For me we have to start with this on Wednesday.....2 up top,2 wingers a flat back 4 plus your normal midfielders 1 holding and 1 creative....Its a easy game made hard.
When I saw the title of the thread I thought it was a Mackem with a stutter telling us how many they scored yesterday.
The fact that we were all saying that we should have been out of sight at half time, for me suggests that the fault lies less with the system and more with players playing it. If Gayle scores when through on goal, or Diame keeps his head in front of goal, or one of Shelvey/Ritchie/Gouff's long distance shots stays this side of the stratosphere then we would all have a very different outlook on this game. We had control of the game and we created a hat-full of chances. That is what you want a system to do. We got unlucky when Yedlin got injured. It made a massive difference. Along with Dummett (puts tin hat on), I thought Yedlin was one of our best two players yesterday. Yes, Villa were starting to come back into it after half-time, but if they weren't then those Villa players don't deserve to be in a Sunday pub team, never mind the championship. The problems began when our players reacted badly to Villa coming back into it, sitting deeper, getting fearful and letting Villa dictate the game.
How's the natives on your board? Anyone ringing the Samaritans yet? Things not looking too good for your lot at the minute. Early days but one day the escape routine is going to fail.
I think the natives are busy shrinking heads and doing voodoo ritiuals. Then sticking pins into dolls. Not gonna lie, ive been dubious the last few seasons. It hasnt caught us yet. But it will eventually.
It is and it's clear as day with the players we have. Mitro and gayle up top. Two wide players with good crossings two grafters in midfield. Play it fast and wide.
4-4-2 is all well and good but if the opposition have 3 in CM then one of your strikers will need to drop deep when you're not in possession. So your 2 up top is the target man and second striker scenario. - which is pretty similar to the 4-2-3-1 formation in all honesty. It's not really the formation that's the problem, it's who we are (or aren't) playing as the no 9 & no 10. It should blatantly be Mitrovic and Gayle IMHO.
I'm starting to see more clearly exactly why and how we got relegated last season. Sure there were clowns Taylor and Coloccini.. but after having them relegate us already in the past, whoever allowed them to remain and the club together and be fielded together needs to be sent to a mental asylum. Taylor got loaned out by his MLS club to a farm team, where he plays near the beach in front of 500 spectators. And we actually let him limp around premier league grounds?!! You can't actually blame the guy, he clearly can't actually play football. You have to blame the folks he conned for so many years. But back on topic. I no longer blame Sissoko or Janmaat, or even Gini. Sure as **** don't blame Townsend for jumping ship, he was the best wide player we've had at Newcastle in at least a decade. All those actually sort of did their job 80% of the time, nah, the main culprits were Mitro, Perez, Cissé for being an invalid and calling himself a footballer. Manu Rivieres parents deserve an honorary mention for conceiving such an abomination. These wasters had so many chances to score last season and probably missed 4/5 chances. You know who maybe misses 1/5? Defoe. That's why we can still enjoy watching the Mackems in the prem, sole reason. So is Perez a striker? If so he's ****e. Is he a winger? well then he's even more ****e because he can't go past anyone whether its with a trick or pace. He scores one very classy goal every half season and maybe another tap in, that's it. Even though he probably had more game time than any of the other so called strikers in the squad. I know for a fact had we put the Gouf up top all season and given him the same gametime Perez has had he would have reached a higher tally than Perez. Mitro? Well he looked interested in about 5 halves in all of the season and impressing maybe in 3 other. Most of time of the time he was just wasting away, giving away fouls or spectacularly missing golden opportunities. Oh and then there's the small fact that he gets himself banned for anything between 5 and 9 matches per season. So there's that. And now we're in the championship and neither of these guys look any better. Remember bumbling oaf Shola was scoring for fun at this level. He was bullying defenders up and down the league, and what's Mitro doing? He comes up and doesn't even ask a single question of these defenders. Just nothing. Anyway, if Mitro doesn't score 10 goals between now and mid January I say get rid. Perez? Well, he hardly cost anything but he's already 23, I don't see him getting any better in England, so adios. Remember we have a striker, the one who scored for fun in league 1 and is already scoring for Barnsley, the one that cost nothing and whom we didn't even give a single start in the league. What was his name again? Armstrong? 4-4-2 is fine if you have a striker like Shane Long who will get stuck in and do something. If we play Perez and Mitro together we would just get overrun.
Very harsh on Mitrovic considering the lack of game time he's been given by Rafa this season. Perez needs to either improve rapidly (great), go back to Spain (where he will do okay), or go to Holland or Belgium (where he will do well).
Also, how many games did Taylor play last season? Although point taken. But to be fair it was clear he was finished when he came back last time - that wasn't his performance level for the whole time he was here, although he was never better than average in his peak.
