Now you're just being stubborn man. If we had 0 points under Rafa Benitez right now I doubt anyone would be arsed to be honest. We have 3 from 3 and played really well against one of the best sides in Europe. If we lose against Watford I'll be furious, but from the three games we have played I honestly can only see truly cynical people thinking we look like common relegation trash.
Not stubborn. More pessimism. Until I’m convinced we are playing better then that won’t change for me. But I’m used to let downs. We where dreadful against a team we should be beating in Norwich. We grinder out a typical away win performance against a top six side. That makes up for the Norwich game and it puts us on the 3 points I expected us to be on. The Watford game is the big test.
Rafa had 2 seasons of hitting targets in the bank though, had to count for something. Definitely cynical under Bruce. I did say at the start of the season if he can utilise the defence left we would be okay but I dont rate him tactically at all. My bemusement comes from this 'rafa's football was boring, Bruce is attacking' theory. I've seen no evidence of this assumption over his entire managerial career. We won with 20 % possession on Sunday, that's a Rafa performance if I ever did see one. Watford will be interesting either way. The last season we went down we beat Spurs twice, beat and drew with Liverpool and drew with manure, Chelsea and City. Need to see how we can cope with teams more in and around us, especially at home
The paradigm shift from Rafa to post Rafa will take some time, such is the mythology about his time here. For nearly three years, he played with inverted wingers, the same as Bournemouth, but never in a million years did the two teams play in the same manner. Newcastle will easily stay in this division this year, and will begin the process of building for the future (ala Bournemouth), without buying 10 new players every year. Let us see where we are come January, and how we play come April. 2018. Played 10 won 0 drawn 3 lost 7 2019 Played 3 won 1 lost 2 I hereby decree, that I will never compare Newcastle records, the moment people stop rewriting History about Rafa.
You'll be copying them forever then. Steve Bruce will never get the support of the fans, ever. Alan Pardew never did and he got us into Europe. No matter what Steve achieves, bar winning an FA Cup or the like; he will always be one bad run away from fan animosity. He will, mark my word's, never receive the support of this fanbase, unless he performs a miracle. I support him, I support any manager who has the balls to come manage this club. It is easily one of the hardest jobs in England, the amount of pressure and toxicity is brutal. The only cheers he'll get will be joy at results, not due to anything he has achieved. His performance is already being overly scrutinised. and since im in full flow here, Michael Chopra claiming he can't organise a warm up was disrespectful, uneducated and embarrassing. Anyone supporting that no marks comments should be ashamed.
You have to love our fans. Absolutely hilarious. End of the world stuff after two games without their precious Rafa. No tactics, can't do a warm up, players don't know what they are doing etc etc. Then we give a terrific away performance to one of the best sides in Europe. The comments? I've read all sorts from our lot, and many have lumped themselves in with the mackem Davey Jones on Sky. His first comment following some fantastic tactical work and organisation was "was this not down to two years under Rafa Benitez". So hang on let me get this right. We lose two games and they are in no way down to the previous manager, but when we win one it is down to the previous manager? Interesting way of looking at things... You now have comments from our lot like "he just went back to using Rafa's system" or "he got lucky we only had 20% possession" etc etc. To be honest I'm losing all respect for these people as supporters. They talk ****. They are just blinkered Rafa Benitez disciples who should go and watch the non descript Chinese club he went to manage for a truck load of cash. Then you have those who just want to do Rafa down. We played really defensive on Sunday, so lets not pretend we were a great watch. I enjoyed watching our discipline but the football played was simply good defensive counter attack football no better than what we were served under Rafa. Tactically different but essentially the same kind of thing. I have no problem with that, because needs must and we badly needed an organised performance for the players and manager. The thing he did better than maybe a Rafa performance, is we continued to offer a threat throughout. It must be said our tactics on Saturday didn't resemble Rafa's so those clinging to that little shred, shows how much they actually pay attention to tactics. I thought it was interesting that Bruce really thought about how to stop Tottenham. He obviously decided to shut down the middle of the pitch to stop the ball getting to Kane. Simple but effective. We stayed compact and allowing them to run into wide areas, slowly fanning out to defend from there. An age old tactic used by most managers but one which was well used on this occasion. This is going to be the main challenge for Bruce. Overcoming the fans and to be honest I don't think he has any hope. His best bet is to try to do a solid job before the fans force the owner to get rid. Personally I'm not convinced with Bruce, I'd just prefer if he is to be sacked, it will be because he's done a poor job rather than simply picking up a poisoned chalice. All said and done, we have 3 points after 3 games. Everyone went on about the tough start, this year is equally as tough. So to be on the points we took 10 games to get last year is a positive. Unless you are just outright stubborn and unwilling to accept Bruce regardless. Last Year: Spurs (H) Cardiff (A) Chelsea (H) Man C (A) Arsenal (H) Palace (A) Leicester (H) Man U (A) Brighton (H) Southampton (A) Arsenal (H) Norwich (A) Spurs (A) Watford (H) Liverpool (A) Brighton (H) Leicester (A) Man U (H) Chelsea (A) Wolves (H)
Haven't bothered looking at fixtures. That's arguably a harder start this year. You'd identify Cardiff, Palace, Brighton and Southampton as winnable last year. Only Norwich (they've done well to be fair), Watford and Brighton this year. I reckon we'll have at least 10 points after 10 games and with a harder start
Exactly the point of my post. Truly, 100% he will never ever win people over. I wouldn't even bother with the lip service if I was him, just do the job and the wider football fanbase will judge him more fairly. If he does a decent job, which Is just as likely as him flopping, he can get more prem offers later down the line. Win win for him.
I don't think there is much in it at all. We've been handed two tough starts in a row. In reality though you play the 6 top sides 12 times. The first 10 games represents almost 25% of the fixtures. So you'd expect 3 or 4 games against those sides in your first 10 games. We've ended up with 5 both times so not that far away from expected. Reality is its a tough league with 6 very good sides. Then you have the likes of Leicester and Everton. Wolves obviously surprised people last year but they would be my pick to suffer a downturn unless they have an early exit from the Europa. They have looked half the side already after a European fixture. Fans never seem to understand the impact the Europa has. We had it here under Pardew. By far his worst year but was cut no slack for it. Burnley suffered last year, others have if you look back.
