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What would people's thoughts be in Howe threw Ritchie and Lascelles straight back into the mix?

Keep having to remind myself how the team took time to adapt to Rafa's methods, so trying not to be too critical, but last night's back four should be a massive lesson for him as well as Joelinton bring more suited to the flank. Will be disappointed if that still isn't apparent next game.

9.5. It's not the next game that bothers me, it's the 4 after that which leads into an absolutely critical transfer window. That run just looks impossibly difficult and therefore makes us really unappealing irrespective of cash. 12 points from 19 (if we're lucky) leaves us needing top half form for the remaining 19 games of the season. I just don't see how we can realistically hope to change our form from one that's destined for relegation to the form of a team pushing for Europe.

Really really good tonight. Should never play upfront again, the flanks are where he's best.

First impression is bit disappointed he's going for Joelinton up top again and would have liked to have seen Almiron start. Other than that, happy enough.

I honestly wonder sometimes if I watched the same team that others when it comes to Rafa. Genuinly surprised at how those 3 years are portrayed by some as though we've ever been any better in any other year under Ashley. The most exciting thing Rafa brought to the team was his defensive organisation, I've never seen a better drilled defence in my lifetime as a Newcastle fan and that was refreshing as fuck to see. I just think if you appreciate football, then you appreciate that side of the game just as much as the goals, dribbles and assists and Rafa was a master with that element of the game. By the time he'd left I seem to remember talk of top half/Europe being a possibility with the way we ended his last season. I dunno how anyone saw Rafa's period with us as anything but positive.

Rafa's team have always been strong finishers. Seem to remember us being slow starters too, no way is he done at this level, just takes time for his methods to kick in, plus I'm not surprised his teams struggling without DCL, same was true with us when Rondon was out/not match fit.

12 points from 19 games would put us on what 17th place are on right now... Edit: having said that, I think Leeds fixture list is equally minging tbf

I think we're getting caught up in trying to frame a desperately dire situation into a slightly more optimistic one by saying the next 2 games are critical, when in actual fact every game upto the window opening is especially critical. At this point in time it's not unrealistic to say 6 points from the next 6 games is a best case scenario for us.

Nah, he did what he does best and advanced the ball further up the pitch which didn't happen at any point during the game prior to him coming on, thats a positive for me cos there's something to build on.

I think the point is, he doesn't have the luxury of getting to learn from his mistakes like other new managers do. He needs to get it right, very quickly.

I've genuinly thought the same with the way our fixture list has fallen. I cant possibly think of a worse run to have than ours during the busiest period of the season. We still got it all to come as well. January cant come quick enough imo

There were times where I wasn't sure which way we were attacking such was the frequency we turned back on ourselves. I think Howe got a lot wrong today, really disappointing performance tbh. Only positives were Almirons cameo and Dubravka

Never was one to write off any of our players under the management teams we've had in our past but with Joelinton I gotta put my hand up and say at no point had I ever felt he was good enough until last Saturday. Hope he continues to prove me wrong.

OK, I'll bite. If I'm only bothered about promoted teams in context to how it impacts us at this present moment in time, then why do I care about what they do next season?! Nowt like a bit of stat padding, Fanny. So that's make 5 teams out of 9 who stay up in their 1st season up. Edit: but for the sake of argument, let's ignore all those facts and agree you're right and I'm wrong

It think he's safe no matter. The owners will be seeing how he operates and that'll be enough to convinve them to ignore the noise.

Says this: Your point is proven to be wrong by the fact more often than not recently, the three who come up go down Gives me stats proving his own shit point wrong Honestly that's enough from me, I don't want to derail this but for your own benefit, do teams with 6 points after 12 games. I'll let you have a full 20 years rather than just the last 3 though

Who said ahead of?! So hang on, you can name some teams who prove my point 'wrong' but ignore the absolute and unequivocal number of teams which prove your nonsensical point wrong. I'll make this point again, you've named about 2 teams who've escaped from our position (in about 20 years) and I can name about 8-10 who have stayed up an even established themselves in the league in the last 10. I dont actually know what's hard to grasp here. Honestly fanny you're a relentlessly crap poster Edit: anyway, cba anymore, don't think there's anything more to say. Pl's much much stronger now than it ever has been.

Cantwell, Pukki and Aaron's to name but 3 as you asked. The point being that the quality of the league overall is much much stronger than it ever was in the years gone past and that's without mentioning the fact the quality of managers is also unprecedented in this league at present. Hardly proven wrong like when you can only pull a couple of examples of teams who've escaped from our position in god knows how long... I dunno if I'm missing something but there's a significant number of teams who've come up from the championship and stayed up in recent years. I think there's only West Brom, Fulham and Stoke in the championship at present who've had any real time in the PL in the past decade, the rest of the league are thereabout teams, plus half the teams in the PL at present have come from the Championship, no?

All 3 teams have players I'd have in our team. Go back 5-6 years ago and that wouldn't happen. The league is absolutely full of quality. I dont remember in the past looking at Cardiff and thinking, "aye there's 2-3 players who'd be more than good enough for our team"

Poorly put from me but I was referencing posts saying how teams have escaped relegation from worse positions than us in the past and how that's not a fair comparison owing to the fact that teams coming up are now getting promoted with gifted players whereas I don't think that was the case in the past.

People looking at the past for examples of precedents are ignoring the fact that the quality of the league has grown exponentially these past few years. Even Championship teams are coming up with premeir league quality players in their midst. A few years ago buying from the Championship was rare, now it's a good indicator of quality as the league is so good itself.

Obviously I don't know for certain, but I'd be hugely surprised if PIF hadn't sounded out other managers. Seems inconceivable that Emery and Howe were and always were number 1 and 2 target. Not a dig at Eddie, like, really impressed with things so far but I think it's naive to suggest this gets fixed in January solely because we're minted. There's a lot of factors players will be considering other than just money; relegation, no CL, the manager's profile, the fact it's mid season and the summer window is only a few months away etc etc. Players turn down pay packets literally all the time, it's naive to think it'll be different for us.

Same could have been said for our manager search but it didn't quite turn out that way.

The ace up our sleeve is the January window, but even then I don't know what kind of player would join us under these circumstances. Even if we were somehow manage to scrape our way to 17th by Jan (which looks like the absolute very best case scenario with our fixture list), which players would join be willing to join a relegation scrap? The better players will always have better options, and the lesser quality players who would still be quality signings will surely always be thinking about the eventuality that they'll be replaced soon as safety is secured. I've gone from being quite optimistic and excited to genuinly worried that our defence will ultimately cost us.