TRon

Don't really need to be updated on his business antics any more. If he's not buying a football club he should just fuck off and stop appearing on boards like this.

Despite the massive investment in the last couple of windows since the takeover, one or two injuries to key players, and we are still struggling. January will be interesting as I would think this time we will make signing quality wide men a priority, and hopefully a midfieder as well. Fraser and Almiron should be on the bench at best, and Murphy shouldn't be anywhere near that either.

He never looks fit to me. I don't know if that's just his natural shape but he looks a touch overweight to me since he's been here.

Can't really argue with any of that, Fraser was selfish and it hurt his team big time. Can't blame you for being pissed off.

I've mentioned this previously as well, and was told our last couple of goals came from corners. But for all the big men we have in the team, we rarely look dangerous when they all go up for them. Lascelles is a big miss in that regard, he really attacked the corners.

Well that's why we laid out all that money on Isak. But it's the players either side of him who are the bottleneck, there's just not enough coming from out wide or from Willock.

Surprised to see so many pessimistic posts, I think this game will suit us better, they will press more than Palace or Bournemouth, and that should leave us space to hit them with the likes of Isak and hopefully ASM.

Yep. As I said in the Fulham match thread, I expect Isak to look a lot more dangerous as they will be attacking which will leave him a lot more space to use his assets, pace being one of them.

I know the point you were making, but I'm of the opinion as a natural no 9, Wilson attacks spaces that gets him goals even in games where he isn't involved much. How many times have you seen him even this season making late runs into the box and then gesticulating to the wide men with both arms at his feet that they should have played him in?

Unless the owner is casting sideways glances at Poch who probably fancies a return to the EPL.

There are also a clutch of sides who can challenge us that aren't far off now either, such as Villa and Everton. I expect we'll finish above them tbh, but there's not that much difference in squad quality, if anything they probably have more depth.

Yeah, annoyingly they were just the type of players they needed. Still not convinced Maupay was a good buy though, despite that goal.

He needed to buy a Fallaini type rather than Paqueta to suit his big bruiser style of football.

Yeah I think away games suit us a bit better, players like ASM or even Fraser will have more space to attack. Isak will also be a much bigger threat.

Always felt that was the wrong move for him. He would have been far better waiting for a better suited club.

There was still plenty of work to do before that ends up in the net though. Classic Wilson once he gets the goal in his sights, he homes in like like a guidance missile. A Youtube collection of his goals for Newcastle would show some really inventive finishes.

Does exactly the stuff that the likes of Willock and Almiron can't. You can really understand why Howe was so keen on him.

That's Moyes football for you. Never been a fan, his sides tend to be well organised, and very physically strong, they've never been renowned for slick passing football.

It could be argued we got a bonus point yesterday, thought the penalty decision could easily have gone the other way. Their manager wasn't happy with it at all, the ball deflected from his knee to his hand, it wasn't really intentional.

I think you need things to fall for you when you don't have much firepower. It's like our second half of last season, we were't scoring loads, but we won a lot of 1-0's and were CL form from January. Does that mean we should be finishing top 4? Very hard to replicate that without quality in depth. Wolves or Brighton could just as easily finish 12th - although I will say that Brighton do play really good football and just seem to outplay a lot of their opponents.

This is the time he would have been dropped if we had more options in midfield.

He's a different type of forward. Looks like he can finish, but Wilson is a goal hunter, watching yesterday, you couldn't help feeling he would have got on the end of one or two moves to get a goal. I know the service was abysmal, but Wilson usually finds a way. The goal against Forest was a prime example, nothing really on, but a couple of clever touches and bang, it's in the net.

Almiron actually was very lively yesterday, he made some great runs, and worked some very dangerous positions, but once he got there, as usual, he had no idea where to go. Fraser was just unable to get in the game because there was no space, and he hasn't got the tools to make any. As Gallowgate Toon has said above, he's a counter attacking player, he needs a head start on defenders otherwise they can usually shut him down pretty easily.

What about Wolves last season?

Those are teams that had enough firepower in forward positions to turn draws into wins. I felt we could have played another 45 mins yesterday and still not scored.