ohmelads

Looked outside the box

Reading some of these comments you'd think we had a prolific striker lined up, or that our other strikers were doing well.

Let's keep in mind his competition is Gayle and Joselu.

As a Newcastle fan I was all for the idea. But given how it's been used, now I'm starting to wonder why an organisation as corrupt as FIFA has pushed it through so quickly. At the end of the day it looks like you're still at the mercy of someone giving seemingly bizarre decisions. Now goals can be disallowed and pens awarded for the slightest thing, and huge offences ignored. So far I'm not convinced it's led to better refereeing. It is worth persevering with but the idea to trial it at a world cup was nuts. I realise they got it right tonight in the Germany game and those types of decisions (clear cut) are really what we were told it was designed for.

Ridiculous he doesn't pick up more cards for his constant antics. Refs have bottled it and he knows it.

Joselu is s***, but he will probably follow instructions where Mitro won't. Rafa is quite tough on that, he had the same issue with Mbemba. From a fan's POV it is frustrating, but we've had managers who didn't know their own minds before and it hasn't gone well for us. If we want to see Mitro playing for Rafa, he'll have to convince the manager he can toe the line. I guess I'd just like to know what these instructions are, because I can't say I've noticed joselu contributing much of anything. Even weird boring intangible shit. I can’t have that, I’m afraid. In the first half of the season, Rafa set us out in a very specific type of counter-attacking line-up. Up top, he needed a guy who could contest a quick ball forward, hopefully holding it up. He also needed to press the defenders in a particular manner and in tandem with a #10. His fifth choice summer signing, a Stoke reject, was a player he felt could do what he wanted than Mitro. There are times when I like what Joselu does, but I’ll freely admit by the time he was dropped for Gayle he was playing like a donkey. And he’s missed some chances, my God. But Rafa picked him over Mitro because Joselu did what he was told as best he could. Hope Mitro has a great World Cup and gets a career defining move, but not sad it won’t be here. We can only speculate. Think it's more likely something has happened behind the scenes with Mitro and Rafa simply had to pick the players he had left (Gayle and Joselu).

It bugs me. Another thing that bugs me, Matt LeBlanc said the thing he doesn't like about the UK is the food. What's he eating or not getting here that he can get in the USA? Is this a serious post? Variety and choice of food in America is far greater than here, due to the much greater cultural diversity and the easier access to ingredients. Only if you're comparing Newcastle to New York! London is as diverse as any city in the world. I've only been to the west coast states but I wasn't impressed by the food. Perhaps you need to know where to go or perhaps it just depends on personal taste. I wouldn't say there's more variety there at all, unless you have a bizarre craving for bulgogi tacos and like your food smothered in lots of low-grade cheese, oil, and mayonnaise. Their Asian, Middle Eastern, French or Italian food is as unauthentic as ours is. Just like us, they cater it to local tastes. There will always be different pros and cons. We have far more variety of Asian food, and with Europe on our doorstep we have much better access to subtle flavours like cheeses and cured meats and so on. But if you're into Tex Mex or southern BBQ for example then you'll obviously find far better over there. It all depends on what you're after. Anyway, back to Merino!

It's obviously not ready and has turned cup games into a joke this season. Fans and players not knowing what's going on, refs using it for all sorts of decisions it wasn't designed for, ridiculously long stoppages. I bet there are plenty in the game who are already looking at how it can be used to bring in advertising like in American sports. Mental to be trialing this at a World Cup.

Agreed. Huddersfield or draw. Worst case scenario is Palace and Stoke win and we're 2 points above the drop and a bad week could drag us into the bottom 3. Best case scenario we're 5 points above with a game in hand, games running out, and those teams have used up of their more winnable games.

Felt before the game that, in the circumstances, this could be the most decisive fixture of our season. The position of the two clubs at kick off, the 3-week break right after it, and one of the few clearly winnable games left; the type of game we've thrown away until now. A 6-pointer. We're not home and dry by any means but we've taken the pressure off going into Huddersfield. Fair play to Rafa for the team selection and starting on the front foot. Man for man I'm not sure we're any better than Southampton but we look a better unit and you have to credit the manager for that.

Strawman argument right there.

Strange post. There wouldn't be any discussion about Mitrovic if our top striker had managed more than 5 goals all season. Or if we didn't look useless in front of goal every week. To call what's gone on the last 100 pages or so a "discussion" is generous on a level I didn't know existed. Discussions usually have finish lines. Outcomes. Not circular arguing by people talking past each other with fingers in their ears going "la la la can't hear you." Not one single step of progress has been made towards consensus or answering the plaintive mating cry of the blue tailed mitrononce as it warbles "but why, but why" in its nest. It's all very pointless. As is complaining about it, I'm aware. But I've got it off my chest now, so as you were. Why would you expect to reach an outcome, consensus, or finish line when you're talking about ever-changing scenarios such as a club's form and player selection? Last I checked this is a football forum. By your logic, we should shut down every thread on here because I don't see a consensus in any of them. The whole point of a forum is that people will exchange views, often opposing ones. We have here a situation where our top scorer is on 5 goals, and looks unlikely to reach the 9 goals which a striker on our books - who has been farmed out on loan - reached in his first season in the Premier League at the age of 21. Now said striker is playing and scoring regularly - albeit at a lower level - and it's inevitable people will draw comparisons at a time when the club are desperate for goals. We can't just throw toys out of the pram because people have opposing views.

