I went to the game last night and I was more gutted that I have been in a while. We literally played Hull off the park and they barely had a sniff throughout the entire 200 minutes of football, and one little error cost us and they got a get out of jail free card with penalties. Pro - It's good to see that we can outplay premier league opposition in some manners Con - We're not putting away some of the chances we have and we're not quite creating enough. I know we've only played 1/3 of a championship season and that's a lot of progress made from the **** storm of last season, but still, it's something that needs looking at. We really do need someone other than Diame at number 10 in the long run. He has his moments but he's not consistent and is not much of a goal threat. Plus he's often clumbsy and lazy. We need a number 10 that will score 10 goals a season and get a bunch of assists as well, and that's not Diame. I'd personally try our balls off and sign Sigurdsson. He'd be perfect for our team. Ratings - Sels - 4 - Not very good. He should have done better for the goal and he could have kept at least one pen in the pen shoot out out, by guessing the right way but being **** at parrying. He's beginning to make me lose patience. Anita - 8 - Solid defensively. Great interceptions, dealt with physical threats well, some good balls into the box also. Lascelles - 7.5 - Mostly solid, sometimes his lack of agility comes into it though and he fumbled under pressure a couple of times. Clark - 7.5 - Solid against but against a toothless Hull. Lazaar - 7.5 - Very impressed with this guy. Quite solid and decent in attack. Hayden - 7.5 - Some very strong tackles made and some good forward play. Great energy and didn't give Hull a chance to settle. Shelvey - 8 - His passing really made Hull **** themselves at times. He was all over the park and played well defensively and attacking wise. Ritchie - 7.5 - Great energy and work rate, some good crosses the only thing that disappoints me is that his efforts rarely provide a finishing touch on a goal. Diame - 7 - He really frustrates me. At times he was ridiculously lazy and sometimes his touches were awful, however there were moments of great skill from him that unlocked City's defensive banks and he played reasonably well as a receiving/target man. Gouffran - 7.5 - Hard working all over that left side the entire game. Good performance. Didn't provide much in attack but did everywhere else. Gayle - 7.5 - Some great runs off the ball and won a lot of freekicks with some clever buying of fouls. Very useful. Atsu - 7 - Surprisingly good when he came on as a sub. Worried the fullback a bit and whipped in a great ball that Gayle almost scored with. Murphy - 5 - Tried, worked hard but little impact. Benitez - 8 - Got his players up for a game and they played very well, but just didn't quite have the finishing touch. MOTM - Has to be Shelvey.
Let's be fair. we were the better team, we switch off after scoring and they score. Thought we played better before the sending off but we do seem to be wasteful in the last 3rd at times this season.
"Pro - It's good to see that we can outplay premier league opposition in some manners" Sorry tash but you didn't play a premier league opposition - they are a championship standard side (and they'll almost certainly be down there next season!) - we didn't play great against them and beat them 3-0
Wow, that a long game... But yeah, shows w can comfortably outplay a crap Premier league team, discount the penalties, and it was an away draw that we should have won. Sels is a liability, we should've gone we Darlow, ok play Sels for the easier cup games, but this was a game we were desperate to win, and we couldn't have an obvious weak link like that in the team. Apart from that it just looks like a game where we had a massive off day on our finishing.
By that logic are Newcastle not a Premier league standard team? The majority of players in that starting 11 played in the PL last season Ritche, Diame, Gayle, Shelvey Lascelles, Clark Anita, Gouffran Does this make us PL team? Ultimately they are in the premier league team because they got promoted and deserved it. We are a championship team because we got relegated and we deserved it over the course of last year. Now we are trying to prove we deserve to be back the prem and I'm sure we will
Sure you will get promoted too - but I have watched Hull 3 or 4 times this season and they are playing like a poor Championship side. They are rubbish - hence my point - you are playing like a very good championship side - if you get promoted you will be a premier league side in name and if you play like Hull, you will get relegated again (although, unfortunately for a Sunderland fans perspective, I can;t see that with Rafa in charge as long as he's given another £60 million to spend)
Regardless of how good they are, we DID play premier league opposition, as they are in the premier league! Like you, they're a team a poor Premier League side who are likely to get relegated next season. Going on about how bad they are just emphasises how bad you are, seeing as they're still 3 points ahead of you.
