The last couple of months have ended out chances of finishing in the top 4, which looked a very realistic chance until December. We should have got to the league cup final, we should have progressed to the CL knock out stages, last 2 months have been dire and we've had an awful injury crisis. Right now the season can only be classed as a disappointment. Win the FA Cup and it's the best season in years, finish 6th or 7th and get into Europe, and we've managed to salvage a bad season.
There were many faults for the loss to Milan, personally Schar for me was the biggest issue going on a mazy run and lost the ball in the opposition box and we were caught short from there for the second goal, he was also the one who played them on for the 1st goal but that's pretty harsh on him tbf. I'd like to know what happened to the ref from the PSG game who gave that mental penalty in extra time... We massively overachieved last year with the squad we had but we were lucky with injuries and turning defeats into draws. This year we've only managed to salvage 2 draws or something mental but if we were 4/5 points better off we'd be well in the hunt for top 5. Said last year we needed to not draw as many this year but I kind of hoped we would win those games instead of losing them.
Depends on who we select at left back. If Howe persists with dust bin then we won't finish top 10. If he picks Tino, we will probably finish 6th.
Absolutely always was but people were saying otherwise until it went wrong. In fact top 8 is a perfectly good season and top half is fine.
Not sure about 8th. City, Arsenal, Liverpool. Spurs finishing above us is perfectly fine considering their squads are much better than ours. Villa are similar level but they haven't been depleted as much as us and have only had to deal with Europa Conference league teams, and also city, manure and chelsea in the cup. So those 5 teams finishing above us. Even Man Utd because they have a better squad than us overall and are less depleted. But I'd be disappointed if Brighton or West Ham finish above us tbh. I could accept finishing below man utd and villa, but not brighton or west ham, especially considering they both have much more difficult fixtures than us going forward.
It's been too easy for people to ignore where the club was before the takeover. The fact Newcastle finished 4th once is almost irrelevant in terms of the long term build. It was one flash in the pan season coupled with the fact Liverpool Tottenham and Chelsea all went south. Newcastle will be back more and more over time, but not without a few seasons where the side goes backwards.
Willock will be back soon, Barnes coming into full fitness and Isak back in next 2 weeks. We have more than enough really IMO to finish 7th.
Said 6th at the start of the season, and still saying 6th now. Second half of the season fixtures are looking kind and we're capable of going on a run, but got to shore the defence up. It's a big ask, as need to overcome one of Man U, Villa or Spurs...
Hopefully they'll all be back by the time we play Blackburn in the cup and get some football under their belts, after that we have 12 games remaining and only Spurs and Man U of the teams above us left to play. West Ham and Brighton in there as well just below us but past those 4 and perhaps Chelsea we should have a good run in there. All of those around us still have a minimum of 3 of the top 4 (City, Spurs, Liverpool and Arsenal) - Villa for example have all 4 to play still and Man U have the top 3 - while we only have Arsenal and Spurs left. Hopefully teams like Brighton Villa and West Ham struggle with the European travel over the next few months as well! Going to stick with 6th but a 7th place finish would still be a decent season IMHO.
Frustratingly, no. Tino is a much, much better footballer - I don't think that can be questioned, but BDB does bring a lot from a physicality perspective. There's more wrong than BDB vs Tino with how easy we appear to give up chances at the moment, but the lack of pace at LB does worry me.
Aye, he could find the back of the net - but he's past it now, and can't see the Mackems allowing him through the gates to be honest.
