One for sorrow,two for joy...how will Town fare against the Magpies?

Can't say today's result really bothers me,no worse than expected and just shows the gulf in class.

 

Yep, result to be as expected. I don't particularly fear for us this season but can't see much better than a mid table finish the way things are.

 

Result on its own, doesn't bother me. Result in context of the season so far, very concerned.

 

What a weekend, unreal Newcastle for a night out. God we drank drank drank, actually feel quite fresh today considering.... c'est la vie.

Thoughts on the game -

* It's clear as day this Newcastle side is ridiculously good. I didn't enjoy watching us at all however some of their touch, movement etc and in particular the third goal was unreal. They'll walk this league no problem.

As for us.....

Positives -
* Berra and Webster were very good.
* Fantastic to see McGoldrick back - decent 45 from him.
* Likewise always good to see Jonny boy, a quality shimmy around a player reminded me what we've been missing.
* Josh Emmanuel was fantastic second half. Positionally superb, very strong and not beaten once. Tried to help us going forwards.
* Not a bad shift from Douglas to be fair. Tried hard out there.
* Lawrence lively.

Negatives -
* Game plan sadly undone so early!
* Full backs were both absolutely shocking. I'll stick up for them when good, but Knudsen and Chambers seemed intent on seeing just who could have the worse performance.
* Leon Best bar hitting the bar may aswell hve NOT been on the pitch. I honestly thought after watching us v Villa he could be a handful, a bit like Lee/ Kuqi bringing others into play but no. He was a waste of time.
* Connor Grant FIRST HALF was absolutely pants.
* Grant Ward looked lost and had absolutely no idea what he was supposed to be doing!

The players look a bit torn. Clearly they're being allowed to play a tiny bit more but you can see they are unsure whether to go direct, into channels or play. The tempo was all wrong it was a very very poor performance and if I'd gone for just the game, not had a quality weekend I'd be devastated.

3 of the next 4 are at home, we're getting players back so you never know but frankly that was shocking. From memory we had THREE SHOTS in 90. Mick, you've gotta get the players lively and a good convincing win vs Rotherham Sat...........

 

Not really a surprising result, Newcastle have got Mitrovic £14M, Ritchie £12M, Gayle £11M, Murphy £3.5M, and that's not counting Shelvey, Perez, etc and their wages, its a totally different football world to ours and competing for a play off place gets harder every year because of it, we are a mid table side at best and we cant even achieve that without running at a huge annual loss!
Perhaps its time to have some radical thought on how to get on an even keel and get rid of this monkey on our back, only then will we go forward because promotion is out of the question for the foreseeable future.

 

Fieldmarshall,I agree totally.I've accepted for some time we're not going to seriously challenge for promotion and it's why I am so disillusioned with MM's approach.I would rather we had a younger,more progressive manager who would build a side based on our own youngsters as opposed to tired old journeymen and cast-offs/loanees from elsewhere.Get us playing more attractive football and I'm sure the crowds would improve.

 

On a separate note....what a run from Webster in the first half, not bad for a centre half (could you imagine Smith / Berra / Chambers doing it? - they would've pooped their pants and hoofed it into row Z)

 

Step forward Bryan Klug with someone like Mowbray as his assistant.

 

Yeah,I hear Webster was called in for extra work today to "coach" such creative play out of him!

 

Goodbye Webster in January, I can't see ME turning down yet another huge profit for a player and that could go for Bart as well, it's a downward spiral when an owner loses interest, for example we get Best as a replacement for Murphy, Best is very cheap as he hasn't played for months and last week was said to be " not quite there yet "! Thanks ME we get an unfit player who nobody else wants and you get £3.5 M.
I don't much care who the manager is and as for expansive, attacking open football would we feel better if we had played that way on Saturday and lost 6 - 1? As Westy said we live, sleep, breathe ITFC but we can't influence results, the owner however fritters away millions on a manager who was an international name but useless, then we get a TV " expert " who hasn't worked in football for years who was also useless and more millions wasted on loan players and compensation when these idiots were sacked, now we have a manager who thinks anythings better than losing, tedious yes, infuriating yes at times but without backing from the owner I think it's the best we can hope for considering the likelihood of anyone better qualified wanting the job under these circumstances quite remote.