They quite clearly are a PL team. To suggest otherwise is plain stupid. They are not a very good PL team but they are one. That's like saying Palace, Sunderland, Swansea, Leicester, Middlesbrough and West Ham are not PL teams, given they are within 2 points of them. All those teams have been **** in the league. Yet some are in semi finals, and playing CL football fairly successfully. Its like suggesting we are a PL team, when we clearly are not. Its beyond stupid to be honest Marcus.
We did quite well overall but it only confirmed what we already knew. We lack firepower and we'd probably fall the wrong side of the thin margins between the lower end of the PL and top end Championship if we went into next season as PL side with this team. I think you have to be disappointed really as we had enough chances and completely controlled the game. Regardless we have missed out on a semi final through not being quite good enough in key areas - i.e. putting the ball in the net. Clearly we are moving massively in the right direction under Benitez but there is plenty work to do. I still maintain we'd need 4 or 5 top class players added to this side if we wanted to be sure of avoiding a relegation scrap should we go up. Certainly in attacking midfield, wide and up top, we are well short of the required level.
Think last night showed we are a good Championship team and will be a poor/average EPL team if we go up. No bite in attack, will need better if we are to get mid table in the premiership. Defence - Lazaar was a bright spot in his first start but again are any of our defenders good enough to push for top 10 in the Prem? Plenty of time to address the issues but we will need a new spine to the team if we go up. Shelvey, Diame, Gayle and Ritchie are lower half EPL players...
I know we're **** BTW (and I'm an eternal optimist) so you don't need to put that in and expect a bite - but the only time the table matters is after 38 games - If we win this Saturday, we'll be 2 points behind last season's champions I think Hull and Swansea will get relegated then it's one from us, Leicester, Middlesbrough, Burnley, Bournemouth - I quite like those odds as I've seen us improving recently and Boro, Burnley and Bournemouth getting worse If you'd played us, outplayed us, and got beat, then that "premier league opposition" tag would never have been used - it'd have been "They're only a premier league side in name - they are only good enough for the Championship" or something like that
To be honest the defence would probably cope ok, if they had enough quality in front of them. If you don't score goals, you invite pressure at PL level. Good defenders then look average.
Yeah agreed, Clark, Lascelles and Mbemba are good enough to keep us up but again I think lower half would be the best we could hope for, obviously all are young with time to progress their game but a quality international with EPL experiance CB would not go a miss. My main worry would be the midfield and strikers, Shelvey, Diame, Colback are lower half/championship players, Hayden another with time on his side but will also need time to develop. Mitro and Ayo up top will not score the required goals. Gayle will probably get between 10-15 (hasn't managed above 7 in a EPL season yet...) so we will need a striker and Ritchie could do well but only 4 goals in 41 appearences last year in his ONLY EPL season to date.
Hull got 7 points from their first 3 games, have plummeted since then, but a similar string of results would send them clear of the drop zone. Considering the situation they were in at the start of the season, it's remarkable they've got to the league cup semi, and are having a reasonanle league season all considered...they clearly have a good team spirit, and that could see them saving themselves. After 13 games you can't simply decide who can and can't be classed as a Premier League team, at this point last year we'd have chalked off Bournemouth as not a Prem side by those rules, now they're comfortably mid table, and Leicester's league season has been fairly wretched so far, and the only reason they're escaping their usual tip for relegation is cos of winning the title last season. After maybe 25/30 games you could say a team is definitely not Premier League standard, if and only if they down and out and not looking like making a recovery - i.e. Sunderland in 2006, Derby in 2008 and Villa last year. But after 13 games? No way.
Lazy save from Sels, just basically gets his hand in the way and lets it go right back into the danger zone, no awareness of where his defenders will be and no effort to get it away from goal, Darlow would have done better. Coupled with his bad performance on the penalties, and his usual crap commanding of the area, he's shown once again that he should be nowhere near the 1st team. In the same way that I was wary as soon as I saw Gamez on the teamsheet on Saturday, I feared the worst as soon as I saw Sels on there, so it proved.
No doubt sels should have done better saving it but Hayden created the first error that led to it If you pull the plug out the bath and I can't get it back in for you it's still your fault in my opinion Sels does do one thing better than any of our other keeper and it's play it about rather than punting it and we therefore keep more possession- managers are all looking for this these days
It does depend what you were doing to him at the time that made him knock the plug out of the bath though - if it wasn't on purpose and it was due to you thrusting strongly from behind then, causing his foot to knock the plug out I would say that the onus is on you to get the plug back in before you both get cold.
