Dr Jinx

No Lascelles, Clark or Fernandez. Not sure what else we should have done in defence re: Hayden?

Hendrick to try and do what Hayden was doing and Willock comes in to the middle to add some mobility. Aside from Hayden not being in the DM position, I think this is potentially a stronger line up.

Fingers crossed ASM is fully fit, we cannot afford to lose him for any amount of time between now and end of season

Southampton could have up to 11 players missing for this. Should be there for the taking.

It has 0-0 written all over it.

His comments are of a man who has zero affinity with this club. The team losing doesn’t hurt him, it’s all about him, how he can put a spin on something to make himself look less shit.

He can do no wrong in his own eyes, to those who are watching he can do nothing right.

Yep, am disappointed but it was a different sort of loss. Lost concentration for a few minutes in the first half, couple of mistakes and got punished each time. As soon as they got their second they parked the bus.

We nearly had too much possession of the ball.

Never like losing but it wasn’t as pathetic as some of the previous ones

How did he miss that

They came back into it, made the most of it but we’ve gotten to grips with the game again I think. Keep making chances eventually one will go in.

Good game considering the conditions

Willock definitely won’t be involved so basically a repeat performance of Saturday will do.

I’m looking forward to this. Has Jones really made an impact or were Everton just total dogshit

I hope they don’t risk starting ASM if Fraser isn’t available. I think 30 mins is about his limit for the moment.

By pure accident as well. He (Diame) was never meant to play in that role.

 

I’m not shitting on Rafa btw, but it’s nonsense to say that he had a midfield that were in control of things. Mostly due to Ashley not backing him properly but he still had overall yes or no on new players. He has about a 50% success rate with signings.

 

Murphy, Atsu, Lazaar, Ki, Muto, Gamez, Hanley, Sels, Joselu. That’s 50 million spunked right there and that doesn’t include the cost of wages.

 

Dubravka, Schär, Diame, Ritchie, Fernandez, Clark, Hayden, Lejeune and Gayle came in for roughly 55 million. Have been either very good or just ok

 

Not counting Merino as we didn’t get to see him enough but we also didn’t lose money on him so can’t be classed as a bad move, but not a great one either.

 

Overall Rafa got to make 28 signings including loans.

 

One caveat to note, Rafa was never allowed to sign his number one targets. So he would work down his list, with us sometimes signing the 4th or 5th choice. You do that and you will get a not so successful transfer success rate.

 

Absolutely. The first name on that list should probably read Andros Thownsend, who might not have been spectacular but he was less of a punt than Murphy. The rest of the list I'm not sure but few of them were first choice. Also I'd argue that Ki, Hanley were solid acquisitions that played their part exactly as expected. Gamez was possibly an influence in the dressing room.

McClaren signed Townsend iirc, Rafa sold him but I don’t think he had much choice in that

 

Wouldn’t have taken more than a bid of £3m or so to blow us out of the water.

 

I remember when NUFC could blow Liverpool out of the water in the face to sign a certain England striker from Real Madrid...

Liverpool at most pretended they were interested, they knew he was a little toe rag mercenary.

Some people shouldn’t be allowed on social media, they simply can’t play nice.

If Keith wasn’t doing this he’d be arguing with people on a Madeleine McCann FB group, he’s the sort.

I’m not knocking his efforts in relation to the takeover (whatever his real motivation) but the more he talks the less credibility his “consortium” has. He needs to go radio silent for a while for his own sake as much as other supporters.

Can he play tomorrow?

So the Longstaffs will just see out their contracts without playing for us again now?

Don’t have much of a problem with that. Let’s see how they improve under Jones coaching.

Ben Arfa was fast when he got going..

For quick acceleration, nobody beats Bellamy

18 month loan apparently.

? Ashley is here forever

Ritchie next please.

There’s others in the squad I’d have out much much sooner. Ritchie has his limitations as a player but he’s the one doing the captains work behind the scenes.

Also best of luck to Yedlin, a good professional and did his best for us.

What sort of player is Willock? I’ve seen him play a few times but never really noticed him.

Sort of box to box, quite fast and can get away from people. Questionable decision making on the ball, as in when to keep hold, when to pass quickly etc. Reads the game well generally though.

I think Hayden playing deeper does that role better than he does but he would be miles better than Hendrick and off the ball superior to Shelvey.

He’ll play.

That’s true, I reckon the Ashley delegation that came to a recent match got him to sign something, or maybe he had a clause in his contract that the club could invoke in situations like this. He’s definitely been put in some sort of place.

His comments are different level cuntishness, taking credit and blatantly lying saying we were going that direction anyway. If it was his idea to get Jones in and they were all working amicably together, he’d have said something positive to praise the effect he’s had since coming in.

He knows the media aren’t looking at this as closely as we are so they’ll let him take credit for this which will probably lead to him getting another job somewhere else at some stage. He’s creating an unchallenged narrative.

What does Jones get out of this though?

???

See the thing I don’t get is, if Jones is calling the shots as it appears to be, how is that not constructive dismissal? It’s more clear cut than what happened to Keegan.

Was he going to be sacked? Said please don’t, so they made him sign something where he just agrees to be no more than a figurehead?

If it’s just a case of Jones coming in as a coach, doing good work and Bruce just taking credit for it, I can’t imagine that situation going on for too long. Football is full of egos, something will snap.

You would want to be a massive cunt to take credit for someone else’s ideas/work.

He seems rather comfortable doing it

Imagine him and Rondon up front together

With the players being linked, it seems that the penny may have dropped slightly about the state of our midfield.

It was a bit on the ambitious side. That’s the second big name French player to turn us down, we supposedly had a 35 million bid accepted for Soumare last year, even ASM couldn’t convince him to sign.

Well that was fun while it lasted ?