Polarboy

He's known for not breaking contracts, so unless he loses a few more matches with Everton, and the Everton hierarchy signal to him that they'd be happy for him to leave by mutual consent, then I can't see it happening. Plus there's the fact that he's likely desperate to make a success of Everton given how close he is to his family home at present.

He's onto the deed poll this morning to change his name to Allardichio 😉

I see Lascelles thinks it would be great to lift Newcastle's first trophy as captain in the era of our new ownership. Are you going to tell him or should I 😄 If and when we win anything he'll be long gone and replaced by someone of much higher quality. That is unless he seriously ups his game under the new manager, whoever that turns out to be, but it really doesn't seem likely he could improve that much at this point in his career. https://www.geordiebootboys.com/news/jamaal-lascelles-eyes-trophies-following-newcastle-takeover/

Xavi is the clear favourite for the job. Barca are just trying to get him out of his manager contract for the middle eastern team he's working at.

Yeah maybe, but if we threw enough money at him he might accept. Plus if he were to come in and turn around our season it would be a great shop window for him for another job in the league.

Was thinking that maybe the big deal they are working on is ten Hag and Overmars together as a package. I mean ten Hag has been seriously mentioned as a contender for the Man U job, so he's obviously well thought of. Then maybe if ten Hag doesn't want to leave this far into the season they'll get someone like Farve to work with Overmars until or if ten Hag wants come at the end of the season. Overmars going by some journalists comments seems a lot more gettable than ten Hag given he's been there ten years, there's a limit to what he can achieve at Ajax, and he supposedly would be up for a new challenge.

According to Romano we're trying something big in terms of who we want to hire as manager, but it's proving difficult because managers of that calibre understandably want to mull it over given our current position. He also reiterates that Fonseca would be more than happy to take it, so obviously he's not the something big. https://thisisfutbol.com/2021/10/news/newcastle-united-fabrizio-romano-issues-big-newcastle-manager-claim/

What you're failing to understand is that for some inexplicable reason Bruce was never given a chance at any of the big teams, so of course his win rate at shit teams is going to be terrible, and obviously those teams being shit had absolutely nothing to do with him and his "coaching".

You're misunderstanding if you think I or other people are saying he's a bad player. I'd put him second behind Wilson, but as talented as ASM undoubtedly is he does have clear flaws to his game. Flaws that allowed us to buy him in the first place.

When he was in France I'm pretty sure he was top of the dribbling stats for Europe, so he hasn't changed, but perhaps the team he was in was similarly limited.

Christ. so he barely presses and is only behind Zaha in losing the ball. That's the problem with players like ASM, It's very difficult to play in a structured way in and out of possession if you have a player who, again doesn't press, and loses the ball constantly. You basically have to build the team around them, and I don't think ASM has shown the consistency in order to make that worthwhile.

I'd like to see a stat on how often we concede after he's lost the ball after one of his mazy runs. Obviously he quite often produces something that leads to a goal, but does he contribute more than he makes us vulnerable to counter attack. But look, he along with Wilson are our best players, so we can't be too picky until we start bringing players in.

If you cast your mind back to when Rafa was playing him in position on the left or as a ten, instead of wide right or in a midfield three, he did give the team something, again in terms of the pressing and carrying the ball, albeit his finishing was awful. He is of course limited, or at least that's what he's shown under Bruce, but if pressing is a big part of how you want your team to play, then he'll be in the team. Those are just the limitations of our squad at the minute.

If a manager comes in who likes to press from the front, which I believe both Farve and Fonseca do, then you might be surprised how often ASM finds himself on the bench. Almiron would be the first name on the sheet in the aforementioned scenario. ASM might find himself relegated to only playing against teams in the bottom half of the table, and as an impact sub.

Yeah, seems like, at least according to him, that Fonseca is still the frontrunner, but given that it's taken them this long they may be thinking of going another way. In fairness that does line up with Farve, or someone else, having caught up to Fonseca in the running. In any case hopefully we'll get word this week because even if they're only in the stands against Chelsea, it would be nice to have them in and around the place, take the game against Brighton, which is winnable even if they are a decent side, given that they've had a very decent run fixture wise to get to 15 points, and then bed themselves in over the international break ready for the run of winnable games in November and early December before the nightmare run from mid December until January.

