HawK

We were off to a man all match, and they had some really good play and intensity. Rogers looked great and a real threat on the ball. It's going to happen some matches, but 6 points from Man Utd, Palace and Villa is not to be sniffed at. Good reality check that hopefully refocuses us for the final run-in.

Like our cup win bounce in a way

Well done Harvey

Alright, come on lads. Show some energy this last 25 mins.

The only surprising thing is that they didn't score sooner and have more goals, we've been dreadful

When the ref and the co-comms are against you. Everyone hates us

We look so leggy to a man

Always does when pressed, it's not his game. He's great when we have plenty of the ball.

Let's get through to half time. They can't play with this pace for the full 90 minutes.

We gotta sit deeper and invite the press to play through them and counter with pace on flanks and up front. Our own high line in possession is very dangerous for us

I think his pace is deceptive, he never really looks like he's bombing about but he knows how fast he is and he does things like knocking the ball a few feet in front of him even with players close by because he's got the strength and burst of speed always there to prevent getting robbed of the ball.

Tino is a rare breed - his crossing with his left (weaker?) foot is surprisingly really good, that dinked ball to the far post has yielded a good return and he's consistent with it too.

Inverted wingers tore up 4-4-2s with overlapping full backs - it's not Pep-ball but Mourinho-ball from early Chelsea days with Duff & Robben. It gets you between the space between the full back and his closed central defender. Low blocks seems to be the response to inverted wingers, because they come inside, you can sit your defensive line very narrow and leave no space to get through centrally. If a ball does come in, it's an in-swinger which is super easy for a defender to get his head on and get it away. Wide, traditional wingers seems to look like a natural counter to low blocks, because with two touches you can make room for an out-swinging cross that your entire midfield and forward line can bomb into the box for. For inverted wingers, you've only got two options, through balls in the tight spaces around the edge of the box, or a chip to the far post. You're only targeting one or two players at most with that. A traditional winger can make a chance that 3 or 4 players could feasibly get on the end of out of nowhere. The other benefit of an out-swinger is that the overhits can keep the ball in play, and will often fall to the attacking team as the defending team will have their fullback in the box defender the incoming cross, and our left sided full back or midfielder can pick it up. An overhit in-swinger is a goal kick. What Murphy brings - and I've mentioned this before in match threads - is that he plays with pace and instinct. I don't mean he runs fast, but that he moves the ball very, very quickly. It seems almost anti-Howe ball. The comparison with Trippier & Almiron is that when we broke, the ball would hit Almiron, who would turn it back to Trippier. The whole opposition defence would get themselves sorted, we'd get ourselves sorted, and we'd camp outside their low block without actually an idea of what our next step would be. When Murphy started playing in front of Trippier, Trippier took a few games to adjust because Murphy wasn't waiting for an overlap or to cut back - he was spotting the runs, the space and putting that super dangerous early ball in from out wide. It's not Murphy adjusting to playing regularly, it's the team getting used to the speed of thought and action that Murphy brings, we have a much, much more direct threat now in Murphy that we didn't have before and it's a breath of fresh air to see that incisiveness. It's picking the right tools for the job, but having wingers who can whip outswingers in to dangerous positions is something that a lot of modern defences are going to struggle with. Most of us can remember flying wingers bombing down to the byline like Gillespie, or Neville overlapping and pinging in some peaches, but the lads playing today haven't seen that in their adulthoods and are going to have to learn how to deal with it. They've been coached to defend against the inverted wingers of the past 10 years.

Thank you - I appreciate the correction, every day is a learning day !

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c15vk01ey01o Jacob Murphy: Does Newcastle winger deserve place in the England squad? - BBC Sport Usually you get a bit of 19vs1 voting and bias against the club on a vote, and mostly Newcastle fans are going to be clicking on a link for a Newcastle player, but when the title of article includes 'England Squad', you tend to get a lot more neutral clicks. The sentiment there is quite telling, people outside our club rate him as well.

Bruno & Tonali ... Lee & Speed Lee & Batty Cabaye & Tiote ... Parker & Emre With our previous pairings, I don't think either player could walk into a world XI, but were very effective for us at times (OK Parker & Emre is a bit of a joke submission). Tonali & Bruno could be first names in their position on a World XI team sheet. Who else is in the conversation ? Rodri ?

With Botman, Schar, Burn and Lascelles are seemingly available next year, I really would rather we didn't outlay so much on a position I think we have depth in and we instead invested heavily in a ball-playing keeper instead. Then again, I was wrong when we signed Gordon when we already had Maxi. I was also wrong when we signed Barnes, when we already had Gordon. I've been right about many things tactically - but come transfers I'm evidently clueless. So if he arrives, for whatever we pay, I'll be backing him and the club 100% this time around. If he doesn't, I'll just keep pining for Kelleher/Trafford

I come back this this, I'm still pinching myself. I might have been an FM nerd, but I've been buying Sandro Tonali on every game since he was 16. But in the real world, he was becoming to Milan what Maldini was, what Gerrard was to Liverpool or Raul to Real. How on earth did we get him here.

I think it was considered a hot take back in January when I made the latest All time PL NUFC XI thread but I had him in there with Bruno. They for me are the best two central midfielders we've had in my lifetime supporting this club. And I think Tonali's even better than Bruno now too.

Agreed, but I think Gordon could do with showing he can work as hard on the right as the left though. From my eye he's never looked like he's really put in a shift on that side and played with a bit of a hump, but I could be reading too much into it. Having the flexibility of moving between Barnes/Gordon/Murphy across both wings with the potential of Isak dropping off with Gordon up front could be an absolute nightmare for teams to manage in man-marking systems.

I think he's been markedly better since he can quarterback the team rather than solely remote-control Almiron in front of him, he's steadily got better the longer he's played behind Murphy. He doesn't need to run beyond Murphy, because Murphy can do all the attacking legwork himself. He can slot in and let an additional midfielder run in with Murphy instead, like Tonali or Bruno. Players at the back with the vision and the calmness of Tripps and Schar are worth their weight in gold when they're on form.

Beyond the number of assists, look at the chances created vs the assists converted, i.e. converted chances created. His record is phenomenal, better than anyone in that list. He is creating GREAT chances when he gets the opportunity, it's not a numbers game for him.

Aye it's the best thing for Gordon long-term imo, learnings to be had for him - restraint, patience, resilience etc. Feels like typing out my kids' school's values

"We must remain focused and level headed and take each game by game" "We have to go to Villa and give a level of performance that we've been giving in the past few weeks" "We have to be consistent and give the right performances to get us into the Champions League"

Tindall getting better at this media lark now, he's giving Eddie a run for his money with his deadpan level-headedness in this post match interview. Almost started to crack a smile at the mention of the cup final, otherwise very stoic.