I'm more taken aback by this assessment by Howe of a Toon player: "Excellent. Reliable. Conscientious professional. Highly intelligent player. A lot of technical ability. Physically very quick. Very skillful." Bruno? Nope Isak? Nope ASM? Nope Jakob ****in Murphy! Apparently there is: "So much in there that is yet to be seen by everybody." Now, I rate Howe, a lot. And I have full faith in him. But I am just not seeing the same player. Clearly Eddie gets to work with him on a regular basis, and has worked with pro footballers all his career. So he has way more insight and understanding than I ever will. But I am yet to be convinced by Murphy. And before anyone jumps in, I don't count 1 half decent game.vs 10 men. I will keep the faith in Eddie. Hopefully Murphy will surprise me.
It’s all about the stats. The stats say he doesn’t score many and I am not sure he gets many assists either.
And how you interpret stats. Albert might use stats to say that I am Newcastle's 'biggest fan', but others would point to stats saying I live 300 miles away and very rarely get to see any games, so can't be the biggest fan.
I think this is a massive positive in our season, just think he will be able to learn how to ping hollywood balls from Bruno day in day out.
He is a better passer than Longstaff but Longstaff does everything else better, at least at the moment.
What does long staff do better exactly? From what I remember Shelvey at times did do decent defensively, it's just on the ball he doesn't have a great deal of skill or pace and gets caught out sometimes. So maybe Longstaff is a bit better at keeping holding of the ball, but his defending isn't really better, he doesn't provide a great goal threat or creative threat, and Shelvey plays the ball considerably better, and at least Shelvey can play a deep lying role and allow Bruno to go forward.
Bruno is a Deep lying playmaker, not a box to box, not an advanced playmaker, not a winger, not a number 10. He’s a deep lying playmaker that has a skill set of pass and move not dribbling through people
I don't think he's a deep lying playmaker, he can play that but it's not his best position, that's why we could do with Shelvey back to play that sort of role so he can get forward more like he did last season. Think he even said in an interview he sees himself more box to box than deep lying He's got too much to offer going forwards to restrict him to DM. At Lyon he wasn't the deepest midfielder either, there was someone behind him.
You mean the role that his best mate Paquetta played? For the same club, same country and same timeline? A DLP doesn't need to be in the DM role or position. You can have both with the DM the deeper of the 2 or 3 man midfield.
Longstaff gets into dangerous forward positions, creates more chances and tracks back far better than Shelvey. Now we have Bruno we really don’t need Shelvey. Bruno and Longstaff work far better together.
No, there was a DM behind them in the 3 man midfield, Bruno was the middle and Paqueta the furthest forward.
Bruno is best right side of a midfield 3. We need better than Shelvey (not hard) in Jan. As for Murphy, all I'll say is Howe's not going to say "he's a clueless twat. Doesn't matter what we tell him, goes in one ear, out the other. I've never seen anyone hit a post as regular as him. And if he's in the final third and there's 10 right decision and 1 wrong decision to be made, 99% of the time he makes the wrong decision. Even then, when he makes the right decision, his technique is so sketchy he'll just **** it up. Why do you think I tried to spend £60m on Diaby or Maddison?". Ignore the noise. Murphy has had one good game in 100. Howe's not an idiot. When better is available, Murphy will be gone. The issue with this squad is there's at least half a dozen players EVEN WORSE than him.
I think you're over exaggerating his abilities abit after the fulham game. So long as he's playing ahead of Willock and not Joelinton, then fine. As far as I'm concerned Bruno and Joelinton are the first two names on a team sheet after Pope and Trippier. That RCM spot can have Willock, longstaff or Shelvey in it as far as I'm concerned, they're all gonna be squad players soon when we buy someone better because they're all bang average at best. Neither of them are great and RCM is definitely a weak spot for us right now, arguably the weakest.
This isn't necessarily true is it? He can play that role, but he isn't completely confined to that role, and he was more effective when playing RCM last season, which is where he played when he scored quite a few of his goals. Playing in the deep lying CM role I think wastes him a bit, I'd far prefer we got a CDM and played something like this - ASM-------Wilson/Isak--------RW ---Joe/Maddison--------Bruno------ ------------------CDM--------------------- Targett---Botman--Schar---Tripps ----------------Pope----------------------
