I feel what we saw in last nights game was not a lack of desire but simply tiredness and maybe a touch of arrogance. We are still coming off the back of a busy christmas period of football where the likes of Silva and Fernandinho who are both over 30 have played a lot of football, Sergio too. What shocked me was that if we hadn't scored so early I actually believe we would have won the game, the early goal seemed to re-affirm something in the players that they were playing Rotheram or Burton again and it would be a walk in the park, its only 15th placed Newcastle. When Newcastle came at us after the break we didn't know what to do and were looking leggy. Sane and Sterling were full of beans early on and were trying to make things happen but no one was supporting them particularly well.
If its tiredness then there isn't much you can do but one critic I have despite Pep's winning mentality and wanting 100% every game is did we really need to bust a gut against Burton, Rotherham and Burnley most recently to score as many goals as possible? Dinho shouldn't have started last night not when he played against Burnley and that was the difference, Silva struggled too. De Bruyne was our best midfield outlet but when he had to come off for fear of getting sent off the writing was on the wall for me, we were not going to win this game.