gpirlo68

Rafa's assistant leaves, he then brings in another assistant

West ham seem to be bidding on every player

Looks like we aren't pissing about, hopefully get the new players in early

Newcastle United are pleased to confirm the appointment of Mikel Antia to Rafa Benitez's coaching team. The 43-year-old Spaniard joins United from the Aspire Academy in Qatar where he has been part of the coaching team tasked with developing young Qatari players. He replaces Fabio Pecchia, who this week joined Serie B side Verona as the Italian side's new manager. Mikel, who hails from San Sebastian in Spain, had spells as a player at the Real Madrid Academy where he played under Rafa Benítez for four seasons, before moving to Real Valladolid in La Liga, also with Benítez. Mikel later moved on to play for Celta Vigo and Real Sociedad. The rest of Rafa Benitez's coaching staff, consisting of Francisco de Míguel Moreno, Antonio Gómez Pérez, Ian Cathro and Simon Smith, will remain at St. James' Park. Rafa Benitez said: "I am delighted that Mikel is joining my staff. He is a very talented coach and I know he will add great expertise to my team. "At the same time I am sad to see Fabio depart as he has been an excellent professional from the first day until the last in the years we have worked together. "He leaves to face these new and exciting challenges, both personally and professionally. I wish him all the best and say thank you."

Really suprised he's took the job tbh

Aye Rafa's assistant, we keep changing backroom staff so it's hard to keep up

Newcastle United have this evening confirmed that Fabio Pecchia will be leaving the Club Newcastle United have this evening confirmed that first team coach Fabio Pecchia will be leaving the Club to become manager at Italian club Verona. The Club would like to thank Fabio for his services to Newcastle United during his time with the Magpies, and recognises that this is a fantastic opportunity for him to further his career. Good progress is being made with regard to replacing Pecchia, and a further announcement will be made in the coming days.

Can't believe the amount of days McClaren was giving the team off man, the players was never going to be fit. They never took him seriously I agree defensively, no way will Rafa go into the season with the back four leaking goals. I'm intrigued what attackers he'll bring in

Definitely agree with if Rafa had been here all season we would have stayed up, no way would he had let pre season be such a farce last year. By the sounds of things pre season will be a lot better this season. We've got a lot of players that lack confidence and a good pre- season and a promising start to the campaign is important, after picking up 2 points from the first 9 games it was always going to be difficult

The likes of Cisse, Janmaat, Wijnaldum, Sissoko and possibly Krul will leave and I think Norwich will keep the majority if not all their players. You make valid points and I agree with a lot you say but I just dont think we'll piss it. Maybe I'm just being pessimistic

I really don't think we will piss it, we can't go into the season with that attitude. In my opinion Norwich are favourites to go up, they've got a manager who has already promoted the club with players who have already experienced 2 successful promotion campaigns with Norwich Villa apparently have 40m to spend, it's going be a tough season

I was just about to say ^

Wor George

That basically it's cringey we call him Gini, despite it being his name

Gini is his name, he refers to himself as Gini/Gino. Mackems are weird as fuck man, make a bid deal out of nowt

I imagine Cisse will leave Perez will probably play out wide or as a no 10 Armstrong hasn't scored goals higher than league 1 And Mitrovic still has a lot to learn hot-headed and already missing the start of the season. Mitrovic will get around 15-20 goals but we still need another striker imo

They're making a massive deal out of us calling Wijnaldum 'Gini' despite his nickname before coming to Newcastle being Gini

Paul Dummett missed out on the Wales 23man squad

Gutted for Townsend tbh he seems a canny lad. I'd be pissed off if I was Drinkwater, just won the league and was one of the best defensive midfielders and gets cut out of the squad by a half fit Wilshere

Townsend and Drinkwater dropped from the England squad

70k off the wage budget Get rid Rafa

Aye 21 league goals and 2 in the cup according to soccorbase

Scored 23 goals last year in a struggling Fulham team and got in the championship team of the year He was the difference between Fulham staying up or going down to League 1. I certainly wouldn't be happy if promotion candidates like Norwich and Villa signed him

Aye its not ideal paying 10m, Rafa has a tough choice to make as we've got to get out the division first time of asking McCormack can play deeper as an attacking midfielder though, he's a decent passer of the ball too

Aye true, Dunks a decent centre back talking to Brighton fans and they were saying they won't let him go too important to the team 10m for a 30 year old McCormack is very steep and short term, but he will get us goals in the championship he's proven that