Rafa Benítez (now unemployed)

[r0cafella]

If Rafa were to leave I can only hope it would force the fans into uniting and get rid of Ashley.

 

Whilst Ashley is here we will be soulless regardless of the odd glimmer of light.

[UncleBingo]

Personally I think Allardyce or another KBA associated shithouse manager being in place for Palace on 22nd September is now a very real possibility

 

This needs to happen imho.

[Guest ElCid]

If Rafa were to leave I can only hope it would force the fans into uniting and get rid of Ashley.

 

Whilst Ashley is here we will be soulless regardless of the odd glimmer of light.

 

You would hope I agree 100% but the time is actually now and 46000 just sit on their fucking arses doing nothing. I honestly believe whatever happens the majority of fans who go to the match will continue to do so and continue to sit there like sheep doing nothing.

[r0cafella]

Then we are truly fucked.

[Dokko]

Ashley wouldn't care. The club would survive financially if they played behind closed doors. In fact I'm sure he'd take great pride in being the first club to be able to do it.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Got to be realistic about fan action as well, you’ll never get the majority involved. But if you had 20k actively taking action it could be dire for Ashley. I don’t believe we could make him sell anyway, but it’s the right thing to do.

[Guest The Little Waster]

Ashley wouldn't care. The club would survive financially if they played behind closed doors. In fact I'm sure he'd take great pride in being the first club to be able to do it.

 

No club can survive without its fans ...

[Guest covmag]

Got to be realistic about fan action as well, you’ll never get the majority involved. But if you had 20k actively taking action it could be dire for Ashley. I don’t believe we could make him sell anyway, but it’s the right thing to do.

 

all well and good but theres no buyers now?  fan action is great in theory but it simply means fuck all to him and won't work like.

[Guest ElCid]

Got to be realistic about fan action as well, you’ll never get the majority involved. But if you had 20k actively taking action it could be dire for Ashley. I don’t believe we could make him sell anyway, but it’s the right thing to do.

 

Again I agree 100% but again there is no chance in hell that you’re going to get anywhere near 20000 fans doing anything. They should but they just won’t and it is one thing that pisses me off massively. This utter cunt is destroying the club stand up and try and do something about it.

[Dokko]

Ashley wouldn't care. The club would survive financially if they played behind closed doors. In fact I'm sure he'd take great pride in being the first club to be able to do it.

 

No club can survive without its fans ...

 

75% of the clubs in the prem can. BBC reported it the other day. It's all down to the TV deals.

[Guest The Little Waster]

Ashley wouldn't care. The club would survive financially if they played behind closed doors. In fact I'm sure he'd take great pride in being the first club to be able to do it.

 

No club can survive without its fans ...

 

75% of the clubs in the prem can. BBC reported it the other day. It's all down to the TV deals.

 

Im talking a 360 withdrawl here , fans cancelling tv packages as well ...

[Guest The Little Waster]

The 52000 who presently attend matches are as much to blame as Ashley ...it takes two to tango

[Big Geordie]

I can't see Ashley sacking Rafa - because it would mean paying him out. And he also will want to humiliate him further. That's already beginning to happen, because sections of the media are attacking Benitez, as our some of our own fans. Guess who wins again?

[Darth Crooks]

Got to be realistic about fan action as well, you’ll never get the majority involved. But if you had 20k actively taking action it could be dire for Ashley. I don’t believe we could make him sell anyway, but it’s the right thing to do.

 

all well and good but theres no buyers now?  fan action is great in theory but it simply means fuck all to him and won't work like.

 

There's barely any precedent to tell what it would do, equally just saying ' fucking sheep just boycott' and put them together like that with no preliminary stuff is just as churlish.

[Robster]

Rafa doesn't deserve any criticism this season, no matter what.

Edit: for our match performance and results only.

I despair.

It's like you trying to teach driving in a car with no fuel.

[Away Toon]

ATM it doesn’t sit well with me that he’s calling out the club to be ambitious but yet shows none himself on the pitch. It’s obviously now trickling in to the players and the fans, whether they agree with him or against. He needs to push us forward, you can’t do that with constant negativity, even if the situation has dealt you a shit hand, make the most of it.

 

Feel like we’re a beaten club, top to bottom, even the fans aren’t allowed to hope for better , we’ve got to know our place and just survive.

 

Only he can break this imo, hopefully when the fixtures ease off this happens, but last night was telling, once you are in a negative rut it’s hard to get out of.