Strange post. There wouldn't be any discussion about Mitrovic if our top striker had managed more than 5 goals all season. Or if we didn't look useless in front of goal every week.

I don't really buy the 'following instructions' angle which I think started off as speculation by one of the Chronicle hacks who passed it off as fact. In the last 10 minutes when you're chasing a game and players are tired and playing off instinct more, a lot of teams bring on a wild card. Either an inconsistent flair player or more often a big bastard to create chaos. They know the defending team will sit deep, and it offers a chance to launch balls into the box. We should know - we've conceded a few of these ourselves this season. We simply have no option like that to bring on without Mitro. Instead we bring on Joselu. Joselu was in the starting lineup every week for ages - what instructions was he following? I certainly hope all those sh*te performances weren't what Rafa was asking him to do! Gayle too has had his fair share of awful games where he's offered absolutely nothing on and off the ball. Are we supposed to believe Rafa has looked at that and thought "well done, Mitro wouldn't have done that"? At least with Perez you can make a case for his workrate. If we had any half decent striker then I might believe he's been left out the squad and farmed off on loan for tactical reasons. There's clearly more to this than meets the eye.

Of course it's must win. We don't play for three weeks after this. We haven't got many chances left to hoy away and this is one of the most winnable games left. Not an easy game by any means because of the pressure involved (not to mention the two teams are probably a similar level). They need it just as much as we do.

Has skill but tries risky stuff in his own half and loses the ball in areas where he shouldn't be taking risks. The jury is still out but in a team that's seriously lacking flair and creativity, we need him. He may make it as a winger but he's not a full back.

Better than with VAR in which linesmen aren't going to flag for tight offside calls in the first place as there is literally no benefit in them doing so. True, can see a lot of this happening. Linesmen will let play go on despite their doubts and figure that if it leads to a goal, the VAR people will deal with it anyway. It's better than risking wrongly flagging and creating an injustice that VAR can't reverse and having your name in the papers. If linesman start letting anything tight go, it'll lead to a lot of goals (hopefully correctly) being disallowed for offside. When that happens, it in turn creates a situation where fans can never freely celebrate until VAR confirms they've scored a goal. It dilutes the excitement of a goal going in, and I think that's one of the things which makes football unique compared with other sports. I was all in favour of the concept because certain teams are getting a lot of dodgy decisions their way while others clearly aren't. But there's no guarantee it'll be applied consistently and I hadn't imagined all this mess it would cause. Sports like rugby, cricket and American football have constant stoppages anyway, so it's easier to apply to those sports.

I think the suspicion for many has always been that he was left out for non-footballing reasons. He scored 9 goals in his debut Prem season at the age of 21, in a team that was relegated. Gayle and Joselu put together have 9 this season. He also has far more potential to improve than either of them because of his age.

They still have six very winnable games against Huddersfield, Watford, Bournemouth, Burnley, Swansea, Palace. They'll need to win most of those, but we've seen Swansea put a few wins together when they were looking hopeless.

I'd play one of the kids or a winger out of position over Joselu and Gayle at the minute. Hopefully Slimani means we don't need to resort to that, but if he's unanavailable for any games, I don't think these two have shown anything to warrant a place. The service has been limited fair enough, but they show very little of any substance on or off the ball and miss match-winning chances.

People saying it's a pen, come on. Do you think we'd ever have got that? It's a good point on the balance of chances, but almost all their momentum came from that nonsense pen. Our real f*ck up was Burnley. We'll need to take something off one of the top 6 now. Once they got the equaliser and it was clear the momentum was behind them, I thought we should've had Murphy and Kenedy on. They were wide open on the counter but we just didn't look capable of giving them something to worry about. I'm sure Rafa had his own ideas and maybe that saved the point but considering the contrast between Atsu and Murphy the other day, it was strange to see Atsu given the nod.

Shouldn't need to batter teams just to win by a goal. We had enough big chances to win and should have. We've had a few games like this now (Everton, Bournemouth, Swansea, today). If we had any half-decent striker we'd be comfortable and our survival now hinges on one coming in who can hit the ground running. The only positive is that it won't be hard to do better than Joselu or Gayle.

I think the message was try to go for the win but don't draw. Once it was 2-0, everyone seemed to want the game over with.

I'd eliminate the whole idea of the ref leaving the field at any point or seeing any replays because it takes ages. It should just be an earpiece and another ref advising him if he's making a clear and obvious error. That'll eliminate the most blatant f*ck ups but not all. I think the pen was far from clear and obvious and wasted time. If Firmino had scored it and it affected the result, there'd have been a lot of complaints.

I seem to be in the minority but I'm not convinced the penalty was "clear and obvious". There's contact, but Salah's made a meal of it and it's difficult to see if he is actually held back because of the way he's flung himself.