Newcastle Fan

Wouldn't it had made more sense to give him at least 60 minutes at the start and if it's too much load rest him against Bournemouth rather than against Barcelona at home in the champions league ?

100% was the wrong decision, the three upfront had 0 goal contributions this season between them until Gordon scored, our best chance was to get a goal early on before they settle in the game as it would be very hard to match them for quality and experience at this level.

I agree with this, when you are trusted to lead the line at this level there is so much that's on you and yet he plays most of the time like he's not even bothered, the amount of times he was walking when their players had the ball just next to him was frustrating. Even an unfit Woltmade would've put himself about and tried to help the team out, this guy missed an easy chance to put us upfront then strolled around for the rest of the game, only really contributed when he moved to the left.

There has been zero reports that his fitness has major issues other then some cramp after the last game, and Howe has this weird image of Gordon running behind defenders with his pace as a striker which hardly ever happened aside from rare occasions (city last year and the villa sending off this year) my guess is he thought he can caught Barcelona's high line off with starting Gordon up top;

You pay 85m for a striker who scores in his debut then you bench him at home to Barca and play a fucking winger upfront

He's a good player to have in the squad but there is no reason to be playing him as much as we are right now, and his set pieces have become so incredibly shit it's hard to think this is the same player who first joined us.

Looked quite poor today with the ball.

Looks a superior player to Elangs atm.

His best cameo for us so far.

Like Gordon as a CF its more on Howe picking him for a game that's say above his level when he's so off form.

At this point this is more on Howe than on him, everyone can see he's useless as a striker.

Fucking idotic choice to start that front three in this game. Would've barley worked against Bradford.

No striker is shit

It was an active choice by the idiot.

You don't often have the chance to play these types of games, incredibly exciting and hopefully we'll turn up the way we did for PSG.

I really want him to succeed here but sometimes he looks like he's never played football before in his life, he runs a lot but hardly manages to get close to getting the ball, he doesn't really challenge for the ball in the air despite being a big man, he needs to bring some composure to his game as he always seems too eager. To put it into perspective Woltmade is only a year older than him and it looked like a seasoned striker vs a reserve youngsters today.

I keep saying he's the best CB we've ever had in this club, their new striker was a giant and he dominated him all game.

He's been playing this season like he has never played before at this level, nothing is coming off for him and he looks physically worse off than last year.

What a fucking beast this guy is, leaves nothing on the pitch.

I remember absolutely hating Murphy in his first few seasons with us and now he's one of my favorite players, this new version of him in the last couple of seasons has everything you need from a winger and he does everything he can for the team.

Bruno has those games and when he does it's always good to see the team can bail him out as much as he bails them out when he's on form.

That was a old school german striker's header, great to see him giving us three points on his debut. I did notice he tries to come for the ball more than try and position himself in goal scoring positions, hopefully as he gets used to his team mates more we'll see him get even better.

Ref today might as well had a yellow shirt on, gave us nothing and gave them everything.

Super cross from Murphy too.

Our old boys Lubo Satka and Dubravka keeping him quite.