KaKa

Tonali has been brilliant. So good defensively.

Glad to be proven wrong! Really glad for him! He was struggling.

At last man!!! Really happy for him actually. Probably was close to being pulled off. The space for the goal once again opened up by the ball from Bruno after a great pass to him from Tonali. Hopefully this settles Gordon down now. He's kept at it to be fair to him.

Gordon for Barnes sub should happen fairly soonish I think. He's making a mess of things at the minute.

Mistake from Hall punished ruthlessly. Damn.

Yeah, he's just in his head since he missed the first of these. Once he gets one he'll settle down. Needs to hurry up with it though!

We really should have committed to them playing together in there from the start of the season to figure it out sooner. Dropping Tonali deep and pushing Bruno higher up, like quite a few of us have wanted to see, could be massive. That through ball to Isak is one he thrives on, and one only Bruno would see and it's because he's further forward today. Pretty frustrating and painful it's taken this long. But at least we're hear now. Hopefully it takes off and we feed off it going forward the rest of the season.

I'm just not now recalibrating after that miss. My goodness ...

Move Bruno higher up, and you get that through bal!!!!!! At long last man. My God!!!!

I think a strong balanced first team has to be the first priority. And so we need to address the right wing. Regarding the squad/ bench players this is where we have to be really sharp, and where Mitchell and the recruitment upgrades will need to do their best work. We will need to identify players that are younger and cheaper, but who are good enough to deputise in the first team when needed, but who still have room to continue to develop even further. That is ideally how our bench should look. Basically what Miley offered us last season, although with more experience in other leagues abroad, or in the Championship. The classic example was that Jonathan Rowe at Norwich that joined Marseille over the summer. He's the exact kind of profile that could have come in as depth when moving on Barnes.

Echo what most have said on a potential sale. It's just the smart thing to do if he can't be integrated into the first team alongside Gordon. We're not yet at a place where we can have players with his production and value sat on the bench as squad players. This kind of move would actually be encouraging because it's the kind of tough decision that has to be made regarding squad planning that will allow us to progress.

Man ... tell me about it. I really do miss his thunderbastards with his left foot

Lopetegui is a complete joke man. Shouldn't be this much of a disaster with the players he has at his disposal.

What a goal Patson Daka. That was brilliant.

It gets more and more annoying with every game man.

Oof. I think they'll take a significant step forward with him. How annoying. Been posting about him since the summer when things were looking rocky. Hopefully Howe and Mitchell turn things around and we don't end up feeling like we lost out.

Solanke this past summer.

It's a good point. We did look at Tosin who is 27 this year too, but he was on a free and that was also prior to Mitchell. I think for the reasonable fee and wages and for his title winning experience in Italy, champions league experience, previous Prem experience and much needed speed in the backline, I would do it personally. Especially because I think he goes straight into the first team to partner Botman, as Schar is starting to drop off and looks more of a backup going forward.

Pretty big news has been circulating about Tomori recently. Apparently he's ready to return to the Prem, having fallen out of favour at Milan. They are willing to let him leave in January. The rumoured fee Milan are looking for is shockingly decent at 30 million Euros and his current salary will be easy for us to improve upon at around 80k a week. https://sempremilan.com/tomori-milan-newcastle-juventus-west-ham-villa If all that information is true. The deal is almost too good to pass on. Similar sort of profile to Guehi who we targeted in the summer.

I look at that Liverpool team of players and what they're achieving, and it doesn't look completely impossible for us to achieve. The massive call they made to hand over the keys to Michael Edwards, which apparently came at the cost of losing Klopp, looks like it's going to pay off big time for them. We need to get our recruitment in order. Both selling and buying at the right time, and adequately filling out the squad so it is much better balanced. I think Howe has the potential as a manager too, but that will all depend on how open minded he is to the changes we need to make in recruitment, and also if he can continue to develop tactically.

My God ... Saw when he went down and just looked like a strain or sprain. He'd been going pretty strong too. Wow. Could see them going and bringing back Guehi.

Mitchell had already said this is not how things will work. However, he does need to offer more of a framework around how the squad needs to be improved on. With specific positions and roles in mind. He also needs to provide a wider array of players for each of these positions and roles for the manager to then select from. These players need to be at the right fee and wages to allow us to continue to build at a reasonable rate without doing us in completely PSR wise. If we go with this sort of approach we'll be just fine, as it's what we should have been doing in the first place.

Looks like things are going to change regarding loaning out players. We need someone else heading this up, so it's good news. https://www.nufcblog.co.uk/2024/11/29/newcastle-chief-set-for-new-role-alongside-paul-mitchell-with-loan-move-lined-up-report/

They press half as much as they did under Klopp, and Slot is actually making full use of the squad, allowing his players more rest.

And unfortunately we didn't put ourselves in position to take advantage.