Football – 2023/24 Season

Not all is well at Newcastle. Tonali has disappeared off the face of the earth and the balance of the midfield has gone to pot in consequence. I know City, Liverpool and Brighton (A) are all difficult games but the manner of tonight’s performance was particularly poor.

My blood pressure is already high but seeing the score today for Newcastle is getting risky for me.

If they don’t win the next game then Eddie Howe will be sold together with few of the players.

Not time to panic (yet) and if they’d held on or scored again against Liverpool then all would look very difficult…… but now with 2 weeks break and then one game before a midweek trip to Milan! That’s a lot of time to have those last three halves of football festering.

Compare to last season they are not even near and if they keep playing like today, they are going to get hammered in the Championship league.

Oh do calm down. They’ve played 4 of the top 6 or 7 sides, and really should have 6 points, due to the aberration against Liverpool. I would actually love it, love it, if they panicked and ditched Howe but they’re cannier than that.

That’s what I said, but the fact is the performance today and the balance of the midfield was wrong, Brighton just passed around them, and they missed someone to just disrupt and break that up. Like Kante did at Leicester, Rodri at Man City, etc. Longstaff used to do it……

Maybe they need to adjust that aspect for home vs away / against the better or possession based teams vs ones where they expect to dominate possession. Their creativity ripped Villa apart, they should have beaten Liverpool but were wasteful with chances to take control and then got mugged at the end, but against City and BHA they’ve given up possession and not really put them under pressure.

I trust in Eddie and Jason to sort it out; I’m honestly a little frustrated by some of the Newcastle fan forums calling for major changes in the team, dropping players who have been great for the team but have had a couple of indifferent matches, and yes even at the top. Remember where they were two years ago (and indeed the last 15 years) and see last year as ahead of schedule on a longer journey.

I trust in Eddie and Jason to sort it out; I’m honestly a little frustrated by some of the Newcastle fan forums calling for major changes in the team, dropping players who have been great for the team but have had a couple of indifferent matches, and yes even at the top. Remember where they were two years ago (and indeed the last 15 years) and see last year as ahead of schedule on a longer journey.

I would drop Joelinton and perhaps one of the sloppy centre defender instantly while Tonali is on probation …

Cover your chips! Seagulls Seagulls.

NUFC’s corresponding matches last season had a tally 4 points. I’m not panicking yet.

Last nights performance was pretty dire, and they can look forward to some batterings if they play like that in the CL

I don’t know if I can bring myself to watch us get turned over by Arsenal later. I may go out for a walk and just pretend it’s not happening

Oh come on binners, I’m looking forward to your after game analysis.

Elsewhere in North London Big Ange ball continues to be admired and to work.   I would like to see Richarlison find the net but now Sonny has had his hernia sorted he seems to be on form again.

I may go out for a walk and just pretend it’s not happening

We’ll keep you informed.

the balance of the midfield was wrong

I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that guimaraes and Tonali don’t fit in the same team. Bruno has completely disappeared this season. Not sure if he’s sulking at not being the centre of attention but something is wrong. Also not sure Tonali is fit enough yet to play Howe’s game. One of them needs dropping, along with Almiron. Bring Longstaff back, put Gordon on the right and Barnes on the left. Wilson probably deserves a start too.

Pre-season I thought that midfield would absolutely dominate.

How wrong I was.

Gordon hardly touched the ball yesterday and Trippier was poor to.

How wrong I was.

They did against Villa and Liverpool. We can ignore the city match for obvious reasons and put yesterday down to a very bad day. That being said the jury is definitely out so they need results. I worry the Saudis will not tolerate a run of losses and Howe could very easily be gone before xmas.

Gunners need to up their game today, it’s been scratchy so far.

If you watched MOTD last night or this morning, they picked up the same issues. First goal – Pope’s not good with his feet and made a poor decision to not just roll it to Trippier, that created the panic and then he spilled a routine shot (although I’d always reflect, his making an error like that stands out but for example Gordon’s miss at 1-0 was just as bad). But the avoidable was the shot in the first place, Tonali should have busted a gut for the block. I don’t buy not fit enough – certainly not after 27 mins. That was either lack of concentration or lazy.

The second exposed the lack of a defensive midfielder, they lost the ball to a poor touch (by the Brighton player) that became a 50/50, which happens, but then there was no-one between that 50/50 and Ferguson dropping off the CB’s. Then no pressure allows him to turn, run 10 yards and pick a spot. Burn could / should have engaged him but equally there should still have been pressure from behind too.

Balance is wrong, and I agree, seems no-one wants to pick up the crap dirty job.

Almiron – I’m not sure, although he’s so one footed it makes him easier to defend against (nearly scored with a deflected right foot yesterday though, the element of total **** amazement!!) – but he does bring a lot defensively too. That said – Barnes was a marquee signing and deserves a chance.

I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that guimaraes and Tonali don’t fit in the same team.

You think you’ve got problems? We’ve got the new equivalent of ‘Gerrard and Lampard in midfield for England’ situation, with trying to fit Mason Mount alongside Bruno when he’s effectively a crap copy of him, leaving Casemiro hopelessly exposed behind them, getting completely overrun.

