Andy

He did aye. He doesn't do it consistently though. Any midfielder in the country can do it once in a while coming off the bench.

Give him a run in the team until the end of the season, let him find his feet (assuming they haven't fell off). Looks a talent and just needs some experience in the position, he has all the attributes to be a top full back.

Was the kind of challenge you'd expect to see from a young defender, not an old head. Really stupid.

Not sure how I feel about him still. His physicality is good and he is decent at driving with the ball at times, but I feel like he doesn't take the game by the scruff of the neck enough and doesn't really take as many risks as you'd want in the final third, both on and off the ball. I thought we looked more disjointed when he went off like, having said that.

The backline we had out when Hall went off is relegation battle material, not really a shock that we couldn't hang on to a clean sheet. Annoying how it happened though.

Heard Howe wants to play him at LB to keep Hall out the team, pass it on

By "not on it", I mean in front of goal. If he's low on confidence or missing chances he can look otherwise fairly average, we saw this a bit during his last couple of games prior to his most recent injury, and he's definitely had spells like that for Leicester too. He'll always drift in and out of games, but fan opinion of him will sway up and down based on his confidence in front of goal imo. Definitely not a criticism as I like a purely-effective winger (hence the Robert comparison in my previous post), but I think we'll see very polarised takes on him in this thread during his time here.

My brother is a Leicester fan and I've watched quite a bit of him, for me he's always been prone to drifting in and out over 90 minutes, especially when he's off form. He's more than a finisher in that he also has great movement (particularly with a give and go), but when he isn't "on it" he can sometimes be anonymous, he isn't ever going to dribble past four players or work as hard as someone like Gordon/Almiron defensively. I think over time he will sometimes split opinion because of this in the same way someone like Laurent Robert used to. We bought him for end product and he's delivering on that so far imo.

Not saying you're wrong, but that argument would hold more water for me if the rest of our "trusted" defenders weren't turning in catastrophic performances week in week out If that's been Howe's thinking, it doesn't really make much sense

Said it earlier in the thread, he's a bit of a one trick pony and can look poor when he's not on form in front of goal, but he wins you games when he's on it. Lethal.

Stupid sending off but he was class today. Probably a blessing that he misses Everton based on his previous game against them.

Has looked very good in both of his recent appearances. There is no excuse from a footballing perspective not to give him a chance, he looks fast, his passing is sharp, he looks stronger than he did earlier in the season, his movement is good. Should have been on instead of Krafth today and it still felt like he was brought on because there was no other choice.

Anderson, Hall and Barnes to start next match please. Massive difference.

Harsh pen imo

Worth losing just for that finish tbf

I mentioned it earlier in the thread, but the Krafth sub was really poor. You've ended up with a bang average player at right back, our only effective right back being less effective stuck out on the left, and two centre halves who look like they've never seen each other. Completely unnecessary disruption to the backline. The obvious sub was either Hall to left back and shove Burn across, or if Hall is just on the Bench for a laugh, then put Dummett in at CB.

Burn is CB, Tino left back. Not sure why Hall wasn't used again, would've been a far less disruptive change.

Good assesment. Definitely seems to me that the club did everything they realistically could have. These things aren't black and white, all they could do is mitigate the risk if the specialists couldn't come to a conclusive recommendation and the player himself didn't want to undergo surgery. From Botman's perspective, it also makes perfect sense that he'd want to continue playing if he felt capable, he's a professional and the Euros are coming up. It could have went either way, as I'm sure it does in many cases that we never hear about.

As someone who was very active on here at the time, I don't think that is completely true tbh. This forum was notoriously critical of Pardew in the end, but he was quite well liked during the 5th placed season in particular, the posts backing this up probably still exist on here. Edit: I'm sure some people won't think me for this, but as an example: https://newcastle-online.org/topic/25874-alan-pardew/page/921/ He lost the fans favour with his performance and attitude after that season, justifiably so.

Good cameo, look forward to not seeing him for the remainder of the season

Just as one example, Haaland had the 1v1 where Botman lost him completely from Kovacic's chip, any meaningful contact on the ball and he scores. A couple of headers where they should have done better. Foden blazed one wide where he should have hit the target, albeit good tracking by Bruno. Our defending has been pretty all over the place.

It's been "good" in the same way it would be good when a Steve Bruce side went to City and weren't 5-0 down by half time. Reality is it's been a poor performance again. Disjointed going forward (albeit there have been some glimmers) and defensively all over the place again. It's fortunate to be only two tbh. Both goals were entirely of our own making - unfortunate in the last instance, but completely preventable in the build up. No pressure on the ball until the last minute, way too easy for them to get shots away. Was always going to be a tough fixture but it's the same story every week. Hopefully Howe can change something at half time but it's hard to see it not ending 4 or 5.

We are so open, the defending is actually schoolboy stuff. We've spent the entire season saying "it'll be better when Longstaff is back, it'll be better when Willock is back, it'll be better when Joelinton is back, it'll be better when Botman is back, it'll be better when Pope is back (probably more truth to this one than the others)", but there is an underlying structural issue there, we are not playing as a unit, we look like a bunch of individuals which has been the main difference this season, pretty much all season - especially away from home. We are incoherent going forward and even more incoherent going backwards. We're relying on luck in defence, and "a bit of magic" up front; a dangerous combo. No idea what the solution is but we are a shadow of last season's "team".

It's a weird one with Neto. Whenever I watch him I feel like he could legitimately be one of the best players in europe if he could stay fit. His injury record is probably the only reason we'd have a realistic chance of signing him without being in the CL next year, but it's also obviously something we've been burned badly by this season. I'd still be tempted to take a punt tbh.

I'm not sure it is. If you've got Alan Shearer or Ronaldo up front you can probably win games consistently with less than 2xG. If your forwards are shit, you can probably fail to win games consistently with more than 2xG. I'm not sure if the model has changed in recent years, but it used to be the case that 1xG for Messi would be the same as 1xG for Almiron, this is obviously a big flaw.