HawK

Yep

Give over

Scoring from a set piece is in no way an indictment of this formation or some of the performances out there, it'll be a miracle if we can hold onto this. I hope we do but it's going to be a tough ask.

Bout now I don't like that my stream seems to be about 86 years behind lol

-----------------Pope------------ --------Thiaw--Botman--Burn---- Murphy---------Miley--------Libra -----------Bruno------Tonali------ -----Elanga---------Woltemade---

Just switch it to that 'leaked' 3-5-2 and you don't even have to make any subs Eddie

Joelinton a complete passenger so far

Bruno, Tonali, Miley.. don't care who, pick one and put them at 6 with two others in front

+1 for having the ref mic feed into the stadium PA for the whole game

Hoping this is the wakeup call to Eddie that this lineup in this formation is absolutely horrific defensively

Thank you Sir

F5, F5, someone with a faster feed plz put me out of my misery

Great to see Tonali as the primary set piece taker, 2 years too late but whatevs

I thought Eddie was better than this, this formation with the personnel available is astounding

Ramsdale doesn't get that, for all his faults, that was a fantastic shot stop by Pope

At the time of kick-off, we'll have scored the outright fewest goals in the PL (1 game in hand ofc)

We can thank Graeme Le Saux's tactical acumen as to why he thinks we're playing Burn at LB in a 4-3-3 ahead of Livramento and Trippier

These don't have a clue, Robbie Earle just said we've signed Nick Woltemade for 92 million goals from Stuttgart

Tonali for me, mainly for FM reasons, shocked me when the news broke because of how good i thought he was and that he'd never join little old Newcastle. But for me, Woltemade is the most exciting signing of the current era, so much potential, so unique and so skillful dovetailed with players running beyond.

Very happy for him, the finish from Bruno's through-ball was not as easy as the commentators were making out, they were creaming themselves over the the pass itself but I thought the finish was extremely composed and a proper finisher's finish, through the legs. He had to sort out his gangly legs and get into the right shape and muscle past the defender to do it. Hope he kicks on and shows some of this at the PL level where seems to be a yard behind play most of the time.

I put a post in here a couple of weeks ago stating I couldn't see any improvement from his debut season in the CL compared to this season. The performance he put in last night against Bradford was the step up I was looking for, I've not seen him play that way before against any opposition and I've watched almost every game we've played one way or another that he's played in for us. You don't have to go back too far (Bromley Jan 2025) to see how badly we struggled against lower tier opposition, it's not as easy as you would think, and Miley bossed it. He made mistakes, but he's 19. It's not like this is a seasoned pro with poor decision making, he's got time to learn it. There's a reason you don't see super young players break into first teams very often in GK, CD, CM.. because the mistakes that get made there are critical, highlighted and very consequential. If your new superstar 18yr old winger fails to nutmeg the fall back and it's a turnover, so what. If Miley makes a mistake, it can directly lead to an opportunity for the opposing team. There might have been some tactical tweaks or a word in his ear from Eddie about having a bit more freedom, he certainly looked like he'd been given far more licence to get on the ball deep and dictate play. Some of his first touches and redirections of the ball were outrageous, no exaggeration. I mentioned it in the match thread, but a spot in front of our defence with midfielders ahead of him to play off and through seemed to be the making of him last night. I'd like to see him at the base behind Tonali and Bruno, who know when and how to move forward and cover each other. Being press-resistant in that 6 role will be a massive boon to our defence and playing out from the back and through a high press. As an aside I'm not sure why we seem to be married to this flat 3 in the middle, there's no verticality there or ways to play through teams, little movement or options on the ball.

When Messi was ripping it up in La Liga, he topped the most losses of possession stat in the league season after season. If losing the ball is so bad to you when trying to play progressively, perhaps go enjoy watching a team managed by Russell Martin instead.

Not seen anything of Elanga to suggest he displaces Murphy. But I want to see Elanga on the left because both Barnes and Gordon have been poor as well.

Looking forward to Wissa benefitting from Woltemade breaking ankles in the build up play