold him in such high esteem. The 'takeover' will now collapse in the coming days / weeks and we'll appoint a Pardew clone followed by relegation and the cycle continues... only this time we haven't got a manager who can lead us back and the fans will be gone (quite rightly). A sad, even tragic day for this once proud club but Ashley has been a terminal disease to this club since he arrived, now after 12 painful years, he finally lands the killer blow. Thank you Rafa for all you did and all you stood for!

Another outstanding performance tonight. The strike was just outrageous, a cult hero in the making! We have a perfect set up right now with him and Lejeune the two footballing centre-halves who can advance forward, pass and spread play either side of the good old fashioned no-nonsense centre half in Lascelles. Harsh on Fernandez who seemed undroppable earlier in the campaign but you just can't break up that three on our current run.

Obviously a quieter game than Saturday but still did some good things but simply having him on the pitch changes the whole dynamic of this team. Pace is such an important attribute these days and he has added that to us but he's also freed up Perez, gives Rondon far more support and just gives us so many more options when going forward. I remember when Bobby was here and bringing Robert and Bellamy into the team totally transformed us from mid-table also-rans to Champions League qualifiers. Not saying Miggy will do that on his own but it's a huge step in the right direction.

Looks like he's been bossing premier league games for years! Class, composure and ability in absolute abundance paired with a great attitude and grounded mentality. Took his goal really well, a very clever and subtle first touch to set it up perfectly for a crisp strike into the bottom corner. It's easy to get carried away with young players coming through sometimes and get hopes up unrealistically high but it's difficult not to get excited by this lad, he doesn't only have the ability but he has the footballing nous and intelligence to go along with it, that's a rare quality in young footballers these days, plenty have ability, power, athleticism, pace etc but Longstaff reads the game extremely well and can therefore dictate and control play and contribute far more than most midfield players.

Delighted Rafa has kept faith with this lad, gets better with every passing game. Plays with an assured composure well beyond his years and makes it all look easy. His best game yet tonight and can count himself extremely unlucky not to be going home with three points.

It's poor goalkeeping AND a foul - People seem obsessed with it being one or the other, it can be both things at once. Could Dubravka have done better, punched it, been stronger... yes. Did Boly impede him... yes.

I actually keep forgetting about this guy, I keep rerunning the nightmare scenario of Rondon getting injured then just having the Jos as our only striker... then Muto finally pops into my head. He's shown glimpses of talent but seen nowhere near enough of him to make a call on how good he is.

Voted Championship player of the month! Pleased to see him doing well at Blackburn, just a shame it didn't work out for him here. Looks a tidy little player from the bits I've seen of him this year. Hope he kicks on and has a good career.

3 - Yes we have signed a number 10 and a left back, two positions that have been criminally neglected for the last 5 years! But we're so light up front, one serious injury to Rondon and we're in trouble, not just because of his goals but how he's integral to the way we play. If Muto, Perez or god forbid Joselu plays up top then our whole system just breaks down. We needed 4 in as an absolute minimum, we've got 2 and had to take out a bank loan... absolutely pathetic yet again from Ashley and his cronies!

I've been following NUFC for 30 years and I can't remember a more ineffective striker than this guy, he is just a complete non-entity of a footballer. Riviere was also dreadful but I can't remember him getting as much game time... maybe that's just my brain trying to banish any memories of him! I know Frank Pingel gets mentioned as being the worst ever but this Joselu has to be up there, certainly in the relatively recent past. He seems to get worse with every passing game. If Rondon gets injured for any considerable amount of time we're basically down with this lad leading the line!

Even though we've all known for a long time, this (if true) is confirming Ashley's end game for Rafa, no funds, broken promises, takeover lies, undermines him with appointment of Wise. Very much in parallel to how he ousted Keegan years back. Imagine Rafa reading this news tonight, you can visibly see him getting more and more frustrated with every passing week and interview. This might just be the final straw! I honestly don't think he's too far from jacking it in and even though he only has a few months left on his contract I wouldn't blame the man one bit if he did resign tomorrow, Ashley is making his position completely untenable now.

If (and it's a very big if) we have actually bid 17 million for him then that's still 8 million off their asking price, that's not a small amount of money and is extremely unlikely to be bridged with our owner / approach. Will be another filed into the 'We tried' drawer that the cretinous Pardew used to talk of.

