Odear

If you were an Arsenal director, hiring Rafa is so glaringly obvious as the most sensible thing to do. Who else could take charge of that situation as well as Rafa could.

No leadership on the pitch. They are going to crumble as this game goes on.

But it's a continuation of Rafa's progress. Rafa basically started fresh each year, Rafa plus Rondon plus Perez, on I'd quite like ASM added in, and we'd be sitting 5th on Monday night, if not there already with a game in hand Rafa wouldn’t have signed ASM. That’s the thing. He had the veto on players coming in. Jury is still out on Joelinton, he might adapt but he’s doing well in all the other areas that Rafa likes in a player so let’s say that he would be starting games. But ASM would give him a panic attack. He wouldn’t stick to the game plan. He’d have Atsu ahead of him.

Taking so long to get going in each of his two top flight seasons with us and also his choice of attacking players to sign will always leave the door open for the likes of Richard Keys to comment on the club, which is disappointing. There’s not really much else to say about it. He was never backed properly but can it be said that he did the very best he could with the squad available? That’s the thing. If Bruce manages to finish higher this season, and it’s basically the same squad. Then it opens up all sorts of questions about how well Rafa actually did..

Crazy that. What a bunch of ingrates. He should have left at the end of last season. He wanted to apparently. Something definitely off this year, whether it’s the manager not being motivated or he’s somehow lost the dressing room. Wouldn’t rule out Rafa going there. The rumours were that West Ham were going to try and get him so this could be a timing thing to get in ahead of them.

It’s only ever into the following season that a new managers style/plan/tactics or whatever, translate into the team. He’ll get found out then I’m sure. But for this season it feels like am still watching a Benitez team so I’ve been enjoying it more than I thought I would.

While not wanting to see any player injured this could be a bit of luck for Steve Bruce. He was never going to drop Lascelles being the club captain but Lejeune is just a far superior player and far better distribution from the back. The front three will benefit hugely from this. He needs to displace Clark first though, he’s done well that lad when called upon, in fairness.

I’ll never look at him in the same light as someone like Keegan or Rafa, but that’s on me. It doesn’t have to be that way with the club manager. In fact it makes life easier to be a bit more removed from things. At this point in time it has to be said he’s doing ok. What’s impressed me is that we’ve picked up points when we haven’t clicked at all up front yet. It may never happen but if it ever does we could well end up having a decent season given that so many normally half decent or very good teams seem to be having stinkers this season (similar to what happened the year we finished 5th) Going back to last year, some on here, possibly quite a few actually were slagging off the idea of having Brendan Rodgers as coach when he was linked. How wrong that sentiment turned out to be... basically at the end of the day, maybe we know far less about football managers than we think and we’ve been wrong about Bruce. It’s a possibility. Who on here would admit to that if we do end up doing well this season? Or is he damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t?

VAR isn’t the issue in as much as general poor refereeing is. The problem is that none of them want to overrule their mates. If VAR is to work, it should be an independent panel of referees outside of the Football Association. People that have no connection with the referees or linespeople on the pitch. The offside thing could be easily fixed. Just put a threshold of a few millimetres to favour an attacker. The tech should be there for blatant mistakes, not nit picking.

Your evidence that I'm Odin is: - I joined a few weeks before he was banned / left. (which makes no f***ing sense) - If we play countdown with my username, Odin is one of the two hundred words we can make. Stand down Agent Yimentov. You’re wanted back on RTG.

how come no date is shown between his last reply and your new message? I deleted my last messages to him from 2 days ago. It wasn’t one of my finest moments.. mine keeps the date separator even if I do this in app. or you mean you photoshopped the above? I don’t know mate. I deleted 3 texts including an image (not my cock) and one of his emojis and then just took a screenshot. The the last two are from today. Fair enough. From my side it makes it very difficult to believe the above is true as that would mean your version of whatsapp behaving differently to mine(maybe someone can explain this). I sent you a pm mate.

