Do you regret letting him go or do you think it was correct? But then again I suppose you could say Gayle is a 25 goals a season striker in the CC but useless in the PL.
Always thought we should have kept Mitro. One of Rafa’s mistakes in my mind. Problem was that Mitro would never have performed the way Rafa was wanting him to play.
Mitro has always had goals in him, he does it at international level too. Rafa just never seemed to rate him - or see him in the style of team he wanted. Mitro did have the tendency to get carried away and risk getting a red card, but he always had goalscoring quality and passion, making him a real handful for defences. I'd have quite liked him to stick around at NUFC and see how he would have done with an extended run at Prem level.
Mitro has matured into a solid striker. He’s not world class but in the PL now I would see him as a 10-15 goal striker. He still has the potential to be a class player mind.
He’s 100x the player Wood is, a Toon fan and gives 100%. Wish he’d stayed. Another Rafa catastrophe, particularly considering we’ve had Gayle stealing a living for the past half a decade.
He got us promoted and finished 10th one season. You cannot be too critical of anyone under Ashley really. The one I feel sorry for the most as Chris Hughton. 11th when he was sacked for Pardew. If he had stayed I think Carroll would have stayed with him as well as Barton and Nolan. And we couldn't have built on it. Feeling sorry for Pardew - Got us 5th place, and then we got no investment the season after to build on it. We signed one player - Anita for 6-7m. Brucey deserves credit for keeping this **** team up for 2 seasons, and signing Alain St Maximan and also now Joelinton.
I think McClaren should never have taken us down, I think Rafa had his best season with us when we managed to finish 10th. But he spent money, he signed a player, sold them for a loss a season later. Some of the players we signed were 100% Rafa decisions, I have no doubt what so ever, the signing players method under Bruce and McClaren was completely different than what we saw under Rafa. Long term, the rot began under Rafa Benitez, specifically his last season with us. I thought we were destined for relegation if he stayed one season longer, I was thankful he left. Bruce was an absolutely useless manager tbh. He led us to the bottom two, that's it.
Both finished. We always get into these debates on here, "Bruce did as well as Rafa." Yeah I agree, but where we disagree is everyone on here comes at it from a "Rafa did a good job, Bruce didn't." In football, you move forward and progress or you drown and drop. Under Rafa Benitez we began to stagnate, the team that Bruce took over was ****ing gash, but we continued to rot under him as he was equally old and useless. When I wanted Howe on here last season I said "I am sick of these fat old useless managers." I meant both of them, they were completely past their prime. We finished 10th ffs, not 5th.
Meh, got 3 goals last season in the Premier League. However in the Champ he's got 31,and got 26 two years ago. Until he can do it in the Prem, he's a Champ level striker.
He's a good striker clearly. I think his international record tells you better what he is capable of. You do have to base your team around his strengths though. I would defend Rafa here. Rafa has a very specific way of playing and setting up his teams. I think its **** and boring. However he was manager at the time and Mitro didn't fit the way he wanted to play - so was there any point in keeping him when he wasn't going to play him? Mitro requires an attacking approach with lots of speed around him. You need to be pressing high up the pitch. Rafa's style doesn't require pressing in the top third of the pitch in numbers, its sit back counter attack with pace from deep. I think the only thing that probably was a bit annoying is he eventually changed a little when he brought in Rondon. So you kinda thought, well why didn't you change for Mitro? Even then though Rondon was happy holding up the ball and not really taking part in much of the game, Mitro isn't and gets frustrated. Can he do it in the PL? You'd have to put him in a team not fighting relegation and he'd have to start regular. Last time they were up he was a sub mainly (think he started 13 games), the previous time he started 37 and bagged 11 which wasn't bad in such a poor team (they conceded 80 odd goals and only got 26pts). Jury is out for me still - he wouldn't suit us. Eddie has a more modern style which requires everyone closing down non stop. He is fairly obsessive about our work out of possession. Would he do better than Wood? Not in Eddie's style. I think Wood has done ok despite the lack of goals. Clearly had positive impact on team.
His tally is now 33 and still has 14 games to play, He could easily get to 40+ which is suberb goalscoring and on top of that he scores very regularly for his National side, I believe we got rid of him too quickly and look forward to him coming to the Toon next year, providing current league placings remain.
Rafa got rid of him because we had an abundance of talent with Gayle, Joselu and Perez, not sure if Toney and Armstrong were there in his time as well.
