Newcastle (a) post match thread

[domalino]

Midweek at Burton.

Southampton over Christmas.

Even the game at Huddersfield last weekend, the warning signs were there, where a better team or poor application could cost us.

This hasn't come out of nowhere. If anything, the win and performance against Liverpool seems more of an anomaly, than what we have been serving up for quite a while.

Others have suggested it has simply been game management, keeping our powder dry, but we haven't been able to select our highest gear all season.

It's definitely not come out of nowhere - Pep's seemed unhappy with the majority of our performances since the derby.

He was unhappy after the West Ham game even though we won 4-0 because we gave up loads of chances. Then we were poor against Lyon. He wasn't thrilled with the Bournemouth game where we let them back in and had to scramble to get a third and kill the game, we almost dropped points against Watford when we did the same - should have been an easy win, ended up shitting ourselves holding on for the last 10 minutes after gifting them a goal.

Then came the Chelsea, Leicester and Palace games where we dropped 8 points in 4 games.

Liverpool was obviously great and we had a great run after, but then, again, he was unhappy when we "only" beat Huddersfield 3-0.


I think he's been varying degrees of unhappy - or at least not satisfied - with 9 of our last 12 league fixtures.

 

[Roachy]

Every good team has a bad spell in a season, it comes to all.

We hit the bad spell with Chelsea / palace / Leicester, problem being last night was worse than those performances so why after a month of good performances are we down to this level for a game.

Pep did look pissed off, you can see why. His players making the worse passes I have seen us do plus our forwards trying to dribble through three players rather than pass. Danilo / Walker where horrendous, they looked like players that played for a low down the table team on shit form, nothing like what pep expects.

Only a bad run like the dippers had a few seasons ago will allow us to win the league. Cant see that happening, plus after last night can not see us putting an explosive run in.

When do you think Liverpool will have their bad spell? Your first sentence says they will, your last sentence says they won't. Not having a go by the way.

 

[Father Paul]

Fatigue for me.

Competing in 4 competitions sounds great, but all of these games are having a major effect physically but moreso mentally. We’ve already played 38 games and playing 4 games since Liverpool last played is a crazy stat. I don’t think we’ve had the same intensity this season in a lot of games. In the 3 games against Palace, Leicester & Newcastle, we were 1 up and completely eased off.

Fernandinho and David Silva have been unbelievable for us, but both are 33 years old, should they really be expected to be put in top class performances on a weekly basis at this stage of their careeers? I think it may be a season too far for that type of demand on 33 year old centre midfielders. I just don’t feel we have the same energy in the team that we did last season.

Not addressing the defensive midfielder and left back depth issues in the summer is beginning to prove costly.

Sadly I think your right. David in particular is way off in recent times and Ferno has had far too much on his plate. Big shoes to fill over the next couple of seasons I fear.

 

[tolmie's hairdoo]

It's definitely not come out of nowhere - Pep's seemed unhappy with the majority of our performances since the derby.

He was unhappy after the West Ham game even though we won 4-0 because we gave up loads of chances. Then we were poor against Lyon. He wasn't thrilled with the Bournemouth game where we let them back in and had to scramble to get a third and kill the game, we almost dropped points against Watford when we did the same - should have been an easy win, ended up shitting ourselves holding on for the last 10 minutes after gifting them a goal.

Then came the Chelsea, Leicester and Palace games where we dropped 8 points in 4 games.

Liverpool was obviously great and we had a great run after, but then, again, he was unhappy when we "only" beat Huddersfield 3-0.


I think he's been varying degrees of unhappy - or at least not satisfied - with 9 of our last 12 league fixtures.

For whatever reason, he probably sees hallmarks of his first season in charge with us. Going a goal behind is now legislated for in opponents' thinking. It's staying in the game for as long as possible, knowing we are flaky if we can't convert our chances.

 

[warringtonblue]

We lost the game because we lacked ideas and were guilty of bad decision making. I like the team playing out from the back, I find it sexy, but to get away with it all season would have been a miracle. Nailed on penalty. Sadly its costs us a goal, which has resulted in a defeat. (Always hoped the time we'd get caught out playing from the back would be at 3 or 4 nil up)

Didn’t we get away with one against Burnley at 1-0 at weekend

 

[Father Paul]

You can't look at one game and decide whether we can or can't win a competition. Liverpool got to the final last year whilst we managed to finish 25pts and 3 places higher than them in the league.

Over two legs we can beat anyone. We can beat Schalke and then we are into the quarters. Anything can happen in the CL. There are plenty of teams in transition this season. No real standout side. Real have declined. Barca aren't unbeatable. Atletico and Juve are strong but both can be beaten. Bayern, Dortmund and PSG aren't any stronger than City.

That side we played last night blew most teams away last season on its way to 100pts. We fell apart at Anfield yet were a bad offside call away from being 2-0 up with plenty of time to claw that tie back.

Still got plenty of belief. De Bruyne being fit and on the pitch makes a huge difference. He will be fuming that after going off the team lost that game.

Agree and we must be optimistic and think we have a chance. Mind you we will have to defend a lot better than we did last night to make it to the final.

 

[Armaan]

David really had the chance to bury the game but he’s never been the most reliable in front of goal. Can’t understand why he tried to cushion that to the keepers right, should’ve just hammered it down low to his left like Aguero would’ve done. Everything just changed after that bastard Kante scored against us, we’ve never looked the same since (apart from the dipper game).

 

[Armaan]

City have now lost 3 league games this season after taking the lead. We seem to go into energy conservation mode and if the opposition score due to our poor defending we can't seemingly snap out of it.

Does seem so. Cannot be doing that away from home though especially.

 

[Goater10]

We lost the game because we lacked ideas and were guilty of bad decision making. I like the team playing out from the back, I find it sexy, but to get away with it all season would have been a miracle. Nailed on penalty. Sadly its costs us a goal, which has resulted in a defeat. (Always hoped the time we'd get caught out playing from the back would be at 3 or 4 nil up)

Didn’t we get away with one against Burnley at 1-0 at weekend

Yeah that's the point really, we usually get away with it but at some point it was going to cost us.

 

[Father Paul]

Why are people debating who/what position we should've strengthened in last summer?...do people really believe that the reason we lost last night was down to a lack of talent/strength in depth of our squad? Fuckin ell....we've just scored 30 odd goals in a calendar month are in a position to win all 4 trophies having scored over a hundred fuckin goals and people want more? Here's a positive....if the scousers lose by 2 goals tonight we'll be better off than we were before the Newcastle game...same points behind with a better goal difference with 14 games left to play. Even if we go 7 points behind there's still 42 points to play for what's the fuckin panic? Might be a good thing them thinking they've already won it...it was last time.

Your right but the Dippers have to lose first and then the big thing is how many of those 42 points can we realistically hope to win after what we witnessed in the last month.