Cronky

Because you are wrong.

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/football/400012/Steve-McClaren-Newcastle-Watford-preview Only the Daily Star, but good news if true.

Aye, loads of space in front of our full back, then we pass directly to feet rather than ahead of him Yes, that sort of unconfident passing is a problem for our side. But Colback is the last player who can be accused of that. He is the one who most often tries to play it into someone's stride, rather than at their feet. The player has his faults, but that's not one of them.

It was a reasonable description of what went wrong. However, short of any ideas (inevitably) about how to put things right. We usually rely on Wijnaldum to make runs into the box, but for some reason he didn't figure too much tonight. That screen analysis showed he had few touches on the ball. Perhaps the delivery wasn't right. Our crossing wasn't too great throughout, which obviously didn't help. We often seemed to hit the first defender, or spend too much time trying to work room for the cross. Janmaat did okay, but Haidara doesn't look that confident going forward. He's strong, but seems to struggle to keep hold of the ball and use it when under pressure. But there are two bigger problems at the moment. If your central midfield are going to figure going forward you need a striker who can hold the ball up, and that's a very weak area with Cisse. He also doesn't put himself about enough, only making token challenges for aerial balls, and not showing much physical courage in the area. The other one - as Neville was saying - is the midfield. We're not defending our back four and we're not preventing counter-attacks. Personally, I'd always felt that Colback-Wijnaldum would be the better combination (though not ideal), but it would really help if we had a strong and fit De Jong to compensate for Wijnaldum's deeper position. Either that, or move Perez inside into that number 10 role. Perez is very deceptive, in that he looks like a breath of wind would blow him over. In fact, he's very strong, and can cope with getting buffeted around in the centre. There are certain players that I don't think McClaren has quite got sussed, and Perez and Cisse are the main two. Sorry for the long post, but there were signs out there of the potential to improve. A win on Saturday would help a lot for confidence.

He had a surprisingly poor game yesterday. Mentally he didn't look with it, and didn't get involved. I don't know whether he actually played for Holland last week, and whether that affected him. Undoubtedly a good player, so I'm assuming this is a one-off.

We'd better hope that Mitrovic stays on the pitch, or Toney comes good, because Cisse is a waste of space as a lead striker. He can't hold the ball up, he doesn't challenge for 50-50 balls, his passing is wayward and he shows none of the aggression that you need to impose yourself in that position. The guy doesn't seem to care, which must be frustrating for his team mates. We also lack physical, defensive presence in midfield. Anita tries but he's just not strong enough. If De Jong can get fit, I'd move Wijnaldum further back. Not ideal but the best solution at the moment. Why Perez isn't starting I don't know. He shows spirit and guile. The only encouraging thing about tonight was that we improved as the game went on.

And doesn't look like he cares.

Anita wasn't the only one at fault for the goal. Janmaat - not for the first time - panicked and Wijnaldum (who has looked out of sorts tonight) made a very tentative challenge. But we seem to lack any kind of presence when the ball breaks around the centre and edge of either penalty area. Those are the situations where you expect a midfield anchorman to intervene with a clearance / tackle, or a shot / pass, and it just doesn't happen. It's not just been a problem in this game.

I'm in the process of reading the book about his time at Madrid, and some of his behaviour when under pressure or facing defeat was quite bizarre. There could well be parallels here. A lot of his behaviour reminded me of the stories about Brian Clough. Both went in for a lot of psychological manipulation, where they'd do anything to generate strong emotion in the players, with it be positive motivation to live up to praise, or negative emotion to prove him wrong. A lot of what they said, in public or private, was rubbish but designed to produce an effect. Their success can't be denied, but you wonder whether certain problems come in the wake of those methods. Eventually some players might get fed up with it, or that it has less effect with familiarity. There's also the potential problem of Mourinho losing his grip, and his becoming unable to distinguish between theatre that he creates and reality. Of course it may be simpler, and after all the success he simply can't deal with being number 2. He couldn't cope with Barca, and it looks like he's struggling to cope with Man City.

