Daniel Storey knows his onions!
https://www.football365.com/news/premier-league-winners-losers-grealish-solksjaer-arsenal
Newcastle’s grim reality
The issue is not that Newcastle United lose every week. This would be far easier if they did. They were deserved winners against Everton last weekend. They’re four points behind the top four and seven above a pretty wretched bottom three. They aren’t in any serious danger of being relegated.
But then the sanctuary of mid-table offers reason for criticism as well as praise. It should give Newcastle and Steve Bruce a freedom of expression that their manager seems intent to limit. Newcastle to not set up to impose their authority in the opposition’s half but to stymie their threat and hope something positive comes out of it. They seem to win by good fortune and lose by logical design.
If that all sounds a bit harsh on Bruce, the numbers back it up. Newcastle rank 20th in the Premier League for shots faced and shots on target faced. They rank 20th on shots taken per game and shots on target managed per game too. They are increasingly reliant on their goalkeeper being brilliant, their opponents missing chances and a determination to grind out points in adversity.
That last characteristic is clearly a strength rather than weakness, but it isn’t unreasonable to ask whether Bruce could be doing a little more to make Newcastle a team that at least shows an ambition to attempt free-flowing attacking football.
We’re not asking for Total Football here, just an attacking strategy that aims to get the best out of a collection of potentially excellent attacking players. Bruce does now have a reliable centre forward and exciting wide players in Miguel Almiron and Allan Saint-Maximin. But both those wingers are having their spirit broken by the necessity to drop so deep to pick up possession and their place in a team that averages 39% possession and plays more long balls than any other team in the league bar Burnley.
It’s something I wrote about here, but watching your team solely on television rather than live in the stadium changes the perception of this style of football. Grabbing an ill-gotten away point despite barely trying to create chances takes on a positive glow when you travel back up the country with your robbed spoils safely locked in the car boot. But watching Newcastle on television provides enjoyment only to the masochist.
Football isn’t only about entertainment; it’s silly to say as much. But there does need to be a balance, and when Newcastle are so deliberately blunt in the final third it’s fair to accuse Bruce of missing that balance. Newcastle can dream bigger than this. Bruce can dream bigger than this. They have the players that mean they don’t have to play this way anymore. If Bruce wants to stick to his Plan A, fine. But he can’t feign surprise at the resulting criticism when it fails.
