Howay

They'll be down there so long that they can get used to the Boro v Mackem derby, or the paedo derby as it has come to be known in light of recent events.

Aye that switch was fucking hilarious, as you say we stood no chance but then should have been winning more convincingly. They are now saying that they will do similar to what we did this season, despite their performance this season being closer to Villas than ours last season.

Yet somehow they were more clued up on the form of teams below us, how many points sides were off us and how teams looked than many of our fans. They can enjoy not watching any Championship games next season to be fair, they'll barely be on Telly.

The funniest part is they're all saying similar things to what they ridiculed us for "going down will get rid of some of the rot and let us reshape the side" etc, 12 month ago the PL was the be all and end all anything else was an irrelevance and a disgrace to them. There are also a good few of them talking about what a good job Silva is doing at Hull without mentioning how Rafa "took them down" despite him having a comparable record and less fixtures than Silva Fucking absolute idiots.

Aye he rarely buys outside of the British leagues iirc. He suits them down to the ground mind and is exactly the calibre of manager SAFC should have, he's as haggard looking as those 'red' seats in their shite stadium.

It always struck me as a buy that was over Pochettino's head, they didn't really need him and Pochettino didn't make great attempts to accommodate him (mainly because Moussa is shit), there were also those recent stories Sissoko got put in the paper of "it's either Pochettino or me" which I always felt was the result of Pochettino yelling "I never wanted to waste money on you anyway you little mug" in training. Maybe I'm just being overly fair on Pochettino because I like the bloke though. Either way we absolutely mugged them off, he'll either be at a club like Hull or West Brom, or at a mid-table ligue 1 side within 3 years.

Aye was going to mention them two as well, he's tragic tbh. The last time he was doing canny was yonks ago when he took a scrappy Everton side and bored teams into submission, using 5 across midfield when everyone else was using 4-4-2. Lee Carsley and Thomas Gravesen booting everyone off the pitch (Gravesen was a good player, Carsley was a cunt), since then everyone pretty much plays 5 across the midfield so he's not able to capitalize on that anymore. Thrilled they've kept him tbh.

They're an utter embarrassment. Genuinely hope they do get rid of him and then drop to mid table after Sanchez and Ozil fuck off.

It's also worth bearing in mind Moyes is shite, they love saying Rafa took us down but that bloke actually did take them down. The players he has brought in have been completely fucking rotten, Donald Love and Paddy McNair were 5m ffs.

I can't see them getting anywhere near 15m for Kone, he's been a shambles this season so I think that ship sailed when they were asking too much from Everton. Even if Moyes got that sort of investment he'd need a hell of a lot more to come anywhere near the team we have. They have nowt in the side tbh, they're far worse than our side that went down, they are closer to Villa tbh and we've seen where they are even with a ton of investment. Bottom half of the Championship for them imo. Look how much they struggle to attract in the PL, they'll struggle massively to attract players at a level to be fighting for promotion. Couple that with the fact they have fuck all money and heaps of debt and it doesn't look good at all for them .

Aye that Marco Silva is doing a canny job, if Hull go down he'll get a PL job as I think his contract is only to summer. That Traore is rapid and is very skillful, his final ball is sometimes lacking but his decision making is decent. I reckon he'd be a good buy for us as Rafa will get our defence solid enough that we could afford a 'flair' player like him in the side. Agree completely about the mackems and boro, it'll be nice to pass both of them on their way down . Even sweeter if we buy Gibson and Traore off Boro.

Agreed, with 8 goals and 11 assists this season it'd be a fairly big ask. If Swansea stop up he might just stay there as well seeing as when he moved to Spurs it didn't really work out for him (due to lack of chances rather than lack of ability), he'd be an ideal target for us mind and would fill the behind the striker role perfectly.

Just watching Swansea v Boro, would love both these teams to go down as I reckon Sigurdsson, Traore, and Ben Gibson would all be good targets for us in the summer. Sigurdsson would be tough mind as he's leading the assist chart at the minute so there'll be a fair few sides in for him.

:lol: Fair point.

Just saw a comment that the Mackems have only scored in one game since Van Aanolt left, I thought as shite as they are there's no way that could be true so had a look at their results. :lol: It's spot on though they have only scored in that 4-0 win over Palace, they drew 0-0 with Spurs the day after he left and haven't scored a single goal since the match against Palace. There's still some among them that think they might not go down as well.

