Away Day Gadgie

I didn’t realise the extent of this campaign against Sterling until today. It’s absolutely sickening, i feel really sorry for the guy. Hopefully it doesn’t affect him too much!

That’s gona irritate me so much

It’s interesting listening to the different views on the Ramos/Salah incident. After seeing 1 replay of it during the game i thought it was pretty clear and obvious that Ramos deliberately locked his arm in to drag him down. What he hoped to achieve from it is anyone’s guess. He is a known shithouse though, so i’d say at the very least he wanted to piss Salah off to try and get a reaction from him.

Class! He’d be a good fit there i think. They’re my favourite French team for no reason whatsoever.

I think it’s mint.

Absolute tosser!

He believes he’s cool, charismatic and articulate!? :lol:

Makes that quote and then realises that to get any kind of culture or nightlife he has to do it in the city he's just slagged off. Should be interesting. Aye! Saying he hates Newcastle for no reason will definitely turn out well for him.

;D

Kluivert didn’t do much after he left us either. As much as i hate Souness, i think letting him go was probably the right decision. He was class but either wasn’t fit or didn’t look interested a lot of the time.

Yep £50m gets you very little these days, probably 2 good players or 3 average ones?

Seen him play twice and he’s been really good both times. Looks a quality technician and is quite a big lad so shouldn’t struggle physically.

We’ve had our flip flops on for a couple of weeks now. I expect a shit performance and result.

There’s not much wrong with the system IMO. Yes it’s annnoying if you’re in the sitaution where you’ve got 50+ points and have been to a lot of games in the last couple of years but still can’t get a ticket for the derby, but if you keep going it won’t be long until you can get to every game you want to. Plus if you travel to enough away games and get to know the regular away-dayers, then you manage to build up a little network of people who will be able to get their hands on tickets for certain games.

I’ve always said O’Neill was the manager they should’ve stuck with. Even if he’d taken them down that season i think he would’ve been able to rebuild and get them back up in a year or 2. He seemed a good fit for them and apparently supports them aswell, not sure how true that is mind.

Rafa is The People’s Champion!!!

Got little to do with N'zogbia or Sunderland but I didn't realise until yesterday that Olivier Bernard is only 38 and last kicked a professional football when he was 26. Didn't Bernard have some issues with his hips? Arthritis or something similar.... Currently the owner of Durham City FC, stayed in the area simply because it is mint here! Mackem territory marra, clearly a MLF! ?

What happened to Robert after Sir Bobby was sacked? What happened to Ginola after Keegan left? They were cast aside by the next manager pretty much immediately. 99% of football managers imo either aren't capable, or don't want to, work with a flair player of that type, which is why Sir Bobby and Keegan were special since they appreciated them. That's down to the prevalent mentality within the sport, managers are trained and developed to appreciate hard work, teamwork, etc, more than individual talent because it's inherent to the job. The majority of professional footballers are "talented" so the easiest and default thing to do as a football manager is to get them as fit as possible and working as hard as possible on the pitch to try to get three points. A player like Robert / Ginola / Ben Arfa throws a spanner in the works, because their talent far exceeds that of those around them but they come with issues that causes disruption, not only in match day tactics but off the field as well - jealousy from inferior players, resentment from hard working teammates who see someone not pulling their weight defensively, etc etc. So on top of the requirement to be tactically flexible, managers need an additional set of interpersonal skills to deal with the complaints and squad harmony issues. Most managers just don't have that in their skillset or can't be bothered. Ben Arfa is simply unlucky in that he never found the combination of right manager + right club. At Nice he had the right manager and teammates, but the club was too small fry arguably. NUFC was the right club for him because we're a "sleeping giant" in terms of potential (we can afford good wages, have a big stadium with large support, "best league in da world" etc), Hatem himself said "everything is here" just before he left so he clearly understood the potential of the club if it were run well. We're also not able to attract players of his talent level minus the flaws - if Ben Arfa was solid defensively, made more runs off the ball, and released the ball more optimally you can be sure he'd have been snapped up by Real/Barca/Juve/City/Bayern/etc as soon as he was available. We never had a chance of getting Hazard, or Ribery, or Robben when they were in France/Holland for example, we'd only have a chance if there was something off-putting about them. Similarly, a top club won't need to put up with a flawed player like Ben Arfa since they can sign players at his ability level or higher without the flaws. So NUFC was a club where because we're restricted to flawed geniuses the team could have been built around him by putting him in a key position that compensated for his flaws (e.g. wide forward with minimal defensive duties) and having teammates with the necessary skillset to cover for him. But unfortunately we had the wrong manager at the time. Nice had the right manager, but were too small a club to keep him. Just to give one example out of many as to why Pardew was a terrible manager for Ben Arfa, just consider the fact that we played Ben Arfa as a wide forward in a front 3 (in a 4-3-3 system) about a dozen times in his 4 years here. That's a role he seemed to be most suited for, and it meant less defensive responsibility and more freedom to attack. Most of that dozen or so games were during the run of impressive form that had us playing fluid football for a couple of months which ultimately was the catalyst for us finishing 5th and nearly qualifying for the CL. Ben Arfa was our standout player in that period, but before that season had even finished Pardew abandoned that formation/lineup forever, and steadfastedly stuck with his preferred flat defensive 4-4-2 for pretty much the remainder of his time here. I can't recall if we saw Ben Arfa played as a wide forward in a front 3 again after that, but if we did it would have been completely sporadic/random one-offs. What kind of a shit for brains manager abandons a system/formation that gets the best out of not only everyone in the squad but also it's most gifted player who actually produced great form in that system? The Alan Pardew type does. Anyway, more to the point, since Bobby and Keegan were managers who appreciated flair players and understood NUFC as a club (especially its limitations of the type of player were restricted to, i.e. flawed geniuses that the elites don't want), I have no doubts they would have not only incorporated Ben Arfa in their teams but most likely would have built the team around him. With respect to Rafa, he's from the same school of manager as your Pardews, Sounesses, Alladyces, Mourinhos, etc, a negative manager who doesn't like players who don't follow instructions and don't like to take risks, but the difference with Rafa is that he's actually exceptionally good at most things (tactics, transfers, training, player development, etc), so that will compensate for him missing a trick at NUFC of utilising flawed geniuses whilst other clubs avoid it. Class post ?

Yep. Makes me want to spew. Fucking Theatre Of Dreams

I like May’s better!

Have you seen his hair!?

Sure i mentioned something similar about him earlier in the thread. It’s annoying as fuck! He’s the most wannabee Italian ever

Ben Arfa v Blackburn. It was an incredible run and an emphatic finish to light up a terrible game that we were losing. Before the goal i was wondering why i’d bothered to turn up on a freezing cold January afternoon for a cup tie that i knew the club weren’t interested in winning. Then HBA goes and does that, well worth the admission fee!

WTF is this!?