The College Dropout

Sane gets on my tits. Always hanging out wide. Get in the box fella.

The good footballer angle at this level is like someone being intelligent in an office environment. I've worked with some very intelligent people who are crap at their jobs. Being an intelligent person or a good footballer rightfully buys you more country. But it doesn't matter as much as getting the job done. Not strictly talking about Florian here. We've just had a number of players who are tidy ability wise but not very good at their jobs. Janmaat, Santon, Colo to a less degree Anita

What a mightily weird post. Lingard did a dance move. You’ve gone on to talk about guns, limping, throwing money and gangsters. Because he did a dance move. This post is worse than the after / Lascelles post. If you see a black person do something that looks hip hop oriented, don’t embarass yourself like that again. Didnt mention anything about a black person in my post. No but you’ve seen a man dancing and then gone on to talk about several unrelated cliches of rap / gangster music. And a band totally unrelated to Lindgard or the dance who haven’t been relevant in Lingards life time. Don’t play dense. He’s danced and you’ve made several quantum leaps about god knows what. I can only assume you’ve seen him do the dance and attributed the dance and/or him to a Gangsta music caricature.

What a mightily weird post. Lingard did a dance move. You’ve gone on to talk about guns, limping, throwing money and gangsters. Because he did a dance move. This post is worse than the after / Lascelles post. If you see a black person do something that looks hip hop oriented, don’t embarass yourself like that again.

Wasn't that the problem with England under Sven? Cramming all the best players in? You have to put out the best team you can, not best individuals. Even our best players have massive flaws in their games and need help. Then you factor in the best team to face your opponent. It's not going to be the same. You pick the same 11 when you believe in them and/or lack alternatives. We have a lot of players of middling ability. Gayle's probably the most likely to score but offers the least in general play. Joselu the opposite. Mitro somewhere in the middle. We have that issue throughout the team.

Surely if things aren't working... you change them?

Overly heavy for his physique but still weak as piss?

Aye Merino was worse... This one isn't good enough but others played much worse.

I'd just like for him to receive the ball, go forward, pass it to another Newcastle United player

Well Ritchie played LWB and he's a RM so it went accordingly today. And Chancel... he's not very good either. So we are pretty stuck.

Who has written him off? He's been pap, he's costing us goals. He's struggling so much with basic defending. Every ball over the top he was scrambling. A lack of agility, a lack of pace. Spreading panic. Air kicks. Ducking headers. Playing attackers onside. He's rightfully being criticised. Over the medium term, I hope he can become good. But we need to stay up. We need points and clean sheets now. We need Lascelles in and Lejeune out asap. Reintroduce him and rebuild his confidence later. There's a lot of negativity surrounding him that I'm seeing. Don't think it's very useful personally, of course he's struggling at the moment, everyone is, but I tend to veer more towards staying behind a new player who is in an adjustment phase than to be critical of his every move. Still lots of positive signs from him this season. He's started and finished maybe 6 games, we've not had a clean sheet with him in it iirc... You recalled incorrectly. Sorry. 8 games completed. 1 clean sheet.

Zidane keeps persisting with the same shit. Make a fucking change man. The way they've played all season. 2nd is ambitious. Went from scoring in every game... to barely creating chances.

Aye, I liked him as well. Good player We needed a defender to come in and have this type of immediate impact.

Who has written him off? He's been pap, he's costing us goals. He's struggling so much with basic defending. Every ball over the top he was scrambling. A lack of agility, a lack of pace. Spreading panic. Air kicks. Ducking headers. Playing attackers onside. He's rightfully being criticised. Over the medium term, I hope he can become good. But we need to stay up. We need points and clean sheets now. We need Lascelles in and Lejeune out asap. Reintroduce him and rebuild his confidence later. There's a lot of negativity surrounding him that I'm seeing. Don't think it's very useful personally, of course he's struggling at the moment, everyone is, but I tend to veer more towards staying behind a new player who is in an adjustment phase than to be critical of his every move. Still lots of positive signs from him this season. There's negativity... because he's been bad... because he looks to be struggling with defending... not just one aspect.. but... defending as a whole. That is his job.... so he's going to get criticised. This is a forum... to talk, share ideas and debate. He's started and finished maybe 6 games, we've not had a clean sheet with him in it iirc... he's directly been at fault for multiple goals. SO here we are... talking about how bad he's been. I dunno what the problem is. Nobody is saying he should be sold in January or banished from the first team forever. It took about 18 months for that to be the case for Jack Colback man (unanimously anyway). Nobody's written Lejeune off.

Going forward in open play he's been poor. That's his big problem. He's not a wingback and appropriately he got rinsed and he was culpable for 2 goals. Rafa hung him out to dry imo. The header and tackle, absolutely clueless.

He really was, he served his purpose then should have come off later on. Merino was arguably worse, but that doesn't align with any narrative about who players are overall. Agree with you here. He wasn't good but he wasn't one of the worst performers. Not even close.

We should be able to criticise him. Some take criticism of him too heavy. Overall i'm happy for NUFC under Ashley to live and die by Rafa but he's made mistakes and he's not infallible. IMO he hund Ritchie out to dry today. As of now - Lejeune looks a poor signing.

Tbf they barely have shots on target. Put the Stoke GK in my FF today as well. FFS.

Worst thing about today... with all Conte's moaning about fixture congestion... Chelsea took it easy on us imo. Just did enough. As soon as we went up, it looked like they would score. once they got in the lead, handbrake back on. At 3-1... full on preservation. Apart from Fab and Hazard who were subbed to stay fresh nobody else wanted to score a 4th.

Growing.

Nah, I use it so often because our players have performed so poorly. I started this some time ago but you know... we've been pretty good for 14-15 months. We're back to the days of Colo Clown and Willo the tank engine centrebacks. Non-defending fullbacks. No creativity in midfield. No skill up front. And it just so happens my descriptive word of choice for ineptitude is pap.

I've never got the impression that he thinks like a defender. Someone determined to not concede. Might be worth a try in midfield. I don't know. A skilled and capable footballer but a poor defender.

Who has written him off? He's been pap, he's costing us goals. He's struggling so much with basic defending. Every ball over the top he was scrambling. A lack of agility, a lack of pace. Spreading panic. Air kicks. Ducking headers. Playing attackers onside. He's rightfully being criticised. Over the medium term, I hope he can become good. But we need to stay up. We need points and clean sheets now. We need Lascelles in and Lejeune out asap. Reintroduce him and rebuild his confidence later.

I've said it before but let's get Ritchie or Murphy... someone else with some work rate off the ball in that position. I don't see how they could offer less than he does. Or better yet. No AM. 3 central midfielders with one tasked with supporting the striker. He's good at pressing and tbf that's how we got our goal - can't recall if he was heavily involved. But that's it man. Quality on the ball is rare with this lad. Missing out on RLC was massive. I'd rather central defenders and fullbacks that can defend but limited going forward. And attackers that can attack and limited defensively.

That is hilarious. He's pap mind. I'm sorry. On the ball as an AM. Totally pap. Not good enough for this level.