Mitrovic needs to be kicked arse first into the Tyne If we have people bidding for the privilege on eBay, we might recoup some of the money we wasted on the useless donkey. I mean, how can he not have got any better at hitting the target from five yards?
I ventured in to Sports Direct for the first time since Ashley bought us. In truth it was the first time I needed sports equipment but that's besides the point. Anyway, whilst in the queue, the lady at the til noticed she was the only one on. What did she do? Press a button to summon more minions as you may be used to in the retail world? Oh no. She blew on a "help" whistle which was tied to the desk. It's 2016. FFS.
Well... from the highlights..it was all us. We had fifteen chances and they seemingly one...but highlights can be deceiving that way. Yeah we can't put the ball in the net. I'm not as worried as I was last year where we weren't creating anything. We had about 5 chances in that game that were very good. Perez usually puts one of those away. Getting no Thauvins back won't help. Yeah it doesn't look clever from the replay but he hasn't gotten much playing time has he. That's what happens when you don't play. Pitch looked pretty bad too.
Watford were terrible but they rested Ighalo and Capoue who are big players. If you play like that every week with Cisse in for Mitrovic you'll stay up comfortably IMO
Yeah but Cissé is injured and with our physios..no telling if hes back next week or in april. We need another senior striker. Every team in the premier league has at least 3 senior strikers, because 1 will always be either injured or carrying a knock and another will be off form. Mitrovic needs a break. He's alright, I think he'll come good but as it's been pointed out he's 21 and expecting him to come into this league and score 10-12 goals to keep us up is a pipedream. If he ends the season on 5-6 goals I'll consider him to be a success, even having played 30 games. When fit Cissé does get us 10-14 goals, which is barely enough to stay up. It's simple math, you need 3 strikers, with 10, 7 and 5 goals. If you do that and get another 10 odd goals from the rest of the team you're somewhere between 7 and 14th in the league. Until whoever runs the club understands the physical demands of this league we're going to keep scraping by, or more likely go down sooner or later. I'm sorry, you just can't run upwardly mobile premier league club with 2 senior fullbacks and 3 central defenders, one of which is a perma-crock, 3 central midfielders, 2(actually 1) decent winger(s) and a whole bunch of past-it, disinterested, semi-retired attacking midfielders. Compare that to Leicester who have Switzerlands skipper and arguably most reliable player who can't get in the team.
The aftermath is a bit extreme, to be honest. Steve picked a bold formation, no complaints, and a strong side, no complaints. We were the better side and a 2- or 3-0 victory couldn't have been argued. But he's been let down by inexperience and characters with wafer-thin confidence. Even Perez isn't the cocky, backheeling SOB we know he is. Steve didn't buy Thauvin or Mitrovic; he may be subservient to the whims of our disgusting owner's dreadful stewardship, but so would anyone in his perilous position, more or less. Can't really pin today on Steve any more than we can blame Thauvin. Today's result, the last four in fact, plus the constant cup exits and pi$$-poor squad sit firmly - again - at the owners door. He is getting what he deserves, but unfortunately for us and unlike SD, there are other people who are emotionally tied to this failure. This for me is where it all falls down with his ownership. Having never sought to buy the club for the right reasons, it's inevitably going to fail. The difficulty Steve and the players have is NUFC fans have suffered 3 years of garbage and lies, been through relegation, and are not fooled by false gestures "investing" £50m in players. We see through all of it now. Nobody wanted McClaren. He can't fool us. Everyone knows the part Ashley, Charnley and Carr play. We're no longer "just" football fans, annoyed at a cup exit. It was an ok performance - what we're sick of is the mis-management, top to bottom. He MUST understand this? But then, he probably lives in the same bubble as the rest of the football board and thinks we're all just a bunch of unreasonable bastads. It's not just that they won't listen - they don't even want to hear the criticism. And they work for another isolated, pig-headed idiot with such a small circle of trust he puts his daughters boyfriend - 24 years old - in charge of his property empire. It's a hopeless situation, self-perpetuating problems. When was the last fans forum, for example? Cancelled, postponed, unattended. Nothing changes, nor can it.
"When was the last fans forum, for example? Cancelled, postponed, unattended. Nothing changes, nor can it" this was disbanded as the fans asked too many quesions
Thing is that now, as far as I'm concerned, McClaren is playing the right kind of tactics. It is really unfortunate he has to play Mitrovic, mind. I'd be tempted to give Mbabu or Dummett a go up top instead, because they can kick straight and head it with reasonable control. But right now sacking him would be pointless and counter intuitive, as we would no doubt get stuck with another idiot who would take half a season to figure out that we're, at best, a counter-attacking very direct team. Now we're just at the stage where new players are the only way to improve the situation, and if anybody really wants to put money on us signing a player this January, they need to get their head examined!
We weren't bad today and i agree the fans were wrong to boo and single out young thauvin, however it's not just this game steve is it.
I reckon it's not simply Steve being a dunce that means he gets selected. There's a reason he originally rejected us to stay in the championship.
Ed 'Stewpot' Stewart, surely? Perhaps you're getting mixed up with that other Crackerjack stalwart, Stu 'I could jump off a dolls house' 'I could crush a grape' Francis?
100% this. Quite why it took him THIS long to get a tactic sorted is beyond me. However, he has been severely hamstrung by Blind Graham and his "eye for talent". If we'd finished the window with Austin and Shelvey instead of Mitrovic and Thauvin, and McClaren had looked at Carver's team for just five minutes to know what NOT to play, we'd be 8th and looking forward to a fourth round draw. This self-sustaining thing is the right way to go, a lot of teams like us do it successfully and still put some money in to leap forward. But to put it in the hands of Charnley and Carr is where it's all gone wrong. According to the club's official rag, The Mirror, we've balked at Shelvey's wage demands and will instead increase our bid for Saivet. On top of this, we're apparently readying a bid for Bas Dost. May or may not be true, but if it is you have to pull your jaw from the floor at the outrageous stupidity of it. We all make mistakes, but you'd think eventually the penny would drop with some fcker at the club. Yet it miraculously doesn't.
Saivet and Bas Dost are ****ing awful players. Just ****ing pay Shelvey and go all out for Austin. Apparently, McClaren wanted Austin but Carr overruled him because he didn't rate him. This from a guy who signed ****ing Amalfitano and Thauvin.