I'm not sure about worst, but Obertan is the most annoying. He could actually play much better if he showed some commitment.

For closing down to be effective, the whole team needs to do it, and that was the problem on Saturday. If that baboon had had his mates around, we'd have seen a different outcome IMO.

Yeah, I agree. I'm expecting Dummett to have a good season, now that he's got that bit of experience. Haidara has been very unimpressive so far. He's fluffing his chance.

I know what you mean. He looked overweight at first, and seemed to be bursting out of his shirt. It may be my imagination, but he looked like he'd trimmed down a bit on Saturday. Hopefully, there's more to come, but I share your worry. Ben (post above) has made a good point. He's used to playing with a team that's better than 90% of the opposition, and at a pace that's easier than the Premiership. He'll need to make both a mental and a physical adjustment. Apart from anything else, a sending off and a suspension is now going to hurt his team more than was the case with Anderlecht or Partizan. We need all the help we can get.

He played well. He was the only midfield player who was able to get close enough to his opponent to get them moving and passing backwards. And despite what people what people say, he can pass the ball.

None of this is going to make any difference. 'Look at him, he did something worse' isn't any kind of defence. I just hope Toney turns out to be good, because I think we might need him.

Krul, Wijnaldum, Colback, Colo and Mbemba all did well. Haidara put in a couple of good challenges, but otherwise he seems to be slipping backwards. I don't know when Dummett's due to return but I think he'll make a difference. Not too late to bring in another striker,eh? Mitrovic looks likely to miss half the season.

Perez for Thauvin would be a good call. He works hard, and might nick something.

We can't complain about the red due to previous incidents, as if that should have a direct correlation? Can't tell if serious or trolling No, what I was saying is those sorts of challenges sometimes get a red, sometimes a yellow. If you put yourself at risk of getting a red like that, you can't complain when the call goes against you.

We can't complain about the red. He's got away with two bad challenges already this season. This time, luck went against him. We've done okay since. But sooner or later Giroud will come on and he'll cause us more problems than Walcott.

The head tells me that Arsenal have better players, but find it difficult to break down a packed defence, and that our best chance is to treat it like an away game. Get men behind the ball and hit them on the break. The heart wants to see us have a go at them. I'm not sure which route McClaren is going to take, seeing we're playing at home.

We look a lot more capable going forward, so the question mark is over the defence, and the main factor here is how quickly and well Mbemba adjusts to a new league. He's clearly got some ability, but he's been caught out a few times. That can change though. As for the future, well I do believe the statement that the spending will continue into the next few two or three windows. So top 6 and a trophy should be realistic, if we can keep a good spirit around the place. Financial fair play seems to have gone out of the window, so top four looks further and further out of reach, long-term.

Good, but I'd still vote for this: With the words: Floor...Floor- reeeeaan, Floor-reeeaan Toe-oh-vahn. (Repeat until hoarse...). Simple but appropriately full of awe, admiration and a touch of Gallic gravitas. Now we just need to team-up at an away match, with additional ingredients: six pints, steely determination, a packet of Tunes and a performance like last night and we are offski! A new chant is launched to echo around the cosmos for ever.... Being a gentleman of senior years, I don't join in with many conversations about chanting BUT.... this one would be funny.

He showed a bit of strength for that first goal. He could notch a few for us.

He was a weak link today, but good grief this self-righteousness There's a point there though. Many people watch football and they only see what happens in that space where the ball is. If Colback makes the occasional sliding tackle or block they think he was awesome. They don't see the bigger picture, how the players move without the ball, how and when they press the oppososition or when they take a step back and fall back to formation. It's sad but true. Looks like the professionals like McClaren can't see it either. They really ought to come on here more often.

We looked a lot more secure once we stopped trying to press them high up the pitch, and just concentrated on getting behind the ball when they were in possession. Until the last 10 minutes, when we rode our luck a bit, they didn't look like scoring in the second half. I liked Mitrovic's performance. Against other sides, when we can get more support to him, he'll be a good player for us. Perez plays with so much more spirit than Obertan. That alone should give him the nod.