He was brilliant, could see at the time he was levels above anything else in our squad (not that that's saying much). Wouldn't be surprised to see him at a top European side 1 day
He wanted to go. We couldn’t stop him. If we’d treated him better than that might have made a difference. Can you imagine what it must have felt like to be told that Diame was playing ahead of you.
Correct. Highly rated kid who it was clear would go to the top being left out for donkeys like Hayden and Diame Same as when HBA was left out for Obertan and Sammy Ameobi. Why would these top players put up with being sub for absolute ****e
Short termism. Merino was injured and Diame played relatively well. Rafa continued with Diame but should have looked longer term and played Merino.
NUFC during that period would have been perfect for one of these Netflix docs. I get the feeling there was just a ton of **** going on in the back.
Under Bruce we're going to remember that unless you can coach in a style of play it doesn't matter who you put where..
I'm pretty sure you're not being fair on Bruce. At times last season we were genuinely exciting going forward (the west ham match where we should have been many goals ahead by half-term springs to mind). I wasn't happy when he replaced Rafa but realistically he wasn't the one putting 11 men behind the ball every time we played a good team, who left youngsters out for being too risky or who never let the shackles off our exciting players. If anything Bruce ended up getting punished (towards the last few games) for giving the players too much free reign over their play when he should have been curtailing it a bit. Under Bruce I suspect Merino would have been given more games. We'll never know of course.
Rafa has already addressed this. He didn't want him to go, but Charnley had put a buy out clause in his contract. He was also very unsettled.
No mate I recall he was unhappy early on and when he was playing.. Rafa then droped him.. I could be wrong it's been a while
