Newcastle (a) post-match thread

The title race s not over but it's getting close to being over.
Why? Our defence is mess and we are one dimensional when attacking.
The injury to Laporte is a disaster and Fern isn't up to replacing him. Stones has gone backwards and Pep's reluctance to play Garcia has me scratching my head. Mendy is also a disaster attacking wise - which is bizare as his overlapping runs and low croses into the penalty area are just horrid at the moment.
Attacking wise we are a one trick poney this season with side to side with passing across the pitch followed by passes into a packed penalty area. We are also Lethargic. We need to play more quickly and mix it up with more balls down the channels and at least occasionally the ball knocked over the top for a foot race.
 
How come you only post if we don't win?
Genuine question by the way .
Fuck me. What are you trying to insinuate? We won last week and I posted then, as well as on several other occasions when we’ve won. I also regularly call out wumming on here and I really doubt I would have as many people agree with me on things I post if I was trying to take the piss. Feel free to have a scroll through my posts and you’ll see for yourself. I’m just as annoyed by today’s result(s) as everyone else but there’s no need to take it out on other blues.

Don’t see what’s wrong with me saying that winning the league cup and nothing else wouldn’t be a good return for us this season given the manager and the squad we’ve got. Equally don’t see what’s wrong with me pointing out that we haven’t been up to scratch recently. I am invested in this team, of course I’m going to be annoyed and want to vent about it when things go wrong.
 
Liverpool aren't playing great football but they play with more intensity to their game. Indeed if you watch most of the Premier League games most teams have more urgency and desire than we showed in that 1st half which was criminal. The team was one-paced. Pep is partly at fault because he picked players that were always likely to produce such a performance.
Most teams have shown more desire than us in most games, not just the first half today, Norwich beat us, wolves handed us our arses at home, the dippers beat us, the spuds team who were that shit the manager got sacked took a point of us at home, we have been shit all season, and to be honest I am getting bored of watching the games now, we are to predictable slow build up, then shit pass after shit pass, I know we can't win the league every season, but at least fucking try
 
The title race s not over but it's getting close to being over.
Why? Our defence is mess and we are one dimensional when attacking.
The injury to Laporte is a disaster and Fern isn't up to replacing him. Stones has gone backwards and Pep's reluctance to play Garcia has me scratching my head. Mendy is also a disaster attacking wise - which is bizare as his overlapping runs and low croses into the penalty area are just horrid at the moment.
Attacking wise we are a one trick poney this season with side to side with passing across the pitch followed by passes into a packed penalty area. We are also Lethargic. We need to play more quickly and mix it up with more balls down the channels and at least occasionally the ball knocked over the top for a foot race.
City's intensity reminds me of City's title defence under mancini and then Pellegrini. Combination of age, injury and poor selection.
 
Most teams have shown more desire than us in most games, not just the first half today, Norwich beat us, wolves handed us our arses at home, the dippers beat us, the spuds team who were that shit the manager got sacked took a point of us at home, we have been shit all season, and to be honest I am getting bored of watching the games now, we are to predictable slow build up, then shit pass after shit pass, I know we can't win the league every season, but at least fucking try
Can't argue with you. The players probably feel sorry for themselves, and a bit unlucky, but where were they in that 1st half? Just let 45 mins drift through their fingers.

Probably makes no odds anyway as this is Liverpool's season, and it was the moment Laporte got injured. Psychologically they know it, and we know it. Fans and players of both sides.

I just hope we don't fall away and do well in the Cups. We need to win the Champions League now.
 
The title race s not over but it's getting close to being over.
Why? Our defence is mess and we are one dimensional when attacking.
The injury to Laporte is a disaster and Fern isn't up to replacing him. Stones has gone backwards and Pep's reluctance to play Garcia has me scratching my head. Mendy is also a disaster attacking wise - which is bizare as his overlapping runs and low croses into the penalty area are just horrid at the moment.
Attacking wise we are a one trick poney this season with side to side with passing across the pitch followed by passes into a packed penalty area. We are also Lethargic. We need to play more quickly and mix it up with more balls down the channels and at least occasionally the ball knocked over the top for a foot race.
If it's not over go and put £1000 on us to win the league, the fat lady is already singing
 
We need to change things around in the team. There are options, but Pep wont take them so keep swallowing the poison until January.
 