 

Exactly. Obviously Ashley is 95% to blame for all of this but Rafa was bleating on about having to filed a weak Telamon the cups and it's gonna be a long hard season etc etc. No reason not to play the best 11 last night and get through. I thought oxford was anone off but it has happened twice since then as well

 

You really are the most tedious cunt on the internet, aren’t you? How many times do you have to repeat the same lines as articles of faith that are in fact contestable or even fallacious? “No reason not to play our best XI” is a lie you have repeated a dozen times or more. “Rafa is doing harm by seeing out his contract” is so many different kinds of bullshit it makes me puke.

 

So, like, every casual guest on NO knows how you feel. Thanks for sharing. Can you give it a fucking rest now?

 

There is no reason not to play the best 11 you idiot

 

I agree 100%. What exactly are we saving our players for?

[James]

Ashley wouldn't care. The club would survive financially if they played behind closed doors. In fact I'm sure he'd take great pride in being the first club to be able to do it.

 

No club can survive without its fans ...

 

75% of the clubs in the prem can. BBC reported it the other day. It's all down to the TV deals.

 

I think if even where we got to the point of all the fans vs Ashley, so long as he keeps hold of that PL ticket I think he’d be happy to move the club to Shirebrook if things ever got that far and he had enough of us

[Odear]

Almost every other club in the league has had significant foreign investment. It’s simply not believable at all any more that Ashley ever had any intention of selling this club, if he did he’d have sold up or at least sold a part of it.

 

So what are protests going to do other than piss him off royally? Well for starts he’ll throw his toys out of the pram and make decisions to make the fan base as miserable as possible.

 

But that’s it. No protest is going to force him into a boardroom with some wealthy Arabs or Chinese. It’s just not going to happen.

 

I hate to condone violence but to have scenes like they did at West Ham last season against a Sports Direct backdrop would do serious damage to their brand. And it would damage us in the short term too. But Rafa is leaving any way.. there’s no way this season ends without us being in a shit heap.

 

We may as well take as many of these clowns down with us as possible, whether still in the PL or not.

[ScottishMagpie]

I'm having an argument with myself as to whether Rafa should just go now or not.....

 

Ashley's not going to sell and isn't actively trying to sell it so he'll be here next season which means Rafa won't be so why doesn't he just go now?  He doesn't deserve this and doesn't owe us anything.  If he goes now will it light the touch paper and this will blow up and the revolution will be truly begin?

 

Or does he stay and fight the battle of wills with the FCB and hope against hope that some buyer magically appears?

 

This relationship is heading only one way and that's divorce, for the kids sake just end it now.

[Zero]

Put it simple, we need two relegations

[kingxlnc]

I'm starting to think the personnel available are just not right for Rafa's favoured formation.

 

There is only one left back, one right back. No real number 10.

 

With our lopsided squad the only formation that makes sense, is 3 at the back, with 2 wing backs, 3 across the middle, 1 floating and 1 up front.

 

GK - Dubravka

 

We have an abundance of centre backs of decent, international quality. Therefore let's play three of them. My choice would be

RCB: Fernandez

CB: Lascelles

LCB: Dummett

 

Right Wing Back - Yedlin's pace is perfectly suited to the role.

Left Wing Back - Kenedy is also perfectly suited to this role - I don't think he is attacking enough as an out and out left winger nor defensive enough as a decent left back.

 

Across the middle:

 

Perhaps Diame, Shelvey and Ritchie. Diame further back, as DM and Ritchie and Shelvey more central - Shelvey as the passer, Ritchie as the one making the runs forward.

 

Then you would have Muto or Perez in that space in between midfield and up front.

 

Rondon the big man up front.

 

I think that literally is the best team we can put out from our first 11.

 

Schar is the guy who can drop in to defence to replace any one the centrebacks.

The wingbacks don't really have any replacements - perhaps I would retrain Murphy to take the right wing back role as back up.

Ki would be cover for midfield.

Muto/Perez for that role.

Joselu for Rondon's role.

 

It shows how paper thin the squad is that I couldn't even think of any other outfield players bar Atsu.

 

Even though we've been horrid every time in that formation - we are bound to be if Dummett is considered a wing-back! This one above could get us through to Xmas I feel.

[Guest Howaythetoon]

There can be no excuse for the way we (didn’t) play last night and that team should have still been more than capable of beating Forest.

 

People outraged at some being unhappy and questioning or even criticising Rafa need some context when we play so badly and lose to a Championhsip team.

 

Fans by and large have been very supportive and kind of forgiving when it comes to the turgid and very defensive way we have often played under Rafa because it got us out of the Championship, kept us up last season and due to the lack of investment in the squad, as Howey said, he is almost managing with his hands tied. That and Mike Ashley!

