It’s weird. Individually only a couple of standout performances. And yet as a team we totally dominated.
Yeah, we didn't create enough in all honesty. But we looked good through the course of the game, and once again Ralph's subs worked out well (bar Broja who was a bit invisible). I don't have a problem with him giving chances to the best three players from the cup game though.
To be fair, it was kind of a reversal of the Man Utd game. Utd largely dominated but didn’t take their chances. Maybe we were slightly fortunate last week, so I’ll forgive the gods for this result.
Maybe they put JWP in a transportation chamber with Le Tiss and Ricky. A sort of Premier League version of The Fly. Or something.
Not in any way dissing the guy as he's been amazing, but Tino looked tired in the second half. Would really have liked Ralph to bring on Perraud and swap KWP back his preferred position. Other than that we made some subs (again) and I'm happy with the progress
To me it seemed that whenever we got the ball in a promising forward position it fell to Romeu - the last person in probably the whole outfield squad you would want it to fall to except maybe Salisu / Bednarek The dream would be someone who can do his number 6 role with better passing in advanced areas.
Diallo has looked like that player at times. Not for the first time, though, I'll say that I don't quite understand why we have JWP play as the deeper of the two CMs when we have sustained possession, while Romeu plays closer to the opposition box.
Tom the Oracle. Just reading this back after half time - classic reading the whole second half knowing the result
Fantastic performance really, would have been a travesty to lose. We have to keep KWP on for me, if that’s at left back or RB and push tino up, kwp is one of our best players by a mile. Thought Romeu was a bit off it today with his passing, but apart from that it was a really good away performance and I think we deserved 3 points.
Agree. Perhaps we should be using subs for the full backs rather than the wingers, so that we dont get caught out in the last ten minutes so easily.
I was watching a stream, and listening to Radio Solent's commentary (well, someone has to) and several times one or other of Adam Blackmore or Dave Merrington commented that JWP and Romeu appeared to have swapped roles on the pitch, or at least positions. It would seem that Romeu was deliberately playing further up the pitch, maybe to snuff out any Newcastle attack before it started. The downside to this was that Romeu then had time and space on the ball, and he missed that lesson on the training pitch.
Yes - agree. It’s an awfully big ask for a youngster who hadn’t played in the Premier League before. Hopefully, he’ll now get a couple of weeks rest. Thought Salisu was MOTM, neither Oriel or James looked quite as good as their best (I put that down to the early season), Che and Adam were fairly invisible versus a pretty crap, let’s face it, Newcastle defence. Mo took his goal well (if you’re reading this, Moussa, just put it in off your knee or any part of your body!) but wasn’t given the room he had versus Newport (obviously), but was probably better than Theo. Nathan was good as an impact sub, but I don’t know why he didn’t have a crack at goal just before they scored their second. He did against Newport and hit the bar - instead he passed and the ball was lost. They then broke away ….. However, after being seriously upset at tge 90 minute mark, I was pleased with the point. If the Toon lose St Maximum, they’re in big trouble …….
My only real negative last weekend was Romeu. It's very early days of course, so not something to be losing our heads over. But it is a tiddly bit concerning when you consider our total lack of depth at CM. If there's one area I'd love us to strengthen in the next three days...