Jesus Christ. I told him to get his number taken down. He must like the attention! https://twitter.com/dxvidmetcalfe/status/1143538945684385794?s=21

how come no date is shown between his last reply and your new message? I deleted my last messages to him from 2 days ago. It wasn’t one of my finest moments.. mine keeps the date separator even if I do this in app. or you mean you photoshopped the above? I don’t know mate. I deleted 3 texts including an image (not my cock) and one of his emojis and then just took a screenshot. The the last two are from today.

And you never will 😂 unless Midhat joins the community and gives me a tucking.

how come no date is shown between his last reply and your new message? I deleted my last messages to him from 2 days ago. It wasn’t one of my finest moments..

They had a message board option. Better. http://i63.tinypic.com/160pgjr.jpg

It asked me how I wanted it resized and I picked web so was fairly sure that would have been ok. Looks like Midget Kidwai after I posted it 😂

Well he can go fuck himself if it doesn’t happen. But yeah here you go, took me a while to figure out how to upload the screenshot. Straight from the horses mouth. http://i65.tinypic.com/2efuybs.jpg

I have news 🙂 He said “announcement soon my friend”

Regardless of a takeover, Charnley deserves pelters for his part in this. How can anyone claiming to be a local willingly take part in such shithousery

Oi I’m 39 old timer! 🙂 but yes, old enough to remember better times quite clearly. Today is a low point. Feels very similar to when Keegan left, a sort of inevitability about it. I agree, Mike Ashley is a total sociopath with many axes to grind. Just look at how he won’t let the Debenhams failure go. Trying to bring them to court even though every expert says he doesn’t have a case. For NUFC, I think he started off initially at least with good intentions. He liked being popular as the new owner to bring good times to the club. But once the chants of you fat fucking bastard started, it really hurt his ego, not his feelings as we all know sociopaths only really imitate those. His crowing moment.. owning a massive football club. That would show all those bullies in school.. but he couldn’t even last a year before the real MA appeared. He fucked it all up. And then... 🎵 Get out of our club... 🎵 I think he’s on the way out but he’s going to do as much damage to the happiness of the supporters before he leaves “that’ll show those cunts for saying mean things about me” Such a petty pathetic cunt.

Why would we not believe BZG’s statements? That’s where I’m at with this. Common sense would say it’s a trick, a ruse etc. Good ol’ Mike Ashley at it again. Except BZG are not washed up has-beens like Amanda Staveley or Peter Kenyon. They are many times bigger than Sports Direct. They will have done their homework. Including how MA has been in the past with potential buyers. They had meetings and they came to an agreement. They went public with it because someone leaked the story. So why that was leaked is now more interesting.. what was the agenda behind it, if we can assume it was KBA that did it.. why though?

So the details that have come out about the interaction between Rafa and Mike Ashley it’s become clear that Ashley didn’t want Benitez to stay or wasn’t arsed at least. It seems incredibly self destructive by the club. At this stage they must know what they are dealing with when they have second rate managers in charge. It will cost them a hell of a lot more potentially over 3 seasons than it would have to have just given Rafa what he wants. In relation to the takeover, if they wanted Rafa they could have intervened. Similar to how City bought Robinho, they gave a guarantee they’d cover the fee etc. So you’d have to think they have their own plans. And this is a guess but when Sheikh Khaled and Mr Kidwai we’re selling the idea to their members, perhaps that involved a different name. Someone more recognisable in the Middle East. Until they release a statement saying it’s off, I’m going to believe it will happen. They’ve put too much in to just let it fade away the same as Staveley and Kenyon etc. They even confirmed Monochrome was for buying the club. Why even bother paying a top law firm to do that and represent them if they weren’t serious? It’s still on as far as am concerned, just not with Rafa so it’s tainted now.

Great logic. I wouldnt have bought that ice cream either if I had known the end result was me dropping it on the street. What I mean is there are legal obligations on the seller too. You can’t just get companies to invest hundreds of thousands trying to complete a deal when you have no intention to sell. It’s fraud in a sense, although I am sure there is a precise term for it. I’m still dealing in facts and not speculation. The facts are that BZG have said the deal is done and will be completed. Everything since is speculative.

BZG wouldn’t have gone this far if this was going to be the end result. They’ve spent a lot on this deal up to this point. I think they just don’t want Rafa as manager or they would have intervened.