jonny1403

Just now, The Prophet said:

 

You can't have been watching us much this season.

 

A new centre half should be high up the list, but they'll look about as effective as Schar if they're getting turned and pulled out of position all the time, due to a totally ineffective midfield.

I have been watching us this season, and I've seen Joelinton shore up our CM quite a bit in the last few games. I've also seen Clark and Lascelles concede needless goal after needless goal with basic mistakes that have nothing to do with the midfield.

4 minutes ago, The Prophet said:

 

Centre midfield should be our number one priority.

 

Fingers crossed its just standard Edwards bollocks.

 

 

 

CB is 100% more urgent than CM like.

33 minutes ago, TRon said:

 

I doubt they really wanted to, would imagine he had his heart on going to Spain at the time. Levy probably thought I'll get as much as I can for a 28 yr old and buy someone under 25. Sound familiar?

 

No they did want to sell him. He was actually quite poor in his last season at Spurs, which it now transpires was because he was playing through an injury. And as you say, Levy probably saw value in selling a 28 year old.

1 minute ago, The Prophet said:

If correct, that's really concerning.

Why? CB and CF are clearly the most urgent needs.

8 minutes ago, Dr Jinx said:

Got annoyed listening to that, sounds like the perfect man to carry a defeatist attitude like the one Steve Bruce had onto the pitch.

 

I'm paraphrasing here but "oh yeah, the rumours we're going to sign 5 or 6 players.. but what if they don't want to come here, and what about the players who are already here with kids in school, are you just going to pay them to be in the reserves?"

 

Yes Isaak, that's exactly what will happen. This isn't a public servants job, it's not secure. The club is not going to decide to remain uncompetitive to keep a few players happy. You're either good enough to keep up or be left out of it.

His point was that you can't just expect the existing players to instantly up and leave when they have their lives already established here and have 3/4 year contracts. They can stay there for that four year period if they want to. It's a perfectly reasonable point and one that lots of us would agree with if we were in the same position.

24 minutes ago, Chris_R said:

I mean I'm not one of the overly impatient ones and I'm relaxed about the process, but I'll about I'm constantly baffled why we seen to only when think of picking up the phone on January 1st.

 

That's just the time you can register players. You can agree fees and personal terms any time you like and then just press the "go" button when the window opens. Why do we never seem to do that?!

It sounds like you are tbh. It has been literally four days - how many other clubs have made signings? 1 or 2 at most? It gives our fans a reputation when we start to piss and moan this early in the process. Let's face it, none of us have any idea how the transfer process works - it's all well and good saying we should have lined it up by Jan 1st but there are so many different factors involved that probably make it impossible to do so. 

1 minute ago, LRD said:

 

Don't think the La Liga champions is interested in Manquillo.

Haha this. What a mental suggestion 

2 minutes ago, Shearergol said:

 

I mean he clearly isn't, and I'm no fan of Shelvey at all.

I'd have Hayden in the team every day of the week over Shelvey.

7 minutes ago, gjohnson said:

Well yes, but they still have to sell before they can buy

I don't think it's quite that strict (i.e. it can be assessed over the course of a season), but yes they will be selling Digne if they do buy this new lb.

18 minutes ago, wfmk2 said:

 

Thanks pal. My £1 a month sub was just two days away from kicking into a 60 quid a year sub. Thank you very much. 

I signed up for the 'free trial' and was immediately charged £60 despite their T&Cs saying I had 5 days to cancel. You hear nothing back from them aside from automated emails. Literal robbery and there's nothing you can do about it.

53 minutes ago, joeyt said:

Not sure I'm comfortable with people just copying and pasting Athletic articles into here

 

Not sure why people don't just pay the £1 a month or whatever it is

The Athletic are a shocking organisation. Read up on how they offer free trials to people and how they operate their subscription services before defending them.

The Athletic HQ Reviews | Read Customer Service Reviews of theathletic.com (trustpilot.com)

12 minutes ago, Foluwashola said:

OK is very generous. Potentially the worst striker we've had in my lifetime, and we've had some stinkers. Although it never fails to amaze how some players can revive their careers when leaving our once toxic club. 

Rivierie was a million times worse. Joelinton has been a million times worse excluding the last few games.

1 hour ago, Hanshithispantz said:

It tells you nowt tbf, being in a relegation scrap doesn't mean you need to shut teams out and flap your arse trying to scrape draws and 1-0 wins.

 

Howe and Rafa have completely different philosophies, Rafa also didn't like Ben Arfa, completely understandable given the type of manager he is but you'd be hard pressed to say Hatem looked bad for us.