This was his most recent tweet on it, which to me seems like Fonseca would take it, but that the club are still keeping their options open given there's a question mark over whether a green light will be given. We have heard from other journalists that Fonseca being so nailed on in the betting doesn't necessarily reflect reality. I'm not privy to how these things work, so maybe if contracts are being discussed at all that means he is nailed, but then again maybe in a process like this you go through what you'd be offering and what they'd be willing to take, with at least the shortlist of who you are considering for the position.

Maybe, but it does seem like tabloid or not, German's are less likely to bullshit with no basis in fact at all.

Seems like the people on twitter have read the same article as me 😂

There's been an article this evening in Bild the German paper, which is usually pretty accurate, that Farve has moved ahead of Fonseca as favourite, or at the very least is even with him in the minds of the people making the decisions. Personally Farve's greater experience, given the position we're in, puts me more at ease than if Fonseca was to get the job. I think I'm correct in saying that Farve actually has experience in coming into a club very near the bottom of the league, I think it was Hertha Berlin, at an even later stage than this in the season, keeping them up comfortably, and stabilising them. Report: Lucien Favre now favourite to take Newcastle job (tbrfootball.com)

Murphy was also saying, in regards to Solksjaer, that at the end of the day the manager bears responsibility for the way the players play, their tempo, attitude, application etc., and the stats concerning efforts on goal, goals against etc. are important. Again the hypocrisy when comparing their comments about Bruce, to their ones about McCarthy and Solksjaer is ridiculous. It's got to the point where I think it's possible that Bruce runs a knocking shop on the quiet, and has compromising videos and photos on various figures in the football world Jeffrey Epstein style.

Personally I won't be able to indulge in the fantasy football transfers until we start looking like we might stay up. Not to piss in anybody's cornflakes or anything 😁 👍

He's going to quadruple his wages supposedly, so might as well get our monies worth if he comes 😉

😄 Aye, I'm sure we can, but who would be more ideal than Overmars to communicate ten Hag's football philosophy to the players. A Dutch translator who perhaps doesn't understand the subtleties of football would be no substitute for Overmars. Look obviously managers have come in before with poor English and done well, Poch being a good example above, but I can't think of any who've had to come into such an already chaotic situation. And obviously most managers, apart from Bielsa apparently, look to improve their English as soon as possible for obvious reasons in terms of wanting to be able to get their ideas across personally.

Having read a bit about ten Hag the one worry I would have is that apparently his grasp of English isn't great. That might be OK if he had a bit time to settle in over a summer, get extra English lessons etc., but to come in this far into the season it wouldn't be ideal to say the least when you need to work quickly. Of course Overmars could translate for him in the short term I suppose, and a poor grasp of English didn't hurt Bielsa, at least for his first season in the league.

The Mirror are saying we've opened talks with Overmars about being the director of football, and that he'd want to take the current Ajax coach Erik ten Hag with him as the new coach. As I've said I'm very impressed with what Overmars has done at Ajax in terms of finding players, keeping the albeit already legendary Ajax youth system ticking over, and the amount of profit he made for Ajax from players he found that were sold on. ten Hag I'm less sure about given how badly de Boer did at Inter and Palace, although in fairness he wasn't given a lot of time at either. Coming from the Dutch league whether you're a player or coach can be hit or miss. You can be a Suarez or Kezman. But the point I'm making about de Boer and ten Hag is that it's very easy to look great in basically a two team league with most of the best players. Of course I think I'm right in saying that ten Hag's team has been a fair bit more impressive in Europe than de Boer's team. I mean it could be the dream team if it worked out given they presumably already have a great working relationship, which of course is what you want and need between a DOF and coach. As I've said I'm not convinced by Fonseca even though it could be argued that his CV is a bit more impressive given he's been at a number of big clubs in comparison to ten Hag's Utrecht and Ajax. It should also be said that ten Hag is also an attacking coach who likes to play a high pressing and possession game, which it could be argued is a style of play that is beyond many of the players in our current squad. I can't give a reason backed up with facts, but I just get the feeling ten Hag would be the more solid choice. I mean if only for the fact that's already been stated, that he already has a working relationship with Overmars, and they could perhaps create what they did at Ajax with us, but on a much bigger scale.