The Race to be Relegated with Wolves, 24/25 Thread

[Squeak]

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the Saudis have invested much if any more than Fosun had transfer wise at Newcastle prior to the ladder getting pulled up at Wolves. They have just been smarter about how they did it. Villa have spent more, but with all the legal dodges we know about have turned the club into a top 4 team. It they'd continued to be smart about it, like they were in years 2 and 3 they could have taken us to that level. Fabio Silva will always be the starting point of the decline under Fosun.

Newcastle have spent £425m since their takeover in October 2021. In comparison we have spent £26M in 2016/17, £15M in 2017/18, £60M in 2018/19, £83M in 2019/20, £3.95M in 2020/2021, £550K in 2021/22, £93M in 2022/23, £60M in 23/24 and £65M in 24/25 so far. A total of approx £406.45M over what will be 9 years. Newcastle by comparison have spent £425M in essentially 3 years and a few months.

Sorry, should edit this just to say that Newcastle will be paying substantially more in wages than we do as well and that should be factored in. I don't have those details to hand at present.

 

[Woburn Wolf]

After yesterday, I think Lima will get his opportunity. He has his issues defensively so we will need to be careful who we pitch him against but attacking wise, a huge improvement on what we have.

Agree he needs to improve defensively but at least he has pace unlike donkey Doherty.

 

[big mean bunny]

Yeah plus feel like they would be unlikely to make a deal like Doherty, or Johnstone where it felt like a cost cutting move rather than a football one.

Granted some of our signings look promising, but that's surrounded by other decisions that seem to contradict wanting to be as good as you possibly can.

 

[jd1981]

Our fans on social media are comedy, one of whom has told everyone it’s not that bad a start (Chelsea game aside) he said.
Erm when reviewing data, evidence etc in an objective manner you can’t just exclude 25% of the evidence to suit your stance and viewpoint. He’d probably make a good Tory MP mind.

 

[Tony Towner]

It's relatively easy to write Sunday off with a couple of IFs and come to the conclusion that we were unlucky. The problem with that is poor teams have IFs every week, so time will tell.

 

[Lycan]

Our fans on social media are comedy, one of whom has told everyone it’s not that bad a start (Chelsea game aside) he said.
Erm when reviewing data, evidence etc in an objective manner you can’t just exclude 25% of the evidence to suit your stance and viewpoint. He’d probably make a good Tory MP mind.

I'm not quite at the stage where I'm disagreeing with people clinging to (in my mind) false positives like I was at the end of Lage, Jackett etc. There are genuinely things to like about this team and manager.

Arsenal might be the best team in the world right now, I think we'll look back on Forest away as a good point given where they'll finish this season, we got through a tricky cup tie and we really didn't deserve to lose on Sunday.

That said it's been a LONG time since we had a few decent wins in a row and there have been a few absolute sickeners in that time. Man Utd last minute, Cov, getting pasted by City, VAR fuck ups against WHU & Bournemouth, rolling over for Newcastle (A) and Palace (H) and now 2 really tough losses to take at home to start the season. Add that to the general dissatisfaction at the way the club is being run right now and it's looking quite bleak, especially with the run of fixtures we have ahead of us.

 

[1986]

The only advantage to being in the relegation zone at this early stage is that you can react quicker . If things continue to go badly , then we might well be the first PL club to replace our Manager this season..........the key then is not to do a Southampton and appoint the wrong person ( doing really well at Charlton now by the way ) , but to eye up a replacement a good distance out like a lot of clubs do and appoint the right person .
The advantage with Lopetegui at the time was that he brought great experience with him and it didn't over awe him at all - ignoring what happened afterwards .
What we need is an experienced head coach / manager . O' Neil simply does not have that - nice chap and all that , but he has begun in the toughest league in the world , which is very unforgiving .
That is why I mentioned Sergio Conceicao yesterday .