"I want us to be top" "okay we're top in April" "nah man I want us to be top AND be hammering everyone playing class football" Sorry like Noelie but you've set unrealistic expectations if that is what you were thinking was going to happen. Look how fucking shite we were under McClaren last season, that's the core of this side, they've went from looking clueless to controlling most games, pretty or not we've controlled the vast majority of games including todays. We got relegated, we're in a shit league with 24 sides in it, we've played more than a Premier League season and still have 7 more to go over a very similar time frame as the PL season. It's a total slog of a season, our squad is tired but they're still getting the job done against sides that are coming to St James' Park with nothing in mind other than a 0-0 draw. It's completely different playing sides that are at least having a go against you compared to playing 2 sides a week that are set up to frustrate. Look at Aston Villa and Norwich to get an idea of how much of a slog it is. He bought those players to fill his squad out, some he has needed, others he hasn't. As Quiff mentioned it's actually a positive that he is going with players that are doing a job for him regardless of if he bought them or not. We needed bodies in as the squad was thin and that's what players like Hanley, Gamez, Lazaar, Murphy etc are, they've not exactly looked blatantly better than those you want them to be in the team over. Atsu has done well as an impact sub, that's why Rafa prefers to start with Gouffran and sub Atsu onto the flank with the more tired fullback late in the game. Yedlin has been a good buy and has played plenty. His other buys were Gayle, Hayden, Diame, and Ritchie who have all played most games and are part of the reason we're top. It's fine saying he spent loads but think back to last season, who were our best players? It was probably Wijnaldum and Townsend, both of those were sold and we were buying from a position of weakness. As I say a lot of these players were brought in to bulk the squad out, I've no idea why you think he sees the players you listed as 'high value' when most of them were about 3-5m which is jack shit for upper Championship/Lower Premier League players. I will add to all of this that if you're expecting every Benitez buy to be brilliant you've again set your expectations too high, he like anyone occasionally buys duds, he does however get something out of those duds most of the time where shit managers like Alan Pardew don't. You can't be expecting top players that come in capable of playing brilliant attacking football when you've just been relegated, pointing to sides like Brighton is also unfair as Hughton has been in charge a while and they have a settled side that are used to playing in this league and the volume of games. It's also worth pointing out that if you watch Brighton games teams don't sit as deep against them as they do us. There isn't another side you could point too other than Brighton, Huddersfield are shite, they're 10 points behind us so you're crackers if you look at them envious of their play all they do is pass the ball back and forth and we have won more games by bigger margins than them, 90% of their wins are by 1 goal margins. You say we're making hard work of it but we're 10 points clear of 3rd place in April, I'd love to see the side that were making light work of this league. Most games we're knocking on the door of a winning goal for 90 minutes and it can be a question of if we get it or not but you can't expect to win 46 games, you're going to have slip ups, or games that don't go your way. It's also worth noting that compared to the sides nearest us we've been fairly unfortunate with injuries and bans. We were without our best central midfielder (and arguably player) as well as our top goal scorer for the most congested period of the season. If Brighton had to go as long as we did without Murray and Knockaert they'd not be within a point of us.

Aye, that along with Jonjo missing a quarter of the season through bans and injuries. Our best striker also missed a good chunk of games due to getting hurt during a time the fixtures piled up. As Fish pointed out the squad had more PL level players last time but we also were very fortunate with injuries and suspensions really, especially when you consider that Andy Carroll is made of paper mache he managed 39 games for us in the Championship.

Exactly. That is Charnleys natural progression tbf.

