TRon

Nunez still found himself with a run on the last man regardless of the luck of the bounce, then it happened again a few minutes later. Like I said, same happened last season as well, but this time we were 1-0 up against ten men and had no need to leave that sort of space available to a player like Nunez.

We weren't really unlucky though. We missed our chances, fair enough that can happen to any team, but we also got caught flat footed at the back the same as we did last season, except this time we managed to do it against 10 men.

Also playing as a number 6 in Italy probably requires a different skillset to playing one in England.

Or maybe he just worked better when he had willing runners around him like Longstaff, Joelinton and Willock. Not sure him and Tonali are going to work if we are playing an intensity is our identity style.

Willock and Longstaff might not be as technically accomplished as some of our midfielders, but they are both quite mobile in different ways. Willock had pace to burn, and Longstaff has a good stride which achieves the same thing.

Nothing wrong with losing, but when we are getting passed off the park, there needs to be some questions asked.

He was floating them too high, never been a fan of floated set pieces.

At the same time, not sure how our "intensity is our identity" mantra is going to work against the best teams if they can pass around our press so easily. The balance of the midfield doesn't look right, we just couldn't get close to either side.

Shit, forgot Jao Pedro was signed by Brighton.

Good shout. Inshallah your status as a bell end will be rubber stamped by 8pm.

Yeah had to be something like that. I can also imagine Howe isn't a big fan of having cameras inside his dressing room.

Pochettino's reputation is going to come under increasing scrutiny unless they pick up some results pretty quickly.

After last week I don't think we'll tolerate another game of sloppy finishing. Need to find our shooting boots today.

Nice little sideways dig at Man U there.

Agree. If Targett is running at 100% then Burn shouldn't be starting ahead of him IMO.

Felt a bit robbed by the closing minutes of the episodes. We finished with two draws, and while it was always going to be about the game against Leicester where we got the point to clinch CL football, still felt like we should have seen all the goals against Brighton which put us within touching distance of our goal. I enjoyed the series, don't get me wrong, just felt like we had a lot more story in the football that didn't get told, while there was just a bit too much focus on the boardroom.

Jackson will need to find his shooting boots during the 25 mins added time, Chelsea and the PL support club can't afford him to keep missing sitters.

My bad. Didn't realise he missed last season, I meant the relegation busting season when he was pretty good.

If he can't he won't have much of a future at Newcastle. We need to see the Targett of last season.

Must admit I was also surprised, given FFP restrictions, that we are keeping Dummett and Ritchie on playing contracts. Ritchie has generally been better than I expected on his few brief sub cameos last season, but you wouldn't want to be relying on either him or Dummett in a starting role. Feels like Howe has got his way on this, he must really value having them around as cheerleaders, and because he's done so well as manager, no one is going to argue. But if they end up playing more than they should and cost us points, then attitudes might harden.

He wasn't technically brilliant, but at least he was one of the few midfielders we had who could actually move from one section of the pitch to the other at above 10mph. At that point where we were either fighting relegation or trying to win our way back into the Premier he was good enough.

Yep, there's no getting around it, we obviously only buy players we really want, and there isn't any central defenders that we can afford right now given FFP is still a major restriction.

Haven't watched it yet, but that's already narked me.

Looks like it might be the only option.