 

[jd1981]

Look if you can find positives which there’s some then good on you. Premier league table is very literal in its viewing and tells a true story.
Should we have got something out of Sunday? Yes, nevertheless the reason for defeat was all on us not a bad luck story like some are suggesting. Hitting the post isn’t bad luck it’s a shot of target. Conceding deflected goals isn’t bad luck when you’ve decided to sit so deep. Opposition keeper making good saves isn’t bad luck either.

 

[Lycan]

Premier league table is very literal in its viewing and tells a true story.

Agree with everything apart from this. We're 4 games in. Even after this tough run it'll be too early.

 

[YoungWolf]

Yeah, it’s not even really about the table at this point. I’m more worried by the lack of balance in the squad and the same issues still presenting themself from last season

 

[Johnny75]

We played well in patches on Sunday but we got what we deserved.

The manager made 2 terrible subs and it cost us.

We can't continue to do this as at some point we're going to have to change something otherwise we'll keep saying 'we deserved something from that game' all the way to being relegated.

 

[1986]

Look if you can find positives which there’s some then good on you. Premier league table is very literal in its viewing and tells a true story.
Should we have got something out of Sunday? Yes, nevertheless the reason for defeat was all on us not a bad luck story like some are suggesting. Hitting the post isn’t bad luck it’s a shot of target. Conceding deflected goals isn’t bad luck when you’ve decided to sit so deep. Opposition keeper making good saves isn’t bad luck either.

Perhaps ' positive ' is not the right word , but I think you understand where I am coming from .
The same errors are re occurring again and again . Strong teams will expose this , weaker teams might not .

I do not believe that our squad is any weaker than at least 8 other clubs . It might be unbalanced in some areas , but all those lower to mid table clubs have weaknesses somewhere in their make up , and they manage their way through them .
Continually bringing on Doherty , who is simply too lazy to be any way effective is a complete mystery to me . Bringing on Hwang in a wide position is another mystery that I can't fathom .

You'd really yearn for the Nuno days when we had the same Manger for a good number of years .

 

[Loki]

Also not worried about the table just yet. It just baffles me that GON doesn`t seem to see what us, less qualified , folks see re. Doc, sitting deep when we`re not good at it and playing "Channy" on the wing.

 

[1986]

We played well in patches on Sunday but we got what we deserved.

The manager made 2 terrible subs and it cost us.

We can't continue to do this as at some point we're going to have to change something otherwise we'll keep saying 'we deserved something from that game' all the way to being relegated.

Correct - the League table does not lie . You are where you deserve to be , and this notion that when we eventually get to November and get to those ' must easier fixtures ' things will be grand and points will come , is a very dangerous assumption .

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

Dangerous and also totally fails to take into account what seven months plus without a win and getting thumped once every two times we take to the pitch will do to morale when we reach these "easier" fixtures.

 

[jd1981]

Dangerous and also totally fails to take into account what seven months plus without a win and getting thumped once every two times we take to the pitch will do to morale when we reach these "easier" fixtures.

This is the problem that some not so much on here aren’t thinking about and that’s the pure human factor in all this.
Being in a side that’s got defeat ingrained into its fabric is very hard to just suddenly stop once we hit November.
I agree our squad is better than at least 4-5 others if not more, it’s just not that simple.
Reality is I think November will be a mix bag of results and we’ll have just crept into double figures come December.

 

[1986]

This is the problem that some not so much on here aren’t thinking about and that’s the pure human factor in all this.
Being in a side that’s got defeat ingrained into its fabric is very hard to just suddenly stop once we hit November.
I agree our squad is better than at least 4-5 others if not more, it’s just not that simple.
Reality is I think November will be a mix bag of results and we’ll have just crept into double figures come December.

Sounds about right based on what we have seen so far .

 

[thisisgil]

Big congratulations to all involved in making this happen.

 

[Tredman]

Still. Free money available.

 

[YoungWolf]

I think what’s pissing me off a lot is I HATE being in the championship. Horrible league to be stuck in. I know this is our 7th season in the premier league and maybe I’m ungrateful but I thought at one point we wouldn’t have to go back there for a good while.