Match Day Thread Hull City - EFL Cup

I wrote a post when this fixture was announced that if was back you would probably win.

We are still **** just a good championship side basically, so even if we get promoted we'll be hoping for the same as you in terms of adding quality to our squad.

It's not easy for ****e clubs like us to get those players and even geography is against us

We need a tectonic shift and an oil rich Arab basically

 

Maybe we should move down south. Am sure Newcastle must be the coldest city in England. If we cant play in the cold then there is something wrong.

 

Jonjo pish, Gayle pish. Hayden pretty pish too but he seemed to at least try. Murphy on instead of Mitro? What? Why take Ritchie off and keep Diamé on?

Anyway..couldn't live up to the pressure. Number of really untypical poor performances I thought yesterday. Bad day at the office. Ridiculous how we conceeded after scoring. Never looked confident in the penalties. Shelvey looked like Dear in Headlights and Gouf didn't seem to even try.

 

thought we played well ..had them allover ...( luck of the draw being at home as well ) played some good stuff passing the ball ...

must admit i thought shelvey was overrated when we bought him ..but now i admit i was wrong ....he was mint last night and other games .... on that diame well lifting ...slow fooks about with the ball ..just pure crap ....we getting better all the time .best passing i have seen in years at the toon ...just need to finish better . also keeper was the difference at the end of the day ..theres caught things ...ours just flaps



anyway hull city are down this season ,that is for sure ..

 

Nope the money I received was no comfort at all.

Can we officially claim we went on a cup run this year?

 

32...shots and 61% possession wtf how did we blow it.

 

We desperately need quality in picking open defences and putting the ball in the net. This includes attacking midfield, wide and strikers. If you look at the quality mid table PL teams possess in attacking midfield areas, then we are sadly lacking. Same up top.

Take say:

Stoke - Shaqiri, Arnautovic, Bony
Southampton - Redmond, Tadic, Austin
Everton - Lukaku, Barkley, Miralles, Deulofeu, Bolasie

That's probably 3 clubs who will finish between 7th and 11th this season. That's the minimum you need to be in that bracket.

We have Gayle, Mitro, Ritchie, Gouffran, Atsu.

The gulf in class is pretty big. Even Leicester are struggling with Vardy, Slimani, Mahrez, Gray. West Ham likewise. Honestly just to have any hope of keeping our heads above water, massive investment would be needed.

 

Rafa will get them if we get promoted

 

I agree. He is not stupid. He will deal with the obvious.

 

There's a difference between cold and a frozen pitch though. We rely a lot on pin point passing when it comes to scoring goals, and last night balls along the ground just weren't dropping in the perfect spot in the box as they bobbled a lot. This didn't affect us as much on the rest of the pitch as it doesn't matter so much if the ball is half a yard in the wrong place in the build up. I have a feeling that is what caught out Snodgrass in our favour towards the end too.

I thought Shelvey was good last night, apart from about a five minute spell where he struggled and seemed to lose the ball a lot.I don't think anybody played particularly badly. We went to sleep after scoring though. Hayden should have tried to clear the ball into the stands, Sels should have knocked the shot wide and Lazaar should have been following in quicker in case the ball came back. We created lots of chances. but not that many dangerous chances. For the most part we bossed the middle of the pitch, though it was disappointing that we couldn't create dangerous chances and that we had so many nervous moments when they had the ball, considering how little they had the ball.

 

I hear that Sissoko bloke at Spurs might be available at the end of the season - oh, wait.............

 

If you have 61% possession and over 30 shots and you fail to win a football match then you have to look at the forwards. Gayle was abysmal last night and was responsible for missing a shed load of chances. There is simply no excuse for that. Should we go up we need proven PL quality.

 

Our forwards have been missing loads of chances meaning we end up struggling in matches we should have won easily. It is quite clear to me that rafa had better put a clinical finisher at the top of his January shopping list because neither Perez, Diame or Mitrovic are likely to score enough to get us promoted. Gayle can't be relied on too much when he scores 1 every 20 shots or so.

 

In my opinion our best 3 players are Gayle, Shelvey and Ritchie. Against Blackburn Shelvey and Ritchie looked off the pace, Gayle was rested we lost 1-0. Last night Shelvey had a good first half we dominated, the other two were off the pace and we lost on penalties. These are 3 key players for Newcastle, though we need more coming to the party, Gouffran wants shooting for the penalty he took at the end there. At times I have felt we have been wasteful the clear difference is we can get away with against Championship teams but won't against Premier League teams.

 

ah well, it would of been Manure in the semi's

first leg away

Liverpoo v Southampton

 

Personally I think most of our quality lies in the youth of our backline. Ritchie is our most effective player. He'd be comfortable in a mid table PL team. Shelvey and Gayle are PL squad players at best. Shelvey is decent but just really at passing the ball sideways a lot. A bit like Guthrie. Decent to bring on in a PL towards the end if you want to protect a lead and play keep ball. Otherwise he is very inconsistent and can't pick a defence. Gayle is a good goalscorer at Championship level. I can't see him getting more than 10 in a PL season.

Personally I think if you put enough quality in front of Lascelles, Mbemba (who needs to improve but has something), Darlow, Clark, Lazaar, Yedlin, Anita - they'll do ok. We have no PL quality in midfield or up top bar Ritchie in my opinion. Hayden, Colback, Shelvey, Perez, Mitro, Gayle can all give you options from a bench but they ain't gonna pull up any trees.

We knew this though I think, we just need to get through this season and then build. 5 in the summer window of good PL quality would be a start. The progress from there. Rafa will know and sort it.