No...but it seemed like he was the nearest to having someone in playmaker role on Saturday. He wasn't holding, was he?

As mentioned previously suspect our season will largely pan out the same as last year but without the season interruption. Will gain enough points in the games against lower opposition, will have a few good results against higher teams like ManUre result, take a couple of pannings like Saturday, not much in the Cups, very little transfer activity of note mid season, finish 10th-15th. Could get shaky if we decide to sell in Jan and don't recruit or wisely, long term injuries but overall see a steady season ahead. Bright spark could be player/s breaking into the team COYP !!

Edited by Booted Eagle (23 Oct 2023 10.28am)

“ [T]here are known knowns; there are things we know that we know.There are known unknowns; that is to say there are things that, we now know we don't know.But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don't know. ”
—United States Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld

Very good post. I thought going into the game we might lose to this extent. They are bang in form with a lot of strength in depth and very little injuries to key players. With such a decimated team we were always going to be on the backfoot. I listened to the whole game and thought in patches we did not play too bad considering but the defensive errors were poor. However this is not a game that will define our season.

That sums most of it up, Newcastle, are becoming a very good side, with their crowd behind them they can crush even good opposition. So the result doesn’t make us that bad.
On the day we just were not good enough. But having said that, the first goal had a lot of fluke about it, bad news anywhere, and it kind of set the pattern, what with Guehi, slipping. We don’t help ourselves though, because our forwards just do not score. So it might not have been 4-0 but we would always have lost to a very good side.

Edited by Putitout (23 Oct 2023 5.03pm)

It was a disappointing performance and even more disappointing result, but in all honesty I think we'd have still lost there with our best 11. Not the end of the world.

I think it will be much the same against Spurs. Weak team against an in form side.

After the Spurs game we've got a run of 5 winnable games (Burnley, Everton, Luton, West Ham, Bournemouth) - I'd much rather have the likes Eze, Olise and Franca back for these matches.

I was annoyed by our inability to respond to the overload of one side of the pitch. I thought Roy and Ray were known for their meticulous attention to detail on defensive set up and yet they failed to get us to adapt. If they wanted a clue about what the opposition were likely to do, all they had to do was watch previous Newcastle matches to see that this is a common Howe ploy and particularly down the opposition’s left hand side. Normally it would involve Almiron but Murphy was equally obliging.

As much as I find Schlupp annoying in his play he would at least have provided more protection down that side.

Oh, and I seem to recall that Ward was in the middle ‘helping out’ when Gordon slotted home.

Edited by Eaglecoops (24 Oct 2023 2.55pm)