TRon

Based on bleeding black and white and howay the lads. Not much else.

It was also sloppy play from Hall to give the ball away from our set piece.

Not sure what we work on during the week. The players look like they have no idea where they are supposed to be. The only bright point is that we haven't conceded, but that's more down to Palace being shit in front of goal rather than us being rock solid.

Not surprising since we pass it to one of their players whenever we get close to their penalty area.

Aiming a set piece for Bruno to get up at the back post....not sure that was a great idea.

Nowt stopping him staking his claim today though is there.

Hopefully Munoz is fucked now for the equaliser.

Aye, at least we might get more supply from the right now.

Doesn't want to risk Wilson going off as well after 30 mins.

He's one of the few Newcastle players not passing to the opposition. Some pretty poor stuff down both flanks so far.

He's probably pig sick of getting clobbered without a cross coming in from either wing.

It does make you wonder whether it's just the high pressing style which doesn't seem to fit those two playing together. If we played a more possession based game slightly slower like they do on the continent, would they be better suited to that?

He can play whatever formation he wants as long as it's making use of our best players. Tbf he can make use of our worst players if he ends up winning with them.

Thought he might have brought Trippier in for Tino tbh. Anyway I'd like to see Tonali playing the no 6 and Bruno further forward and see if that works better.

But I suppose the elephant in the room question is, would City have done any of those things if they weren't allowed to build a winning team? They might have done, but the first thing they did was spend gazillions on building a title winning side that qualified every year for the CL. I'm not saying we shouldn't be doing more. But I can understand why there is less gung ho about it when so many obstacles are carefully being placed to make sure we don't implement the one change which would send us crashing into the stratosphere.

Except City's leadership was backed by being able to spend more than everyone else on their squad which we can't replicate. Would be interesting to see successful how City's USP would have been without the money.

We had two weeks rest before playing West Ham and Eddie was saying we had a good week's training to back it up, then we got beat 2-0. I don't really put too much stock in the idea that teams are fatigued by Europe. Especially teams like Liverpool who can probably put out two teams which are worth more than our first team. I don't know how many games we've lost to Liverpool in Howe's time here but it feels like just about all of them.

But then they could afford to poach your management structure if they really wanted to. It's an unsustainable model for being Number 1.

Every time we drop points to a bottom half side we need to beat a top half side to make up the difference. Palace aren't a top half side but with Liverpool up next we need to win this one.

It is still quite useful to showcase just how desperate the cartel is to prevent anyone threatening their dominance. In theory I would probably have supported a move to stop state ownership of a club...if it hadn't already happened years ago and those same clubs winning honours and automatic entry into the elite competitions.

Would be interesting to see if Bruno got into the box more if he was played as an advanced midfielder. He scored goals in his first season here, can remember one really late winner where he arrived to head it in right at the whistle. That doesn't happen any more, maybe because he's more conscious his role is the deep lying midfielder.

Yes, that's what I said basically, I think that's why there will be some friction with Mitchell and Howe, it's inevitable when the owners are setting expectations of Europe and want to increase PSR headroom at the same time. Howe believes he needs good quality PL ready players to deliver, but that model doesn't leave any margin for failure. Don't qualify for Europe and you are basically forced to sell players as happened this summer.

I just don't think any of Willock, Joelinton or Longstaff has the deep lying midfielder profile. Murphy RW though...would never write that off, could definitely happen!

Depends who's perspective you are looking from. A manager will want the best players right now, so you get Eddie willing to pay a premium for PL proven players. His job is on the line depending on results, he's not got time to take a year developing great prospects. But the owners will be conscious that paying big money and wages only pays off with success. If we don't get Europe then those same players lose value every year, and your top assets start getting itchy feet.

Yeah that's not going to happen.