Aresenals midfield will shred us today if TH. Perseveres with this formation that clearly isn’t working

I worry the Saudis will not tolerate a run of losses and Howe could very easily be gone before xmas.

I bet Howe is worried that could be literal

I worry the Saudis will not tolerate a run of losses and Howe could very easily be gone before xmas.

I bet Howe is worried that could be literal

Saudis will forgive if it was a draw but losing the match is not on their card. Howe needs to win the next match otherwise he is on a shaky ground. Losing face is a big no no for the middle eastern owner(s).

If Howe is sacked after 5 games, then WTF would come in?

If Howe is sacked after 5 games, then WTF would come in?

I don’t think that will happen that soon in order to see some new signings settling down a bit, but if they get hammered in CL that will also create another problem. They will give him time but they certainly needs results.

Howe is a good manager but no sure why they having a bad run after the first match, granted the top 10 teams are difficult to play …

Not sure why but Joelinton reminds me of Carton Palmer (when he played for England) who played for Forest decades ago.

It’s the hope that kills you!

In this case it lasted 30 seconds

Its ok Binners, Maguire to the rescue 😂

Oh god! We’ve a central defensive pairing of Harry Maguire and Johnny Evans 😳

Um, weathers nice isn’t it binners 😂

Well you can’t say I wasn’t expecting it?

Should have gone for a walk instead

It was going well for 90 +4 minutes

I wouldn’t say ‘well’ as such, just a lot better than expected.

Anyway… Mrs Binners is taking me for a consolation beer with her winnings. She bet on Arsenal, obviously

they used to say there was only two certainties in life, death and taxes, I’d argue there’s now three, death, taxes and binners mrs winning a bet

Look at the positives, at least you didn’t sign Havertz 😁

Good game to watch that. Hojlund looked good when he came on, plenty of potential there and an upgrade on Martial for sure. Mind you so would I be. Garnacho should replace Antony soon, surely?

Look at the positives, at least you didn’t sign Havertz 😁

Yeah, we paid 65 million for the other Chelsea reject instead

His dive was a bit embarrassing today though, wasn’t it? Should have been carded for it

they used to say there was only two certainties in life, death and taxes, I’d argue there’s now three, death, taxes and binners mrs winning a bet

It’s a good job one of us is good at it! I think it was SkyBet who first restricted her account, then wouldn’t take any more of her bets.

IIRC I think her biggest win was calling Iceland putting England out of the Euros and also calling the correct score. We were on holiday and literally dined out all weekend on that one

His dive was a bit embarrassing today though, wasn’t it? Should have been carded for it

He was clipped to be fair, i’m amazed VAR overturned it, but as it was the trail leg bumping the defender, i can see why it was VAR’d and only Hazertz in his current form could mess that up, but i bet you that you’ll see more penalties given for that than not this season!

Think this season will be a weird one, Man City are just not showing much weakness, and you have a host of teams now fighting each other for top 4, ManU home to Brighton next will be a big game, Brighton looked good yesterday, and after the break they’ll have their new signings ready to play, i’m not sure how they got Fati, or how they keep managing to have replacements for players being sold, but they’re doing well and have some depth now as well.

City usually start slow – relatively – and then become relentless after Xmas. They have a few new players to integrate but they’ll still cruise it. The rest of the top 6 or 7 will all take points off each other.

My expectations for playing Brighton are even lower than they were today. They look far more like a top 4 side than we do at the moment

You look at their transfer dealings and it surely has to be the best in the league. Far better than our oh-so-predictable last-minute random flailing

Ah, reality is, if Garnacho had been onside, ManU would have won yesterday, the game had several twists in it, and Arsenal weren’t that good, ManU struggled as well, but it’s early and there wasn’t much in it, Brighton are a team that play better than the individual players selected, but if a couple of players are having an off day, they struggle, ManU just seem to have loads of individual players who don’t seem to fit into the structure they’re playing, which means there’s gaps everywhere when they revert to their natural positions.

Oh well – that’s the premiership in hibernation for a week or so whilst we have the joys of the international break. I’m also a rugby fan so at least there’s something else to watch <runs for cover>

For anyone that has never heard the Greasy Chip Butty song at Sheff U – might have to click to get to vid

20230827_140001 by davetheblade[/url], on Flickr

Was at the Amex Saturday and before the game I just didn’t think our current midfield of Gross and Gilmour would be physical enough to deal with Newcastle’s but we just played around them with ease. Evan will rightly get all the plaudits for his hatrick but Gilmour had his best game for us and was at the heart of everything we did. With Caicedo and Mac Allister now having moved on he’s really stepped up. Next game at the Amex is AEK Athens, it feels totally bonkers that this is where we’re at. After the last game at the Goldstone I was fearing that we might just slowly die as a football club. Feels pretty **** amazing tbh.

I’ve been away a few days, but can anyone please enlighten me as to why Mason Greenwood was only sent on loan?

Surely Utd would want rid?

I’ve been away a few days, but can anyone please enlighten me as to why Mason Greenwood was only sent on loan?

Surely Utd would want rid?

Maybe no one wants to actually buy/commit to him.

They’d have to buy him out of his contract so I assume they’re trying to help him out and lose a little less money. If they’re lucky he’ll do well and they’ll get a transfer fee at some point.