Says the poster who, after the Villa game, stated “we won’t go down”. Perhaps now you see why many of us thought that was precipitous…
Yep, we made so many errors in that first half 4 or 5 nill wouldn’t have been a surprise. That is the difference between the PL and the championship, WTE’s error against Brighton was ruthlessly punished, luckily Newcastle are likely going to be down there this season, but any team good enough to finish higher than 15th or so would’ve had a field day in that first half. Amongst the many concerns that is perhaps the most alarming one, we continue to make basic, school boy, unforced errors in every game, which across the course of the season will be punished more often than not. It’s simply not sustainable.
It does always seem to boil down to the quality of the midfield as a unit to whether you prevail in a game. As in Rugby, the forwards will determine whether you will win the game while the backs determine the margin of victory.
I thought Newcastle were more up for that match, they (cynically) bossed us out of the first half. For denying goal scoring opportunities Foster MoTM for me. We were much better second half, but that suicidal set of substitutions that saw Sissoko and Tufan overran nearly cost us. Fortunately we survived got an equaliser and Etebo came on restore numbers in midfield and to steady the ship. Overall Newcastle were the losers. They should have banked three points against relegation rivals, and squandered plenty of chances to make our goal difference poorer. So not a disaster, but the team needs better management than that match showed.
Foster had a nightmare for their goal. Why did he flap at it? I should have either caught it or just parried it. not sure Bachman is the answer but we do need to get a solid keeper
Oooh how catty I’ve said all along we have an 11 in our squad that can get 40 points, unfortunately we’re still waiting to see it
Clevs started very well and set up that chance for Dennis, but should have been concussion subbed when he was kicked in the head, not a while later.
He'll feel he should have saved it, but it did one of those funny bendy wobbles in the air so I'm not going to moan that much.
Precious point considering some of what I’ve heard about our performance today. Someone (probably during our tough upcoming run) is absolutely going to pull our pants down. Weird as it seems though, if we beat Leeds in our next game it will actually be a reasonable start all things considered.
Won a great challenge then set Sarr away, before a cynical foul led to Manquillo's yellow. No one was great first half but Cleverley was no worse than any. Correct sub though because we lacked creativity and Tufan gave us some. Hope he's ready to start regularly.
Norwich: Isn't VAR brilliant! Newcastle: ******* hate ******* VAR. Apart from that - could've won, could've lost. Promising overall. When the team gets used to playing with each other it'll be good - just hope they learn quickly! Newcastle = cheats, ref = utter *****!
Sierralta - something going on behind closed doors? He had Covid and isnt fit? Chile debacle? Rose isnt fit. Newcastle fans taunting him for being fat. Etebo picked up a knock at the end. WTE I thought was the pick of the defence. Kucka average but when he went off Newcastle immediately had 3 chances through the middle where he would have been snapping so what do I know. King did the Andre Gray channel running role better than Gray, but just needs a goal. Clearly our best #9 option. Sarr flittered in and out, question if its him dropping out of games or the rest of the team not getting him the ball well enough?
I don't feel confident with Foster in goal. He was poor for their goal misjudging how much he needed to push the ball away from goal. He was also very fortunate more than once on the ball not to be pick pocketed like he was at Huddersfield, this is a recurring theme now and is extremely dangerous while his distribution is very poor as we know and was again. That said, he produced some genuinely superb saves to keep us in it so I cannot be too harsh on him either when we needed him most. Noticed he was unusually poor with commanding his area, with ASM assigned to him at corners and it worked. We need another goalkeeper, or give Dahlberg his shot next Season after Foster leaves.
I've reached Paddington, I'll give you three rings when I get home. White wine reflections, it felt like a 1-1, we need some skills in the middle, Hopefully my cheekbones will make it MOTD. #Mediaslag
Was really impressed with Rose, made excellently timed challenges at important moments. Think he played the last 30 injured, though. Also thought that was probably WTE's best game for us.
Ok So why pick a row with me because I believed after a pre season xisco would know a best 11? As any manager should be expected to know?
Rose and WTE were imperious in defence while Cathcart degrades by the game. How his backpass wasn't capitalised against I'll never know. Femenia was very quiet but in hsi defence little of the game went through him.
Was an enforced change rather than a tactical sub, Cleverley had a suspected concussion. Yet another foul the ref didn't punish.
The front three were so central and Sarr was never wide enough to overlap with Kiko. He didn’t seem to get into the game at all.
That was also in large part because JP was completely anonymous when he came on. He seemed a liability from a defensive point-of-view the couple of times he featured as a 10 in the Champ last season as well.
Oh wasn't aware of that, thanks. TC did look a little dazed when he got back to his feet, got absolutely clattered
Yes, a creative player plus the double pivot is a must. None of Cleverley, Kucka or Sissoko (or Etebo, for that matter) are capable of being that creative player. Tufan looks like he might be it, based on first impressions.
Yeah, they clarified the reason for the sub on NBC. Cleverley was was literally and visibly spitting blood on the US stream, though. I assume that's what UK viewers saw too. Looked nasty and I still can't believe that Newcastle got a free kick for it. Ridiculous.
Great goal out of the GT book - near post corner flicked on and nodded in at the back stick. I must be getting easy to please in my old age but I thought (despite the awful ref, Newcastles gamesmanship and some under par individual performances from some of our boys) that was an exciting game that we arguably deserved to win. Xisco deserves praise for subs and changing the formation 2 or 3 times in the 2nd half.
