Was chalk and cheese with the first half. We couldn't string two five yard passes together the whole half.
Benitez can't play Manqillo at LB again, he offers absolutely nothing going forward and is incredibly nervous in defense. Gamez or Aarons need to play their next match or we need to play 3 at the back.
It's more that we just kept giving them the ball. If Rafa is ever given any money to get some decent quality in we'll be winning this type of game.
Is merinos absense the big difference in our last 2 games? He seems to bring alot of control to our game.
So are all you mike bassetts ready to realise 442 doesn't change a ****ing thing if you have a crap team? Don't kid yourself, Mitro wouldn't have magically made this better. Without that 5 man midfield, as soon as they put pressure on us we couldnt solve it. No pressure on their defence either! Shelvey makes my ****ing blood boil, pathetic Gerrard wannabe that can't actually keep hold of a ball or make a telling pass. Atsu spent the second half thinking he was Ronaldo, poor Clarke can't be fit yet, at least Gayle looked like he was trying, Elliot stooped us losing 3-0. Holy ****, anyone who wants to question Benitez after this can go **** themselves; you asked for more attack, you got more attack, we lost 1-0 to a team who is literally ****e!
It looked pretty decent in the first half. It doesn't matter what system you play, if you can't pass the ball to your own team mates you are likely to lose the game.
Absolutely no question we should have been 1-0 up. I think that changes everything, but yet again a Lino makes a bad decision and it's just downhill from there. Rafa set us up to take the lead, we had the lead but officials took it away. There's nothing anybody can do about that. After that it's just poor game management, Shelvey - though I'm still a fan - the chief culprit. Trying clever passes when Gayle's knackered, looking for that superstar ball when the team's second best, that's when it's just not right. I can't quite fathom why some players, given we were over-achieving anyway, seem to have no confidence? Joselu, Murphy, Perez all the same, no real belief in their play, I can't work out why? Problem is who else do we bring on? Gamez? Mitro? Diame? It's a crap squad. Not saying it's all about formations, but our three strongest players are more or less all CB's, should we revert to three at the back? I'd suggest Gamez, Mbemba and Dummett are all CB's, really, so we've got six to cover there. We just don't seem to be using the advanced wing positions at all, and when we do it's often a full back in Manq or Yedders furthest forward, so why not keep them as wing backs and maybe just get more happening centrally? Both seem suited to a wing back game, as they're both a bit nervous defending. All in all it's just a poor squad. Atsu needs to be taught that whatever decision he's about to make, do the oppositie. Ritchie needs to get his head back, he's all over the place and I don't know why, Gayle still looks a bit, well, average. Doesn't help when you need a goal, on comes Perez. Who believed he'd score? Anyone? Nope. What's your options? Slo-Mo or Missrovic (yeah, I said it again). Murphy is making Ali Dia look like Southampton's best player of all time; seriously, what the hell happened to this kid? I feel for Rafa. I hope we get investment, this squad needs it.
I'd like to add that the aim remains 17th. Even if we were top of the league, the aim would still be 40 points! We're producing better results than a good number of teams below us and probably have more about us over a 38 game season than both Brighton and Hudds. It's a real dog eat dog league and we're still closer to 8th than 18th. We were two slices of fortune away from a win today and a draw on Monday, instead of two defeats The crap officiating today will balance itself out over the season. Fine margins, but Rafa's doing a decent job with what he has here. I hope that a lot of clubs maintain their meltdowns. Swansea, Palace look dreadful. Everton should recover like Leicester, but Bournemouth aren't in great shape. West Brom, West Ham, So'ton & Stoke continue to descend and Brighton/Hudds aren't good either. We're in the same bracket as all these sides, but we do have Benitez, which is a heck of an advantage. I daresay it's going to get worse before it gets better - Benitez has a history of being a manager for the second half of the season - but it's such a tight league that we may avoid real drama.
30/40% possession averaged though, we haven't spent much time passing to our own team anyways. He's got a crap set of players and, when Merino (the sexy latino) is missing, defeat seems unavoidable. We can't pass because we don't have passers, and we have shelvey who thinks he can pass somehow making it 10x worse. Mate first half was class but as soon as we didn't finish a few of our chances I said to my brother we'd lose. That was about 38 mins in and to be honest I expected a goal before half-time. We were pretty gash thereafter, its the risk of attacking intent when it doesn't pay off because we don't have a strike force that can finish. To be fair though that Gayle goal looked onside, if that had gone in.....
First half HOUR was class. We didn't quite make it an entire half of decent football! Thing is whilst the goal should have stood, Gayle missed a fcking sitter beforehand - that header was gash. Can't quite work out why the finishing is bad, or why confidence is low. We should be strutting around games like peacocks; 6 months ago we were in the second tier, as the whistle blew we were top ten and doing well. Atsu seems to have the right mentality - he gets things wrong constantly, but he keeps going, he keeps believing in himself. The likes of Joselu, Perez, Diame - they can;t seem to handle the pressure, the adulation that can come from being a decent player. It's weird. They're like the kids at school who'd rather be the best player in the second XI than a decent option for the first team. This mental fragility is killing us, lack of good decisions, their worrisome approach to games. At NUFC, the Toon don't really care if you get it right every time, just that you try. The problem we have is these fairies are stifled by fear.
Benitez out now, he's a tactical dinosaur. He's too fat to know what it takes to win games. I want a thin manager who can win us the title. Somebody with bulimia should be in charge.
