Comparisons

[occult]

Ashley has balanced the books and that seems to be the limit of his ambitions. What he has never done, until Benitez, is appoint a manager and give him the right to choose his own transfer targets. But, of course, with Benitez he has denied him a sufficient budget. Pardew and McClaren may have had more money spent on the squads they had but they didn't choose the players bought. They had to rely on Carr & Co and Charnley who came up with such gems as Riviere and a host of others best forgotten. I always thought it unfair to judge a manager who was expected to get results with players he hadn't chosen to buy. Now Benitez can choose but only from the bargain basement. For £5 million you get Joselu not Coutinho or Lukaku. Benitez will never have the funds available to Mourinho or Guardiola. Many managers can spot talent but only a few can afford it. Benitez should be given enough to buy mid range players such as Sturridge or Townsend. Judgment on Benitez is, therefore, in my view suspended until he can be given a decent transfer budget but in retrospect, as I've said, we should remember what I said about Pardew and McClaren. One final point on comparisons is that a reasonable comparison could be made now with the two other clubs promoted with us which also don't have megabucks to spend.

[Jammy89]

If Rafa had been backed in the summer (i know some on here regard that he was - but i don't personally) I don't think we'd be in the situation.

Rafa had his targets and we fannied around and missed most of them, or argued over peanuts in the general scheme of things.

To use an analogy i saw on facebook he is basically having to bake a cake with piss poor ingredients and then compete against people who have all the right ingredients and been allowed to buy what they needed.

I really don't think for example we'd of signed Murphy for £12 million if Rafa knew that would be his one "big" purchase.

[toptoon]

Well I agree with John Hartson's comments after yesterday´s game. We fought hard and were unlucky not to pick up a point.

Our player quality is one of the lowest in the league but I remember many saying that we don´t demand a team that wins, we demand one that tries (actually I think that was mostly aimed at the club but is still applies to the players on the pitch). The team yesterday bust a gut but Leicester´s players were technically and physically superior.

You might want to have a go at Perez but he was back, as last man and from the position he plays, that was a good effort. The bigger question is where was the rest of the defence at that stage of the game?

I would like to apologise to Gayle too as I wrote him off earlier in the season. I was wrong and he is far the biggest goal threat we have - he was unlucky not to score more yesterday.

Overall, bitterly disappointing but I´m trying to see some of the positives (amongst all the negatives) this morning.

[trinitoon]

It is clearer now why g-ashley didn't back him in Summer. If selling was at the back (or front) of his mind, why would g-ash splash the cash?

Rafa should be doing better but look at some clubs that get into a tailspin and you'll see that we have our work cut out. We are short of quality and pace. And we don't seem to have a game plan in the middle of the pitch. Rather than passing the ball with confidence, we seem to be waiting for someone to pick our pockets. We do not pass with confidence and clarity of thought.

Uncle Fester doesn't even get to play but his Hollywood passes don't help us as much as his ability to do defence-splitting passes. We are using Yedlin, who is clearly a winger at right back and he is just an open door. When he gets further up, it is just chaos anyway because he leaves a space behind him.

Murphy should be doing more on the wing... or play him more centrally in the midfield instead of the AWFUL Perez because that boy is getting worse in each game.

I struggle to understand how Yedlin, Murphy and Ritchie on the wings can't hurt teams. Diame gets on the pitch because he looks like he can play football...but that's like assuming Crouch can play in the NBA. Diame is garbage. Perez is garbage and those are players that should have fastened seatbelts on their Recaro seats on the bench so they don't get up unless there is no other choice.

Without Lascelles, we don't have a defence so if he doesn't play through the rest of the year, we'll be firmly in the relegation zone by the time 2018 fireworks go off.

Hope Staylovely laced Fat Pig's curry with something that makes him come to his senses. She just needs to put another £50m quid in Fat Pig's Santa's stocking and fu.ck him off.

The pressure cooker is whistling here and if Rafa doesn't get a quality CB, creative mid, striker or all of the above, there will be trouble ahead.

Rafa needs to also back down and play Mitrovich more because even if he doesn't score, which he probably won't, he can at least hold up the ball for Gayle who has proved that he can tuck goals away if he gets more than 0.0385 secs on the ball...which is all he gets with our largely absent build up play.

[Zippity]

Ashley needs to sell NOW or the offer will be either withdrawn or reduced as our chances of staying in this division get fainter and fainter.

If he stays. we are fucked. If he goes, we've got a chance.

[Jammy89]

Ashley needs to sell NOW or the offer will be either withdrawn or reduced as our chances of staying in this division get fainter and fainter.

If he stays. we are fucked. If he goes, we've got a chance.

He'll lose so much more money if we go down again.

Even if he doesn't put money in again we'll be a weight against his name.

He has to sell.

[kingstonbob]

I think Ashley for once is backed into a corner. We are in freefall as a team, he wants to sell and has a buyer but he wants to play hardball. We know he is a gambler but he knows hes lost twice with relegation, and cant afford for the club to be in that position again or he wont be able to sell/his investment will probably be worth half it is now. There must be at least £10/15 million available from the money we had from the surplus when we went down and money not spent last summer. Sell Mitro and bring in a top striker and maybe an experienced CB even on loan and I think we'll be ok.

Lets just hope we get a fantastic new year present with us seeing the back of Ashley, even if we have to put up with looking at his tat shop advertising around SJP for 2/3 more years.

We have to keep the faith anything from 17th will be a win and I still feel we'll finish 15th.

[Jammy89]

Getting rid of him would be a lovely start to new year.

I've said before at start of the season, i'll say again i'm sure. If you offered me 17th now i'd rip your hand off in taking it.

[ghostrider]

It almost makes me wonder if Rafa's got the team playing like this to effect the sale quickly so he has January spends whilst Ashley gives it fast feet away with cash on the hip.

It makes more sense that Rafa turning into a totally clueless and complete and utter waste of space of a manager and all the players just deciding to turn to total sheet, one by one, with each looking like they've had their pocket money stopped for being naughty.

[HughieG]

I have a feeling that PCP will want to take over before January. Watch it happen.