Kid Icarus

The worrying meme is become a reality for me a bit. I can't stand these quiet days, then when we're linked it's not a priority position/not quality/knocked back straight away. I've got the fear.

Good explanation and insight ?

Is that the 3rd Atalanta player we've been linked with now? Reminder that this is what the Atalanta owner said recently: “I read stories of Newcastle interest in a different Atalanta player every day, it’s like Bingo to see who comes up next." https://football-italia.net/atalanta-ready-to-play-inter-shrug-off-newcastle-interest-in-gosens/

Head says 4-1, heart says 2-1

Sounds like an absolute shit show. He did plenty of similar things here (getting rid of Carr, Mitrovic, Mbabu - signing Murphy, Selz etc) but the good very much outweighed the band, it was all backed by the fans, the rationale was that we as a club needed that overhaul, and then it was all vindicated with us going up and staying up and being defensively sound. Sounds like it was as terrible a fit as most were saying it was from the start.

If he does just go with 2 quality centre backs and no midfielders, I'm hoping it's a case of a rising tide lifts all boats, but I hope it doesn't come to that.

Going for strikers from the only team we've kept a clean sheet against and defenders from the only team we've beaten.

I know Dave, Ronaldo, me, Hans, Rich and a few others who regularly stuck up for Rafa were gone around when Bruce came in. Easy to say in hindsight like, but Ashley's financial hamstringing would have still been a big problem despite Bruce still being a joke of a manager. Can understand why people would have thought he could be getting more considering the half arsed job he put in and Ashley spending big (on his scale) vs him making Rafa rummage around the damaged goods bin.

Not saying it didn't happen, just think it's not that big a deal and changes nothing that those people were wrong on that. Didn't loads of people stop posting in the Football section when Bruce came in as well?

Thanks for the post and the insight. Feel free to stick around. :thup: Fraser's actually been one of our better players in terms of pressing from the front and doing the dirty work, I'm sure that's annoying for you to read but it's true. The player not doing it (possibly because he's been told to conserve energy) is Saint-Maximin.

5 of the 10 matches you're using for those stats were against Arsenal, Leicester, Liverpool, Man City, Man United.

Because perfect shouldn't be the enemy of better and when a manager with a 20 year career of being absolutely shite is getting the players in 2-3 times a week and swanning off on holiday all the time, the bar for better is low. It also makes it more understandable that people were thinking binning Bruce was the silver bullet. Getting someone in also means that they bring in a structure ahead of signing new players, which felt desperately needed under Rafa, never mind 3 years later when they're still here.

Not sure you can talk about everyone when there were plenty that went on hiatus as soon as Bruce came in precisely because they knew he was shit and that our squad was shit. It's not exactly a big deal that anyone saying Bruce should have been getting more out of the players was wrong either, being wrong on that doesn't stop Bruce being a shit manager overall any more than Howe actually getting the players to do the bare minimum (come in 5 days a week, work on tactics etc) makes him a good manager. What's certain though is that what Howe achieved outside of Newcastle before coming here was much more impressive, more professional, with more attractive football, and done in a much shorter space of time. Which is why he rightly gets more rope with most fans than Bruce got. If you don't rate Howe that's absolutely fair enough, for me he's still largely an unknown entity outside of Bournemouth, but this whole crusade to try and tell people they're doing something wrong for not going in blindly rating like-for-like and ignoring absolutely all context outside of their time as Newcastle managers is asking people to be fools and trying to take them for fools. It's just a continuation of the same routine from the Rafa days where we were supposed to ignore his trophy cabinet and only concentrate on what he was doing at Newcastle at that moment in time.

Considering I was petrified of getting Martinez in our position, Everton fans (who obviously already have first hand experience of his shitness)...I can't lie to you about your chances but you have my sympathies.

So difficult to answer, but what I'd also say is that despite Howe not getting us hitting the heights we'd like, instant impact is definitely not one of Rafa's strengths, we saw that in 15/16 and then we saw how our full seasons with him peaked at the very end after months of the players having his demands drilled into them. He's much more a project man, than a galvaniser.

No, but that ship has sailed imo. As soon as we got Howe, I drew a line under Rafa and would have done the same with my other choice Emery.

I think it's easy to forget that Rafa really, really struggled to keep us in the league for large parts of the season and that those same players he struggled to do it with are still here and even shitter. Totally get why some would want to twist rather than stick with Howe, but our situations aren't the same as when he was last here and I don't think he's the silver bullet any more than new signings are.

I love Rafa but it blows my mind that anyone would look at Newcastle's more or less limitless wealth and directions to go in in terms of long-term football philosophy™ and think that we should choose Rafa's. It's pragmatic and effective when you're being hamstrung by Mike Ashley, or even if you have few financial constraints, but choosing his style of football when you have every style to choose from is just nihilistic

The whole point of a loan is supposed to be that a team's position isn't that big a deal.

I totally take the point on Wood, but posts like this keep ignoring us signing Keiran Trippier

Hadn't realised that Hammond left more or less straight away. Apparently on Christmas Eve. Didn't see anything about it on here, but .com and The Mag reported on it. https://www.themag.co.uk/2022/01/newcastle-united-january-transfer-window-consultant-appointment-cut-very-short-report-nick-hammond/

Emery was my number 1 choice and I think he'd have maaaaybe have irked out a few more points maybe today or vs Norwich, but with much more negative, defensive football in the Rafa mould. What I cannot emphasise enough though is that he'd be getting exactly the same criticism Howe's getting even with those few extra hypothetical points. For all the lack of points, lack of quality, dropped points, and stupid errors from the usual suspects, I actually enjoy watching Newcastle now and can see where Howe's going with how he wants us to play. My main criticism that's solely aimed at him is that I thought the best system to cover our weaknesses and the best style of football we've had was against Brentford. I'm not sure why he hasn't tried that again.

Aside from his goal he was poor. The point that I think is most important at the moment though is that he's more or less the only player we have where you can even start the sentence with 'aside from his goal...'. Just feels like a waste of time pointing out his obvious flaws when he's the best of a bad bunch.

6 years later

Still think he can turn it around if they give him the chance to. I can't help it, the relationship might be a waste of time, but I still think he's an excellent manager. Still wouldn't have him here though, that ship has sailed now and I don't think he'd get the patience he was afforded previously.