No one's under any delusions about the players we're fielding, ie everyone knows Laecelles, Ritchie, Krafth and even Schar are the old guard. It was the same at City where it took a few years to phase out the old team after the money came in...it's just we're in the unlikely situation now cos of injuries that we're seeing a lot of our old team.
Unfortunately people still say things like 'we should win' regardless of who's missing just like on Tuesday night where Newcastle fans went in thinking they 'were' the better side and ended up being dominated from start to finish. The current plight of Newcastle's side in terms of fatigue and available personnel is so bad they will imo be unlikely to beat any of the next 5 sides including Luton away. I'm looking at Nottingham Forest at home as the only game they we have any hope in, but the state of the side has me expecting the worst.
The second paragraph is pure speculation so I deleted that, but regarded this, it wasn't delusional at all to think we had a good chance of going through against Chelsea. Our squad was knackered, but Chelsea's defence was dogshit, their attack was nervous and ****, and their passing was ****e....dominance counts for nothing when they play like that, and it's the reason why so many teams beat them, and we very nearly did.
More I think about it, the more I think this is Howe's attempt to learn from mistakes. Basically, instead of pressing for most of the game and attacking, we press for...a bit. Then we drop off and hold position, to somehow save energy? The way we've played recently is alarmingly reminiscent of Benitez's time. I'm not convinced PIF think spending £350m should have us using a short blanket analogy.
Tbf the CD is from Benitez's time now (actually worse than Benitez time as Schar/Feds was put best partnership) so I guess that may affect it. Regardless of the fitness levels it wasn't delusional to expect something from Tuesday, Chelsea are a bad team and so it proved when we very nearly beat them with a severely weakened team.
Speculation? the worst injury crisis in the league and we can all see the players are exhausted, fans, pundits , commentators and anyone with a set of eyes.. This is why Newcastle didn't win. Ultimately Newcastle were not as good as Chelsea and it was obvious to anyone Chelsea had a better 11 and a stronger bench. Ultimately the people saying Newcastle 'should' win got their assessment wrong.
And in this time we've got great results, despite the recent dip, and even during the dip we've outclassed Man U, beaten a Fulham time who couldn't stop scoring and very nearly put Chelsea out the cup. And with most of the players coming back in Jan and new signings, anyone can see improvement from here.
Well come on - Fulham were down to 10 and we deservedly lost to Chelsea. Man U, sure, but we've also been tanked at Spurs, Bournemouth and Everton with a dreadful UCL result thrown in for good measure. It's not the end of the world, but let's stop dressing it up. Expectations for this season are - in my opinion - slightly below those expected from the owners. Some of the results in isolation have been particularly poor and the squad management not great.
Every week the issue has been developing not getting better mate and we've now lost 4 of the last 5. The reality of this issue is now biting and we're going to all figure this out over the rest of December and January. They will probably pick up from then onwards if the injuries ease up and if they get a few players in January . Personally I've already written this season off and I'm looking forward to next season because that is when I believe the club will start competing.
Yesterday you were predicting Howe would be under pressure in February, this contradicts that if you're now assuming we'll pick up.
Why do results only pick up when he's under pressure? In January we have players coming back, new signings and a far less hectic schedule. Why is January going to be so bad?
Are you even aware of the injury and fatigue problems? Have you looked at our fixtures in January? I'm happy with my prediction.
Yes and yes. There's 4 games as opposed to 8 in December, there's an international break, players are due back from now onwards, and we'll be working on transfers immediately.