Chronicle and local journalists stating Almiron's wage demands are excessive... If it's true he wants 100k is that really excessive in today's market? It's where football is right now, when players like Solanke are going for 20 million and god knows what wage after hardly kicking a ball at Liverpool. 20 - 25 million and that wage is simply just the going rate for players these days, unfortunately we seem to the only club in the league with an owner who doesn't understand this.

Aye that's one of the very worst passages of play I've ever witnessed from a striker, awful first touch, no pace, out muscled, pathetic turn and even worse dive to try and con a pen... I actually laughed when I saw that.

The whole 'He needs a run of games' argument is massively flawed in my eyes - If he'd shown anything at all in the sub and rare starts he'd been given I'd be inclined to agree but he's shown next to nothing and it's not like he's an 18 year old kid who has just signed... he's 23 and been here 18 months and looks nowhere near good enough or ready to be a consistent performer. I really wanted it to work out for him here with it being his boyhood club and maybe that's related to his performances, possibly putting too much pressure and expectation on himself but he just seems like a rabbit caught in the headlights... whatever it is it's plain to see he's not good enough to make an impact for us this season.

Yeah utter garbage yet again, was a big chance for him to step up but was another pathetic performance. Big mistake spending 12 million on this lad with our meagre budget in mind.

Not a knee jerk reaction based on that woeful performance but he really is one of the worst players I've ever witnessed at this club, you could pluck a lad from Sunday league and he's do more than this fraud. Never seen a player at the top level with so little in his game, no pace, touch, power, strength, speed, awareness, finishing, passing, skill... he possesses absolutely no attributes that make you good at football. He's the perfect illustration of what we are as a club right now!

Annoying thing about that second goal was you knew Hayden was going to give it away when he received the ball. Pitiful attempt from Shelvey, if he'd actually tracked his man properly he would have cut it out, shameful play and even worse when you consider he's only been on for 20 minutes.

I normally avoid this thread as I was one of his biggest fans and it still saddens and frustrates me that we had a player with such ability and somehow apart from a few beautiful, magical moments his time here was one mainly of frustration due to a variety of reasons. Just watched his goal from tonight, stunning... not an exaggeration to say not many players in the world could do that, if Messi scores that it gets talked about and viewed millions of times. I miss the roar and excitement from the crowd that went up ever time he got the ball, players who evoke that kind of reaction are few and far between in today's game and especially at our club in the Ashley era. Now I'm all depressed again

I think it's at the point now where he needs to be taken out of the team, when fans are (wrongly) reacting like that it won't take much to turn it into a really toxic atmosphere. The problem as ever is who comes in for him?? I was there on Saturday and he was dreadful, you can forgive lack of ability, pace etc but his body language is appalling, half hearted runs when closing people down, begging for free kicks off the ref when it's a perfectly good challenge. The most frustrating thing is when he gets the ball in a good position you know he's going to lose it, it happened on so many occasions I actually lost count. Only thing you can say is our 3 or 4 best chances fell to him so he's not hiding but each one reeked of a player who is struggling and has zero confidence. Rewind a few years to that backheel vs WBA and you would think it's a completely different player.

Sadly he's actually getting worse, whether it be confidence or whatever but he's now becoming a liability and it won't be long before the fans really start to turn on him.. if that hasn't happened already? However as pointed out by many we have no other viable option for that role which perfectly sums up our plight! I think I'd actually go as far as changing the system now to get him out of the team, go 3 - 5 -2 so the number ten role is no longer required.

Let's just play this lad every game from now on, saw more in today's game from him than I'll see in 10 years watching Joselu.

Rafa has repeatedly said Muto is a striker and not a number, 10 therefore he's not competing with Perez (unless we switch to a more standard 4 4 2). Which in turn means Perez is pretty much guaranteed to keep his place despite his poor displays this season. I do have sympathy for him due to us playing so much on the back foot so far this season but some of his play is just not good enough, gives the ball away far too easily, and doesn't have the required speed or strength to hurt teams. I'd say he's an easy day's work for a centre half or whoever picks him up. Essentially he's a decent squad player but shouldn't be playing every week but due to the farcical running of this football club he still has to be one of our key players.

Never got the whole Shola love in / cult status thing.. apart from scoring a few against awful mackem sides he was pretty much abysmal for 99% of his Newcastle career and should have been peddled long before he eventually left. The fact that he's a local lad but is an Ashley supporter / apologist just proves he's got zero respect for the fans and is either, stupid, ignorant or hoping to come aboard the gravy train. What can you expect from a man who once called the police thinking he'd been burgled but turns out his house was just a mess!