It's doing brilliantly, but I think man for man, maybe 3 or so of the current team would make the starting line up, if you were picking the best 11 from the 2 squads? Just imagine if we had the current defence, with Keegan's midfield & forwards and Eddie in charge.
They can't have been good / close efforts based on the highlights, I think MOTD only showed 2 Palace attempts, vs about 7 of ours.
They had a header from a corner just after we scored, that's the only thing i can remember being remotely concerned about.
We are nowhere near making a meaningful challenge for a league title imo and that is what Keegans team did. Also lacking a truly elite striker up front, Wilson looks like a rock up front and Isak is not an out and out striker.
We compete because we often look like all of our players are playing to their potential. That's no bad thing but when we play the actual elite teams they often shift it up and gear and we simply cannot - we're lacking 3-4 players who are people other clubs fans covet, who in our team do any NUFC fans look at and think "I wish they played for us"? I mix with a lot of Liverpool fans and the only players they've mentioned last season that they would love to have were Bruno and, to a lesser extent, Joelinton and that was mostly because their midfield was poor.
We are missing a truly transformative signing, I think they hoped Tonali would be that elite player that would come in and shift the entire squad up a gear, but he just hasn't been it so far. For me, we lack that Didier Drogba/Aguero signing that just takes clubs up a level. We have right now, a decent squad that plays an incredibly intense style that catches clubs on the back foot. Right now, we have a situation were people are happy with back to back CL qualification and good football. But at some point, the questions will come in about silverware, Newcastle is overdue a cup by about 30 years. People can say that this is bedwetting and people are panicking. But those same people have never in their lives seen Newcastle pick up a meaningful trophy and might never before they die.
The guy is simply box office: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/67188420 Stephan El Shaarawy scored a 90th-minute winner at the Stadio Olympico. Mourinho was then given a red card deep into injury time after making 'crying' gestures towards the opposition bench. "I don't know why I got the red card, I only made a gesture to the bench, not a single word," Mourinho said. ps. wrong thread but I'll leave it here
