tmonkey

Shelvey has comfortably been our best and most composed player.

Joselu is so s*** he scores.

Brilliant from Shelvey.

ROFL.

Lascelles is a mediocre defender and Clark looks nervous.

Perez was programmed to not be able to stop and adjust once he starts running.

Class little deft shot by Wijnaldum tbf.

Shepherd imo was milking the club and running it in a manner not too dissimilar to Ashley in some aspects. Things like: - renting an empty warehouse from his brother for an annual fee that was almost the same as the cost of buying the warehouse outright. - declaring dividends for himself and the Halls whilst at the same time stating we had no transfer funds. Shepherd used the dividend money to increase his shares in the club iirc. - utilizing one agent so much that this agent had an actual office in St James', with Freddy's son working for said agent out of that office (i.e. the Shepherd family personally financially benefits from transfers, incentivizing overpayments). IIRC the Shepherds had rumoured interest in McKay's agency firm, but don't think that was ever confirmed. - terrible managerial appointments, some of which showed zero ambition. It's absolute sheer luck that he had a genuine world class "Geordie" manager in Sir Bobby out there, with emotional ties to NUFC, looking to come home (in the same way we're lucky the situation with Rafa has him here). If Sir Bobby had no ties with NUFC he'd probably have stayed well clear. Sir Bobby is Freddy's only good appointment. - Messed Sir Bobby (and others) around in the transfer market numerous times, refusing to buy players the manager wanted and sometimes selling players without the mangers knowledge. Remember the Michael Carrick debacle? Available from West Ham for £2m with his contract running out, Sir Bobby made it clear he wanted Carrick, Shepherd offers £0.5m knowing it would be rejected. Meanwhile he was happy to spend big on players he probably had self-interest connections with. Always thought there was something fishy about not wanting to meet Fenerbahce's £8m price for Anelka when the player was desperate to come here and Souness desperately wanted him (iirc Shepherd was offering half that), yet being happy to spunk £17m on Owen. - Shepherd drove out Keegan imo, think Kevin knew that the Shepherds and Halls Snr/Jnr didn't have the ambitions Sir John Hall initially had and that they were looking to milk NUFC with the flotation. - Having Hall/Shepherd family members on the "Board" of NUFC, with some of them never actually setting foot in the club (bit like Ashley and his jobs for the boys). And this is just the s*** we know about. Everything Shepherd did in his running of the club was pretty much Ashley-esque, and I've always felt that Ashley may have bought the club having seen, or been told of, the ways in which it could be milked.

Ayoze struggles to combine controlling a ball + maintaining his balance + being aware of what the defender is doing. It's like every time he gets the ball to feet he's in his own little mini game world where he's trying to get all three aspects going, but at least one of them at any one point is failing. On top of this he's really not skillful or quick enough to play the way/style that he's trying to play - a bit like that kid in your playground football side who believes he's alot better than he is so goes up front and keeps on trying to dribble past players every time he gets the ball (whilst failing). The only positives to his game at the moment are that he's providing decent movement so is popping up in decent attacking positions, and that he's still trying to attack or take his man on no matter how many times he fails (i.e. he's not trying to hide and play it safe like a Colback type would). Everything else in his game is poor though, which renders the positives moot since he's either losing possession easily or shooting meekly.

Lascelles .

Rafa writing in his notepad "my lot are s***".

If they was Shelvey it'd be guaranteed red card.

Hope the ref added a minute on for Knockeart walking off slowly.

Can't say it wasn't coming. They've been on top the whole game. We've had nothing in terms of clear chances.

Iirc that Santon in CM nonsense came after a defeat to Chelsea where Santon was unfairly thrown in there and looked like a lost boy, but more importantly Pardew declared that using stats is better than using your own eyes to judge (and therefore Davide had played well in CM according to the stats, even if your eyes said something else). Classic Pardew.

I'll admit to being a Ritchie doubter, and I still am to some extent. Part of that is because I've got an inherent bias towards what I think a winger should be (fast, tricky, able to beat players and stretch teams - basically pre-injuries Keith Gillespie ). I think Ritchie is a decent player generally, if he's adding end product on top of the hard work consistently then he's firmly a "good" player and I'm happy he's in the team. I recognize the importance of having someone with his tenacity and leadership in the team/at the club and how it's a positive influence on those around him, but at the same time I'll always be anticipating a run of form where he produces nothing because I don't think he's talented enough/has enough in his game to keep this level of form up in the long term. Once he gets more attention and is better marked I'm guessing he'll be producing nothing alot of the time, and if/when it happens I'll always want the club to be looking to upgrade. It's almost like having a winger version of Kevin Nolan, as much as you like him and what he brings to the side, and no matter how favourable the stats are you know if there's a Cabaye calibre upgrade out there you'd be daft not to take it. If it doesn't happen and he keeps the current level of form up, i.e. I'm completely wrong, then even better. We have a good quality player to help drive the team.

Beast of a CM.

Lascelles MOTM for the goal line clearance and goal. Overall Merino and Gamez were the best players on our team. Gamez looked like a reincarnation of Dennis Irwin, solid and consistent at pretty much everything both attacking and defending.

Utter, utter gash from Atsu.

5 minutes...where'd that come from.

Diame

Beastly header by Lascelles.

Now we need to stick Shelvey and Gayle on. A ball over the top will do these.

He's been terrible for a long while now. Sad that this is the same player who looked promising in his first full season.

It's far too early to judge Murphy, sometimes all that's needed is a goal or a good piece of play to bring the confidence out, but at the same time he does need to show something. So far he's shown literally nothing other than an ability to lose the ball easily.