He did spend, as many constantly point out as evidence we should be breezing the league but as I once mentioned it's easy to forget the players we lost to get that money (which we didn't spend anywhere near all of) we all disliked Sissoko but I'm more meaning Wijnaldum, he looks very good at Liverpool under a proper manager and we have struggled massively for a player in that hole behind the striker, so aye we spent money but I think we'd look far more capable with him in the side than having a couple of the players we bought (not saying you're holding that over Rafa btw adios just always like to note this whenever the money thing is brought up). It's also always worth mentioning that neither Norwich nor Aston Villa were reserved in their spending and they're both way off the pace. Aye as you say it's a daft expectation, especially when you look at the point Strawb makes about the squad. Agree completely that Rafa is doing a mint job, the league is a grind and we've been very successful grinding out enough wins to be top, we've been dominant in the vast majority of the games and have even showed some flair at times but we're at the end of a long season now and it's just important to get points on the board, we're not suddenly going to be seeing stellar attacking moves and Cruyff turns from Dummett, Colback, Gouff, etc. Job done this weekend, another slip from Huddersfield gets us closer to what we need, the aim was only ever promotion it didn't matter if we looked brilliant doing it.

Good post, aye I think the fact its Rafa Benitez has led many to balloon expectations to ridiculous levels. I know I was full of piss and vinegar at the start of the season saying we'd walk the league but this is essentially what I meant by that, I wasn't expecting us to go out 3-0 and 4-0 winners every week like some fans seem to be expecting, you often end up playing to the level of opposition and despite most of their long held Premier League status most of our team are cloggers as you've pointed out. Strawb is spot on when he talks about how this is (largely) the same squad that was a disaster under McClaren and Pardew, except we actually lost a few of the creative players when in a position that our ability to draw talent in was hampered by being in this league. As you say the problem for seeing players like Colback playing every week isn't Rafa's fault, this is all he has, it's down to Ashley who has had the team avoiding investing when we really needed too. As you say it's pointless yelling about Colback and Anita starting (I've been guilty of this btw) when there's not really another option, in two weeks time when Hayden should really be back up to speed people can have a bit whinge if Raymond is still taking the field of course imo, even then though it's not like Hayden has really stood out as being miles better he just tends to not fuck up as much as Colback. Spot on about Rafa, it's been fucking years we've wanted a manager that can properly manage these tight games and now we've got one people are pissing and moaning that we aren't all over the opposition . He's doing a brilliant job imo, it's funny how he gets flak from some quarters but those same people talk about Brighton and Huddersfield in such a positive manner. He's really been trying to drill and get the squad ready for next season this season, the fact that he has done that while comfortably guiding us to promotion is class, our manner of play will work when sides come at us more next season.

How many times have you seen Gamez play? I've seen him once I think and saw nowt to say he was outstanding. Anita helped set up the winner today, I don't like Anita but today isn't a day you can moan about the bloke. You'd play a bloke returning from a month out with a hamstring injury who had re-injured it after coming back too quickly last time? Fair enough but I'd have just sat him for another week and gave him a sub appearance (like Benitez did). I'd agree on Gouffran but again it's not exactly cost us today and Rafa seems to like to hold Atsu's pace in reserve for late on. Mbemba looked far from capable when he did play early on in the season, I'm not much of a fan of Lascelles but it seems Rafa has been trying to build him up it probably hasn't worked and we'll probably need a new CB in the summer but we're still top of the league. Again like I said Diame and Perez are very much a 50/50 decision for me, both haven't performed well in that position so I'm not sure who you'd play over him. We're top man Noelie, we're going up by the looks of it, Rafa has done a brilliant job with a squad of largely average players.

Pretty much, I (and others) have mentioned how streaky Huddersfield are and it seems their 2nd long stretch of constant good results is over they were at home to Burton and had 70% possession but still lost they're the epitome of all fart and nee shit tbh. Brighton basically cemented their place as well today bouncing back after a shaky patch with a win. I know (certain) people are going to moan about this win but we've been winning like this all season, we've ground through a scrappy league with what is a fairly crap squad (with a few players who are well above this level). Rafa can only pick the players he has available so it's pointless moaning about Colback and Diame playing Noelie, who was he meant to pick? Hayden who is just about recovered from a month out and Perez who has been just as inconsistent as Diame? I don't like Anita at all but Yedlin is injured and he played well today ffs, he was instrumental in the winning goal and he wasn't at fault for the one we conceded. It's pointless moaning and worrying about what a scrappy home win over Wigan means for next season, it'll be a different looking squad by then.

So 10 points clear of a Huddersfield that seem to be in meltdown.

Burton scored

The corner flag there man. Brilliant reactions by Ritchie, it was as if it was in training and it was just him v the keeper absolutely none of the defenders reacted.