The Jawdies and Rafa

Going to go against the grain and partially agree with the OP on one of his points. Rafa can get his teams playing some ****ing boring football at times. He always has been cautious and he always will be. However, his system does work better when he is given time to bring in players who suit his style of football and when it works well then his teams can play exciting football too. He's not the best at being flexible with players he inherited though.

As far as whether this has been a successful season then from my perspective the answer is yes. We had one target and that was to get back up. Yes it would have been nice to win the league, but it is only the icing on the cake compared to promotion. Brighton have been far more consistent and fully deserve the title they have won (barring a total collapse). Regardless of how much profit we made in transfers this year, I appreciate other teams recognising that we spent a lot of money. Spending it is the easy part though as Norwich and especially Villa have found out. It took Rafa a while to adjust to the division as many people knew it would. You will also know as well as anyone that one of the great things about the Championship is that anyone really can beat anyone. Its a bastard of a league. Blackburn did the double over us and they are probably going down. We did the double over Brighton and they will almost certainly be champions.

On a side note, the point Toon Man Sam made about 3 out of the past 42 (not 43) relegated teams going straight back up in an automatic spot, and then changing it to 4 teams. Both are correct depending how you look at it. It has happened 4 times, but 2 of those times were us doing it so it is actually three teams who have done it.

Anyway, good luck for the rest of the season. I hope you stay up. I'd like to see as many northern teams in the league as possible. So much money in football is located down south now (apart from the island of Manchester) that I think it would be good for the game to reverse that.

 

I think your graphic was wrong mate there are 6 in the last 30 never mind 43. Could have been as Champions?

The 6 teams to bounce straight back up automatically were Birmingham and Sunderland (both 2006-7), Birmingham again (2008-9), Newcastle and West Brom (2009-10), and Burnley (2015-16).

You point about it getting hard is spot on though only Burnley have done it since 2010.

 

Edit to my post above. you are right. If he saw the same article that I did then it was referring back to (and including) the last time we did it in 2009, so that would make it out of 24 teams including this season's promotion. I knew the 4 and the 2 looked familiar though

 

As I originated the post that started this and didn't reply to you I find the above baffling particularly the last sentence. Please explain.

 

Quite funny the Newcastle board ... excited of course returning to the Prem (though I wish they'd blown it and had to go to the play offs) some are talking they'll have £70 million to spend and someone added, spend that amount in the next two windows and they'd be a top 6 team!!!!! If they go with what they have and add I think they'll struggle...

 

You quoted my post and stated 'great early season comments'. Personally, I find the above comment baffling. Please explain.

 

They spent close to that last time they were in the league.

 

Champions with 94 points.
85 goals scored.
Boring get.

 

Someone was laughing about how even though they were going up they weren't champions - was it Bummers?

Whoops.

 

Totally dreadful isn't it.
That's without not getting into top gear.

 

With the best squad ever seen in that division. They should've gone the whole season undefeated.

FACT.

I also seem to recall one of their fans coming on here and agreeing with me that their football had been ballachingly dull.

 

No it wasn't, I never laughed at them at all. There's nothing funny about it.

And you're awfully lippy for someone who said Ibra was past it, Utd should never have signed him on a free and he wouldn't score 10 goals all season.

 

spare a thought for danny graham.. from being an great goal scorer for us.. he now finds himself relegated to league 1 with blackburn..

some of this may not be true

 

Love rafa

 

Lol. ****e them ****s.

Up the arse

In the ears

**** em

 

I'd have bought one to wave when you play them next season.

 

Fact.

 

Why were they on sale at Norwich?