Your Says of the Day: United fans unhappy; Will Rafa stay?
Manchester United fans believe nothing good will come of Sunday, plus Rafa Benitez’ future and Liverpool’s last-gasp equaliser discussed.
If you have anything to add on these, or any other subject, join the debate right here.
Will Rafa stay another day in the North East?
I think he might. A massive job needs doing there,and Rafa might relish the challenge. I’d normally say in this particular situation (relegation) that a lot of the squad will be broken up, but with Newcastle, I’m not so sure. Are their players really good enough to be coveted by other clubs? The odd few maybe, but the majority? Not for me.
Rafa actually has a decent spine to the team. Tim Krul is a pretty good keeper, Lascelles has been brilliant for them of late, Wijnaldum is a very good player, Townsend has been their best player since Benitez came in,and up front, well, Cisse and Perez are probably the best of a bad bunch,but will probably score regularly in the Championship if they stay.
That gives Rafa a good base to work from, once he starts trimming the fat from his squad and gets his squad looking the way he wants it. If he does stay, it’ll be intriguing to see how he gets on,as he obviously has no experience of working in the Championship at all, and it is a very difficult league to get out of.
Benitez is blameless for their relegation, but I think, if they can convince him to stay, it will be a real coup for them,as no doubt he’ll be coveted by clubs in a better position than Newcastle are at the moment. I really hope he stays and gets them promoted. Whether he will, time will tell, but it’ll be interesting to see how the situation develops there.
I doubt Rafa will stay at Newcastle. I would imagine his agent telling him things like “there’s the Valencia and Ajax jobs”, or “you’re better than this Rafa”, or “what if it doesn’t work out? who will employ you after?”.
I can see the potential challenge for him but I think the risk to his career outweighs it.
Late Liverpool goal protects optimistic mood
I can’t remember when I saw so many misplaced passes. Barely a tackle was offered all night…it was patently obvious that they all had next Wednesday on their minds, but I have to say it was a little disappointing. Hazard’s goal looked better than it actually was, as all he had to do was dribble round the static training cones and shoot. Nice finish admittedly, but no-one tried to get the ball off him!
Still, I assume they all avoided injury…it’s just a shame that now we will have to win the final to get European football next season. It would have been nice to secure it through a league position as well.
United’s slim top four chances fail to excite fans
We shouldn’t have had to rely on a win at West Ham, nor on Swansea beating City on the last day – we lost waaaaaaay too many points to weaker opposition that should’ve been won, it’s our fault if we don’t make it.
I can see us beating Bournemouth at home but City will either beat Swansea or at most a draw, can’t see them bottling it like we did.
I’m not sure it matters. I won’t feel like celebrating scraping top four thanks to a rival slipping up and certainly not when I later hear LvG talking about how its evidence of our progress, And then there is the prospect of our struggling against European minnows in group stages.
The club needs a wake up call. I think both ourselves and City will scrape wins.