You can't compare us with villa and Norwich really - we went and spent enough money to ensure promotion was a given. If the squad is threadbare then he hasn't spent the money well. I don't think it is bare compared to the rest of the league. They didn't. He has done ok as I say. Nothing more nothing less. I don't buy into all this messiah lark or him doing a fantastic job. The football has been average, the results have been average. Rafa has looked a bit limited. All the accusations levelled at Pardew about having no plan b, can quite justifiably be levelled at Rafa. Hopefully things get better with time. I'm happy to nail my colours to the mast now, I think he is past his best. As always though he will get my full backing when I get to the ground.
He bought 12 players, that's a lot, the fact we needed that amount, proved there was going to be some mistakes. Can't judge players until we have them, Hanley did well for Blackburn last year but has barely player this year and has looked shaky whenever he has played. Perez and Mitrovic aren't delivering just like last season. This is the same guy that got us Ritchie, Gayle and took a punt on Clark we no one was convinced.
Big Ern I like you and instinctively agree with most of what you say but when you're getting support from the likes of Fredor I have to assume you're talking ****e.
Either that or we finally have proof that Fredor is one of Big Ern's secret accounts. That would explain a lot.
He posts mostly in the wee hours so you'd have to assume it's someone on a similar time zone that he claims to be on if it's a fake account. So you would be more of a suspect than Big Ern to be fair. Or it could be a insomniac, night owl like me.
See I reckon Big Ern is that smart that he would deliberately set his alarm to "Fredor time" so that he could carry on the scam. Although he would then have to completely disengage that smart brain to be able to actually post as Fredor.
I'm not sure what the point is here? We bought a teams worth of players, spending wildly for the division. We are trundling along just ok. That is very average performance from the manager. He has zero excuses. For me we play the same way all the time. If you are going to do that then you should just have two for every position and have the same type of players. Much like Conte does to a certain extent. We have different types of options (which I prefer), but then try to play the same way over and over. Its pretty ****ing stupid. I could be wrong. Perhaps playing 343 would not bring out the best in Yedlin, Lazaar, Mitro, Perez, and make use of our abundance of centre backs. Under Rafa though we'll never ****ing know. Finishing 2nd is ok. I don't have a problem with it at all. Winning the league in a scrappy season likewise. Its hardly good management though. I'd rather be entertained and finish top 6 (the PL is not the be all and end all). I just don't think expecting both is a lot to ask when you are paying a guy a small fortune and giving him a massive warchest. I like the guy, I think he is probably putting right so many things off the pitch which will help us for years to come. I just wish he had a bit more about him on a matchday.
Do you think therefore that Rafa is not getting the best out of Haidara due to his insistence on playing the same rigid formation? In what formation do you think we will be able to see the best of Haidara?
The point is that every manager signs duds, Ferguson was one of the best managers ever and he still signed players like Obertan and Bebe for a team who had just won the league 3 years in a row. We are 2nd the aim is to get promoted this year, I've said on other threads that I don't agree with what he said on Saturday and am pissed off about it but he's hardly doing average. Also clubs need to be in the Premier League with all the money that you get for being in there.
Its all opinion I suppose, but I'm bewildered by anyone thinking he is doing better than average in terms of results and performances. Not with the money spent. I don't mind him buying a few duds etc. Regardless which way it is dressed up, he has no excuses. You ask every other manager in the division what budget and support they would like have had at the start of the season - every single one would say Newcastle. 100% of them would have been confident of winning the league in style with such a situation.
You're massively oversimplifying the situation my friend. All you see is - Objective, squad available, funds available - Assumed difficulty. We'll never know how well another manager would do in this situation, all I'm saying is we wanted automatic promotion, and it looks like we're going to get it and there's still plenty of games left. There's no delusion here. The squad that you think is so superior to all the others in this league really isn't for the job it's been asked to do. It has more fame behind the names but that's it. It doesn't have more experience in this level, it had **** morale until Rafa came, and it looks to have some reasonable grasp on tactics and how to shut a game down, which we didn't have under McClaren or Pardew. We're not really at the top of the league because any of our players has scored wonder goals or been amazing, we're here because we've often not played great but grounded out enough results out of being made more efficient as a unit. This season was always going to be a tough ride and it looks like we're going to get through it, just not in amazing form like some people thought.
We will have to disagree. That just sounds like excuses for Rafa's underperformance to me. He may well get better with time and if he does I'll be the first to be happy. As it stands, on what I have seen so far, I've not been too impressed and more importantly, entertained. The squad we have are not great names to be honest. There is however enough ability in the squad to be well clear if the manager had got it right and proved to be adaptable.
