Greg

Massively, he was never getting that cross. Left the goal wide open If he stays he's not going to stop it either, the guy has a free header from 3 yards out ! Not much he could do with the defenders not marking and not preventing the cross. That's not really the mistake. His positioning was all wrong, too close to his near post. If he was in the correct position he gets it if he comes for it. Not so sure, his s**** defence were far more to blame though. Oh yes, the defending was awful. Was talking about Dubravka. It seems to be his only obvious weakness - been caught under a few and it has cost us two or three goals. Still he's a good 'keeper and is very good in many others areas and is far better than our other two and is is one of the reasons for our safety. He has been excellent in general.

MAgnificent from Dubravka.

WHAT THE FUCK?

Massively, he was never getting that cross. Left the goal wide open If he stays he's not going to stop it either, the guy has a free header from 3 yards out ! Not much he could do with the defenders not marking and not preventing the cross. That's not really the mistake. His positioning was all wrong, too close to his near post. If he was in the correct position he gets it if he comes for it.

Wears a waistcoat every game tbh.

Yep. Kenedy and Manquilo wing backs.

Another mistake from Dubravka.

FYP.

We absolutely should not be selling Perez ffs. Probably the same clowns that wanted us to sell Shelvey in January.

Gayle ffs.

Oh Murphy come on. Basics.

Rafa's got his jacket off.

Aye, based on the Premier League Klopp is on target to do exactly the same as they did last year.

Use the match thread now please: https://www.newcastle-online.org/forum/index.php?topic=100347.0

He has a lot of ability but if he can't follow instructions he's not much use to a team managed by Rafa Benitez.

They haven't had a go at all. They've gone defensive and tried to crawl to safety and failed miserably.

Today is his 500th game in management.

I think they'll do similar to us. They're sound financially and they'll get big money for the likes of Butland & Shaqiri. Maybe even for Allen. Someone like Dwight Gayle up front next season, some solid signings like we made and they'll be fine. They made a loss of £10M last year, relegation will hurt them. While they will bring in some money from transfers out they will only do what we do if the Chairman puts in some money to keep the wage bill high enough.

This will be his first. Aye, didn't realise. He's obviously been able to jump ship elsewhere, I guess. Aye. I looked it up and was surprised.

Played 2 more mind. Really hope we get a win today.

Mbemba is training with the first team so how is he AWOL? Ok not technically AWOL as in he is physically here but he has mentally checked out and it's pretty much accepted that's he's as good as gone and will only play in a complete injury crisis as his attitude and focus has gone.

This will be his first.

I'm surprised he's got 6 goals in the league, actually. But he's 30 in November and has absolutely no pace. If people are frustrated with Ritchie on the wing they'll love Tadic. Tbh I am, but I'm also hanging on to the dream of Tadic whipping in crosses for Mitro More likely to happen at Fulham than here.

Stoke

I disagree. We need a squad, and with no quality available from our academy we need players like him in the squad that are happy to not play but can step in when needed, and while not great, can do a solid enough job. Our likely limited transfer funds should not be going on squad fillers, they should be spend on bringing in quality players better than anything already on the books in the key areas where we need to strengthen. Haidara is finished. He'll be leaving the club in a few weeks time. I'm all for having a squad, and of course its contingent on getting a replacement. But honestly Manq was so bad for us, he contributed to a ton of our conceded goals. There must be full backs knocking around, (in spain if the current news about Rafa expanding the scouting is correct), I'd really like to see him replaced He played a long stint out of position due to injury to others and you are correct he did cost us some goals and had a few stinkers. Will be interesting to see how he does at right back today.