I agree. We need to get the new guys bedded in. No point having them to bolster our squad if we don’t give them game time.
It's also clear that Newcastle are creating nothing the past 5 games so he needs to try and fix that.
Squad depth is still poor because of the injuries. Anderson always looks like he's playing out of position, regardless of where he's playing! Barnes looks like a dreadful bit of business. Tonali has struggled. If you're having to keep picking Longstaff, Burn, Murphy then something has gone badly wrong with your recruitment. The 'safe' bets Howe/Ashworth decided to make aren't working. Then when the rest of your budget was spunked on kids, you're in a bit of a pickle.
I don't agree we've lost two 1st team cms and still fielded Guimareas tonali and unfortunately longstaff. Hall is a far superior left back to Dan Burn and he was on the bench - he'll get his chance when Burn gets a knock or needs a rest and that'll be the end of Burn if Hall performs. There's competition everywhere, newcastle can take an injury or two almost everywhere bar cb .... I can't recall a time nufc had any depth whatsoever in any area.
We have too many left central midfielders which is confusing **** out of everything. Joelinton, Willock, Anderson all play that role and when Tonali is playing more advanced he is favouring the left hand channel. He also has a tendency to over hit even his short passes to Gordon which causes him to lose momentum as he has to double tap to control the ball. On the other hand we only have Longstaff who naturally sits in the right hand channel. Switching from Barella and Szobazli who both sit in the right hand channel as targets to go with Tonali who doesn't, was baffling if that's where they wanted to strengthen...... but we cant improve every position at once. Likewise signing Gordon in January then going for Barnes to play in the same position was baffling, when in reality Anderson could have been trained and given game time to play there. However these are the hands we are dealt and its up to the coaching team to suss out what isn't working and remedy it, which I believe they will.
Precisely why I think the summer window was so poor. I don’t know who’s in charge of transfers - Nickson? Ashworth? - but they made a right pigs ear of it this summer and when we could’ve made progress we’re going to struggle to stand still.
Closer to £50m wasn't he? He's shown a lot of promise so far, so not particularly worried. I remain more concerned that Barnes will prove a waste of money, but he's looked good in patches too.
I suppose it's the teams not right rather than individual players. The manager needs to figure something out because the you can't just wait two months for willock and Joelinton to come back. I'm not convinced this current set up will beat Sheffield United or Burnley because it simply doesn't create.
We went through a spell last year where we couldn't score... created little and what we did we struggled with. Same set of players endued up lashing them in for fun a few weeks later. Having a rough ride at present - a few things (particularly in midfield) just aren't clicking. It'll come right, but how to smartly rotate the squad and also give the new lads (Barnes particularly) enough of a run to get them bedded in correctly will be tough. I think that these next "winnable" PL games, we really need to be mixing things up a bit. Barnes needs a run in the team IMO.
I keep hearing last season comparisons but that's just mental gymnastics. This is a new season and every side is different. When we go away to Tottenham our fans will say 'we beat them last season' and use that to support the belief they want to believe, however we didn't beat the same team last season because the sides changed. I could go on and on about last season comparisons and why they're not a reliable pathway to truth. If we talk about what actually is happening that's the correct approach and I agree things arent clicking. I don't think it will click unless a few changes are made or until we get willock and Joelinton back.
How we integrate new players has been **** since day one. They either start and get subbed off every single game no matter the performance, or they're not allowed even a sniff of the 11 and a sub appearance in the last 20 mins is instead their contribution. We go on to do that **** for MONTHS.
Meanwhile Emery who's a proven manager didn't **** about at all he's got the new signings in almost immediately. Howe has done a great job, but this text book approach to absolutely everything might be hidden undoing I feel. On Sunday I expect we'll see a few changes but not the ones we would like to see. I'm guessing Targett will get a start along with Anderson in place of Tonali. Isak will be benched along with Barnes.
