2015/16 Barclays Premier League Thread

Whoosh

Anyway Benitez making them come in on their day off is a great start. I'm delighted - Benitez seems to have an aura about him, and I don't dislike McClaren but unfortunately it just wasn't working.

And it got much worse. McClaren's team had no identity. They were neither conservative or adventurous, structured or carefree, aggressive or attractive. They just played, and usually got beat - Think that sums up Steve McClaren's spell at Newcastle perfectly.

The team was just nothing.

Its almost as if the end of his time at City has been completely undermined in someway.

Be funny if Pep's first season was in the Europa League

You could claim that as the reason. You'd be an idiot, though. He was poor last season, he's taken it to a whole new level this season.

We haven't won back to back league matches since October, that's fuck all to do with Pep.

I'd laugh.

It's almost as if city were completely average until they bought some players that couldn't give a fuck isn't it?

I don't think you can completely discount the Pep rumours, certainly as an excuse for this season at any rate. Everyone in world football knew what was going to happen, even if the club somehow kept the players in the dark they'd have heard the rumours long before it was officially confirmed.

But I think you're right, I think in that theres more to it than that but I think there's more to it than Pellegrini, too, and I'm not sure its something Pep's going to find easy to fix.

There just seems to be a culture at City of 'niceness', like the whole club is trying really hard to be almost nauseatingly, sickeningly sweet at all times. Its almost a bit Arsenal-like. Compare it to say the Man United teams of old, we weren't horrible for the sake of being horrible (although theres obviously high profile times when some players were), but we had players that could be right nasty cunts when they needed to be and would do virtually everything to win. If Keane needed to smash a few players to get the crowd and the players going, he'd smash a few players. I know 'hunger' and 'desire' are considered outmoded concepts these days, but I just don't see the same will to win in the City players as I see in good or even great 'winners'. Its not even necessarily a football thing, the two great cricket teams for example were a West Indies side packed to the rafters with bowlers who wanted to kill the person standing 22 yards away from them, and the Aussies were notoriously a bunch of right royal dick heads.

The closest you seem to have to a horrible cunt is Yaya, but him being a colossal bell whiff just seems to translate into him being a sulky and miserable bastard 99% of the time. The rest of them come off in the Juan Mata mould, lovely people, I'm sure, but more likely to apologise for a bad performance and write 'hugs' on their blog than do everything to win a game.

It's almost as if city were completely average until they bought some players that couldn't give a fuck isn't it?

Anyway, whatever the answer, I'm fucking bricking it for the derby. I'd be absolutely amazed if we win.

Really? From what I've seen of City (admittedly not loads) you've been nowhere near as poor as us.

Is Man City's problem more that they're central midfield isn't very good?

First post on the forum, just wanted to say that Leicester haven't looked spectacular today but then again title winning teams win games when playing poor.

Preparing for the Championship with some Championship standard refereeing.

On the whole much, much improved performance. Leicester didn't create much - and I don't think they had a shot on target aside from an offside goal. Newcastle probably should have had a penalty as well.

Has Jonjo Shelvey ever completed a forward pass since joining Newcastle? All i see him do last night was pass the ball backwards all first half and then he spent almost the entirety of the second collecting the ball from 3 yards away from a center back (something i've never understood and drives me mad) and then trying to hit 50/60y passes which would either go out of play or simply land on a Leicester players head.

Listened to the game on BBC Radio 5, they seemed impressed with Colback at left back but the incompetence of the Newcastle forward line sounded almost comical. Even with saying that, an improved performance all round!

Has Jonjo Shelvey ever completed a forward pass since joining Newcastle? All i see him do last night was pass the ball backwards all first half and then he spent almost the entirety of the second collecting the ball from 3 yards away from a center back (something i've never understood and drives me mad) and then trying to hit 50/60y passes which would either go out of play or simply land on a Leicester players head.