Yorkie

Impossible to deny at this point. December always looked incredibly difficult and ultimate it's been a total failure. How much of it was preventable by the manager's decisions is entirely unclear imo. But go into it with a fully available squad and I feel pretty confident it looks different as of right now.

If you remove all of the context then this is a run which calls into question the manager's suitability for staying in the job. Personally I think there are significant mitigating circumstances, meanwhile he has boatloads of credit in the bank. It'll get worse from here given the fixtures ahead of us. So I guess we're going to learn whether our owners are the type to consider the bigger picture, or if they twist at the first sign of trouble.

Have you missed the academy player holding the midfield together foe months? He's not averse to playing young players if they're capable.

Does it? To me it screams of the cumulative effects of constantly playing with an unfit squad.

Critical that we don't let it get ugly.

Stands.

Wheels coming off now like.

Good grief, hanging on here.

Getting absolutely rinsed every time on the break.

Ergh if Isak goes near post with that late header it's in. There's easily still goals in this for both teams like. 2-2 seems a likely outcome.

Huge chance at the end of the half there.

Dismal all round from our point of view. We lack composure all over the park.

Come on

hilariously dark nod to the song the fans have been singing to him.

Salernitana are rock bottom with one win from 17. That's some hopeful, possibly ingenious scouting.

That first sentence. A valid argument sullied by a blatantly incendiary and pejorative tone. So fucking tedious.

Was this by any chance after the washing machine analogy? After years of Tyler sounding like he wanted to be literally anywhere but the gantry, I don't mind a bit of Drury. But there are more misses than hits with his patter, I can't deny.

What a load of patronising guff, man, howay. This crop of players doesn't owe a thing to a single Newcastle fan. They've lost a few games and not maintained their absolutely obscene standards during a gruelling schedule and a crazy injury crisis. Big wup.

Thoroughly unimpressed with Szoboszlai, like.

One line that stood out for me from the Amazon doc was Dan Ashworth saying something to the effect of "next season will be a lot harder," during a Zoom call to the owners about whatever subject. We were always going to hit a rough patch this season. There was no earthly way we would sustain the same dramatic upwards curve from the prior 18 months; and that's before we factor in a generational injury crisis. Howe's tactical inflexibility is fair game for debate, but everything else you might critique about the team this season has a massive and absolving asterisk imo.

That bloke is rubbish at sprinting since they cut one of his legs off. But ffs the shit bastard just needs to sort out his hopping tekkers and he'd have a chance!

When was the fatigue excuse allowable? Is it somehow less valid now we've played even more games? Put Murphy and Willock back in the squad and have the others playing at more than 60% and everything's a different story.

1-0

Add-in selling Speed to that incident without his say-so/knowledge. Scandalous.

He needs a rest like everyone else tbf. Means we've got a brilliant bench option for both flanks, too.