 

Gini was a forward/winger when he was here too, we also had a much better squad.

What  Ben Arfa left a year before Rafa even arrived!

Should be starting every game now. There's a good chance his attacking play will improve as he grows in confidence/has more players around him as well. He was linking up well with Fraser, ASM and Wilson before Clark fucked it all up. 

13 hours ago, Away Toon said:

He's young and much better than anything we have already and he's comfortable as a RB or a RWB. We have to start improving somewhere and he's a realistic target as Norwich will sell if we put in a reasonable offer. he might not want to come this shambles of course.

This could literally have been written about Lewis 18 months ago. 

14 hours ago, gjohnson said:

There's no reason Haaland is not realistic now

Can we stop with shit like this please. 

BBC have confirmed he will be banned from playing our next game.

1 hour ago, Shearergol said:

 

Players out:

Atsu

Muto

Lejeune

Carroll

Saivet

 

Players in:

Willock

Woodman (return from loan)

 

Squad's full lads.

Atsu and Carroll were both in the squad from Jan onwards. So adding Woodman to that means we should have one space left. 

Quote

Bruce also admitted that United's first option had been to loan Willock once again, only resorting to a purchase once a temporary deal proved unworkable.

Of course 

How much did we get for him?

Ashley spending millions to try and fight for a takeover, whilst keeping the fat flid in charge of the team who is going to knock 100 million value of the club and most likely kill the takeover.

 

Makes no sense at all. Even for Ashley it doesn’t. Hope the fat c*** kicks the bucket very soon.

 

It’s not his money. It’s the clubs.

It is his money. It's his asset that is depreciating in value.

Confirmed Wilson is out.

Always fun when players are suddenly world class after they escape from Alcatraz. Mad to think how good Wilson must be.

 

 

Even more fun when you know that he was a fantastic defender, but because we didn't feel he fit in with what we think a central defender should look like, he must be unsuited to British football.

 

 

He left because he didn't follow Rafa's instructions

Yeah, at the end of things, Rafa didn't want to play him for whatever reason and the club was not wanting for quality centreback play while he was manager. Like Mbabu, it was a poor economic decision, given the way the player developed and the low return on investment, but would not be a problem if Rafa was still here building.

 

I have always been a fan of Chancel though, and it has been intriguing seeing him as a fairly dynamic midfielder for DR Congo while being strictly a defender in Europe. Boy is definitely talented too, I hope things continue to progress well for him.

 

Yeah spot on. Another one who, because they're doing well elsewhere, makes you automatically jump to "should never have got rid of him," or something similar. When in reality the context dictates that it was probably the right decision for all parties, including NUFC. Chancel leaving paved the way for Schär and that tasty three-man CB dealio Rafa constructed in the second half of the season.

 

Mbabu is just about the only player who Rafa didn't fancy where I think he objectively got it wrong. Mitro, Armstrong, Toney, Mbemba, Merino - all perfectly justifiably outgoings only brought into question by them being allowed to excel elsewhere and/or NUFC insufficiently replacing the player.

Mbabu isn't tearing up trees, I fail to get the hype around him. Just because he plays for a decent European team doesn't make him a good player, he's only consistently started in the Swiss league ffs.

https://theathletic.co.uk/2381525/2021/02/18/freddie-woodman-benitez-told-me-how-to-make-saves-and-my-dad-disagreed/

 

“Me and Arma speak about this quite often,” Woodman says. “We came back from winning a World Cup with England and I remember seeing Rafa (Benitez, the then-Newcastle manager). He slapped me on the face and said, ‘Well done’. That was literally it. All the other players were getting raved about.

 

“It was a low point for me because nothing really happened in my career. I didn’t get to push on, I didn’t go on loan and I wasn’t even on the bench. I remember thinking, ‘How can I go from the Golden Glove and winning the World Cup, to playing in the under-23s?’ I was absolutely fuming; I probably thought maybe I was bigger than I was. It was definitely a reality check.”

 

....

 

"Every coach has different styles. I talked with Rafa on numerous occasions; he loved his goalkeeping and he’d tell me to get low and try and block, like Pepe Reina. I remember going home to my dad and saying, ‘Rafa wants me to do this’ and he was like, ‘No, that’s not proper goalkeeping. You need to dive at their feet’. It made me think, ‘God, there are just so many different styles’. None of them are right or wrong. They’re just different. It’s important to find the one that works for you.”

]

'Winning a World Cup' ffs. It means absolutely fuck all.

Play Gayle before the other two.

Agreed. I fully expect big Joe to start though.