Having had half a day to ruminate on the game, it feels very typical of our labored performances this season.

Last season, Pep mentioned repeatedly how hard it was to try to win back to back Premier Leagues, because the English game is a 10 month slog against teams of all stripes, under weather of all stripes, with injuries and upsets constantly being thrown up into the mix. We did it. Barely, but we went on a ridiculous run to do it by 1 point against a team that only lost ONE GAME ALL SEASON...and that was against us, by 11 millimeters!

This season, with only one addition in the middle of the park, in one of the most important positions in the Pep scheme, was always going to be difficult, but when players started getting niggles, and two major knee injuries (to our best defender and one of the most impactful wingers in world football) occurred, it was clear that the planets were aligning against us...as our main rival got stronger and escaped any serious injuries.

I think most neutral observers can see that Liverpool are winning games they shouldn’t, while City are drawing games they should win and even throwing up losses to teams that seemed unthinkable over the last two seasons.

City players look tired. Bored? Unenthused? Stuck in a rut?

Is the problem that now the players have learned Pep’s system, there is nothing new to help get them over humps? No lucky breaks coming their way? One niggle too many? I don’t know for certain, but it looks like we need something new, some energy from somewhere, some impetus from somewhere that appears to not being in the horizon.

From here, for me, it is about keeping it all together, making sure that fissures don’t appear or get magnified out of control, and that City take care of the business they need to do this January and Summer.

“The Project” has been, to a large degree, been completed, and from here it needs to be sustainable. To be sustainable against opponents who themselves are unwilling to standstill, are improving, and are injecting energy and vigor into their game as we appear to be unwinding, takes money and a very detailed, future-based, approach to the improvements necessary.

In ice hockey, there is a saying that the player is good not because he is always where the puck is, but where the puck is going. Likewise, we need to leap over where the puck is and quickly skate towards where the puck is going.You can call Klopp’s approach to football anything you want, but when it blunts the supposed most beautiful football in the world, and beats it regularly, then HE had already skated to where the puck was going to be in 2018/19, but missed it by a second. However, by this season, that team and squad was absolutely where the puck was heading, and we were still skating around celebrating being “Fourmidable!”

This season is now about Top 3, picking up some domestic silverware, and WINNING THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE. If we don’t win the CL this season, possibly next, I honestly think we can write it off for another few years as the squad gets rebuilt around the core of what we have and the younger players coming through.

Hard to believe all of that flows from a 2-2 draw away at a place where we lost last season and still won the League, but it is simply the cherry on the icing on a cake that pales in comparison to what we have been feasting on for the last few years. We have been spoiled, but have come to like being spoiled, which means it feels a little jarring to be told “no more cake!”

This, too, shall pass, and shouldn’t even last too long, but it will be painful to watch Liverpool pick up where we left off, Spurs bouncing back under Mourinho, and maybe even Chelsea become a threat yet again under Lampard’s kids this season. It’s not the end of the world, only the ending of an era of 10 years of unbelievable growth.

From here, City as a club (and team) needs to mature into what “The Project” was supposed to become. The recent investment from America appears to indicate the future is a strong one, but business takes place in the boardroom, while the football, which pays for it all, has to be done on the field. Let’s hope that is where the focus is kept, and where the time, effort and money is now spent to reinvigorate this squad.

The Future is Blue.
 
We need to change things around in the team. There are options, but Pep wont take them so keep swallowing the poison until January.
Your right, he could put Garcia in defence and Fern back as DM, Foden back in the team, all sorts of combos but Pep comes across as stubborn, I'm also one of these that thinks Rodri would of done well in defence.
 

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