 

In that context it’s easy to see why fans don’t kick off over the way we play like they once would have done under say Pardew or Allardyce.

 

But in the context of a cup tie against a Championhsip side where for once it is us who are the bigger team and with the better players, to lose in the manner we did is unacceptable and Rafa should rightly be questioned and even criticised.

 

What matters is any questioning and criticism meeted out by fans is done so based on context and doesn’t boil over into hysteria and hyperbole.

 

My main issue with Rafa and this goes back a long time now is our passing game which is exceptionally poor. It doesn’t appear to me anyway that we practice our passing game much or that we rely on Shelvey to make it work and even then he has to play exceptionally well as an individual for it to work.

 

It’s Pardew levels of football when on the ball. Defensively despite how ragged we have been, we seem to execute the basics very well and this is obviously the foundation Rafa has laid out for the team which I get and can totally understand.

 

It served us so well last season, but it’s no use defending well or having a decent defensive shape if we cannot then go forward and execute an attack to beat the likes of Forest which we showed and have done in many similar games that we can’t.

 

For Rafa and the team he needs to find another solution soon, because what worked before, isn’t working now and we are seeing in how the players are performing that they are becoming increasingly bereft of confidence and motivation to keep playing that way because it demands too much of them and becomes brittle when certain players aren’t in the side or are having an off game.

 

I still think he will keep us up, but only just and it will be really ugly on and off the stands.

[Kasper]

The 52000 who presently attend matches are as much to blame as Ashley ...it takes two to tango

 

 

In stupidity scale that's about the same as saying the victim of domestic violence is just as much to blame for staying in the relationship as the abuser.

[Guest Howaythetoon]

The 52000 who presently attend matches are as much to blame as Ashley ...it takes two to tango

 

 

In stupidity scale that's about the same as saying the victim of domestic violence is just as much to blame for staying in the relationship as the abuser.

 

It’s not like 

[steve_69]

There can be no excuse for the way we (didn’t) play last night and that team should have still been more than capable of beating Forest.

 

People outraged at some being unhappy and questioning or even criticising Rafa need some context when we play so badly and lose to a Championhsip team.

 

Fans by and large have been very supportive and kind of forgiving when it comes to the turgid and very defensive way we have often played under Rafa because it got us out of the Championship, kept us up last season and due to the lack of investment in the squad, as Howey said, he is almost managing with his hands tied. That and Mike Ashley!

 

In that context it’s easy to see why fans don’t kick off over the way we play like they once would have done under say Pardew or Allardyce.

 

But in the context of a cup tie against a Championhsip side where for once it is us who are the bigger team and with the better players, to lose in the manner we did is unacceptable and Rafa should rightly be questioned and even criticised.

 

What matters is any questioning and criticism meeted out by fans is done so based on context and doesn’t boil over into hysteria and hyperbole.

 

My main issue with Rafa and this goes back a long time now is our passing game which is exceptionally poor. It doesn’t appear to me anyway that we practice our passing game much or that we rely on Shelvey to make it work and even then he has to play exceptionally well as an individual for it to work.

 

It’s Pardew levels of football when on the ball. Defensively despite how ragged we have been, we seem to execute the basics very well and this is obviously the foundation Rafa has laid out for the team which I get and can totally understand.

 

It served us so well last season, but it’s no use defending well or having a decent defensive shape if we cannot then go forward and execute an attack to beat the likes of Forest which we showed and have done in many similar games that we can’t.

 

For Rafa and the team he needs to find another solution soon, because what worked before, isn’t working now and we are seeing in how the players are performing that they are becoming increasingly bereft of confidence and motivation to keep playing that way because it demands too much of them and becomes brittle when certain players aren’t in the side or are having an off game.

 

I still think he will keep us up, but only just and it will be really ugly on and off the stands.

 

I think Rafa did pretty much everything we would want him to do last night - introduce some of the youngsters sitting on the fringe, play some of the new signings (even though they're not up to speed with life in English football yet), protect the most valuable players eg. our only left back, our creative midfielder, our main striker (who isn't fully fit yet).

When the team steps over the white line it's up to them to carry out the manager's instructions and try to win the game. We didn't set out to be defensive and I seriously doubt Rafa told them to go out and look like a sack of shit. Sometimes it just doesn't click.

 

Imagine if he'd sent out a full strength first team and we picked up injuries to Dummett, Rondon, Shelvey (i don't even know if he's fit?), Ritchie. We'd be fucked, such is the situation Ashley has created.