Gallowgate Toon

I don't usually subscribe to the subs stuff but I do today - that was far too late. Not going to berate him for us not finishing chances, though. I know his mantra is usually around staying cool but I think today might spur him into some quicker transfer action. We do need some faces in in midfield, and quickly.

With how quickly he was hooked, I'm hoping that's the end of him.

Eh? It was basically the same as the end of the second half up until five minutes before they scored from a set piece. We're playing Blackburn though, not Liverpool. And we're Newcastle, not Liverpool. You really think we were doing well in this half until they scored? What did we create? We've had two goals chalked off and their keeper has made a canny few saves. Rafa's left the changes too late and the goal we conceded was stupid, but to argue that we haven't created enough to have won the game on another day is bollocks tbf. Yeah I never said we didn't create enough to win the game, you've made that up. I was talking about the second half. Both disallowed goals were correctly disallowed though so irrelevant It's just been one of those games mate, on another day we would have won; it's not worth wetting the bed over. We're not so good that we're going to comfortably win every week, especially with our most creative player suspended. There's a lot of work to be done in January.

Christ. Absolute sod's law.

Diame's been good today, too. Shame to lose him now as he's performing with some more consistency.

Only a matter of time. Good, controlled performance. Should be ahead.

Less worried about more defensive selections for away games. We sit deeper and look to break more anyway, which is fine for this team. We'll still win.

Second highest win %age in the country, and he's not even playing two up top!

Going to struggle with that in the next month or so Not if he's a starter for Ghana

3-0 win. Think tonight will have helped the confidence and we'll be looking to make it count.

Needs a run of games. We also need more wingers in.

Heard we were already on top before the sending off and that Diame played well as a CM

Good to see everyone's keeping calm. Sounds like the players got a little bit tense after a good start and shrunk back. Hope the support in the 2nd is positive for them, getting angry won't do anyone any good.

Sounds like we started well but have panicked since.

Let's do 'em.

Atsu needs to step up from the start. He can make a difference. Diame rightly rotated. 13 passes all game on Monday

Can understand his thought process a lot more now, after hearing his post-match comments. Most interesting takeaway was him saying players were panicking on the ball and playing it long, leading to them picking up the second balls. That would probably explain his lack of Mitro intro (a situation he needs to sort this Jan, IMO) in that he didn't want to encourage us stretching play in that fashion. He's probably looking at it from the European standpoint - to break teams down, you keep a wider general shape and work the ball into the final third and then speed play up. His big problem is still midfield, IMO. Think he misjudged a couple of players and what they're capable of without Shelvey. Diame's contribution from a 10 was especially pathetic. I'm not sold on 4-4-2, either - we were porous with the extra man yesterday, don't think we've got the athleticism in midfield or the individual defensive quality to cope with opening up like that. We've shown we can play really good football in 4-2-3-1, he just needs to find the balance again.

It's been the same tactics all season. Can't say it's good tactics when we win and bad tactics when we lose.. Well you can sort of. When a team is good enough to exploit our tactic, we do absolutely nothing, or should i say Rafa does nothing to change it. We look completely unable to approach games differently. Now i love Rafa but that is not a good thing from him imo, it's only a minor issue if you look at the table but our limited flair and creativity are shown up terribly if the opposition get it right against us. Come on man, he's a world class manager isn't he but he can't adjust tactically in the championship ? Your sentence is completely correct, he is world class and so far has shown he can't adjust in the Championship tactically when a team plays a certain way. I know the first point should rule out the 2nd but it hasn't as we've seen so far. He's been overly cautious so far in some respects but i've no doubt he'll see it and change. But so far for the 1st half of the season he hasn't, but with window and him learning more about his players in certain situations i've no doubt he'll tweak it. I don't think he'll tweak it. We have a better squad than everyone else, we'll improve it in January and we'll keep on going as we are, which will still be enough to get promoted. We do, but in central midfield we are weak as p*ss for numbers and quality (Shelvey and Hayden aside). We must strengthen in CM, simply must. Sure ? After Shelvey and Hayden we have Colback and Anita. Doesn't sound good to us but as third and fourth choice in this division that's very good. Not helped by the tactics I'd say. By what standards are they good in this league as CMs? Colback has very little in redeeming qualities. Anita was weak in Premier League games as a midfielder, that's not going to change here. Have you not thought that Rafa might be trying to build something long-term for the club and its style of play? Not that I think he's shown tactical inflexibility, we've won games in all manners this season - sometimes counter, sometimes possession, sometimes direct, sometimes with deeper CMs, sometimes a more balanced midfield 4 approach etc. He's wedded to 4-2-3-1 as a shape but I don't see that as the real problem here, more the lack of balance the team has at times. Colback gets slagged off loads as much because of his SAFC background and his poor games are amplified because of it, he's not helped with the tactics. As regards Rafa and his building something, no I don't think he does see it that way, he just really does think that way is right, to me, better managers would get what is best out of what he has and wouldn't be wedded to any particular way. Colback is suited to what tactics, exactly? His only strength is short passing and that's exactly what our game revolves around. Surely a good manager, in our situation especially, should be building towards long-term success while balancing out short-term matters? Benitez has had the same general style wherever he's been and has enjoyed some pretty good success out of it - it seems apparent, to me, that he's trying to build that up here as a means to actually win something but there's still a long way to go. Not sure if you've read any of the Chron coverage but there were details about how they layer more and more tactics into the side as the season goes on, for example. Out of curiosity, what would you be doing differently?

It's been the same tactics all season. Can't say it's good tactics when we win and bad tactics when we lose.. Well you can sort of. When a team is good enough to exploit our tactic, we do absolutely nothing, or should i say Rafa does nothing to change it. We look completely unable to approach games differently. Now i love Rafa but that is not a good thing from him imo, it's only a minor issue if you look at the table but our limited flair and creativity are shown up terribly if the opposition get it right against us. Come on man, he's a world class manager isn't he but he can't adjust tactically in the championship ? Your sentence is completely correct, he is world class and so far has shown he can't adjust in the Championship tactically when a team plays a certain way. I know the first point should rule out the 2nd but it hasn't as we've seen so far. He's been overly cautious so far in some respects but i've no doubt he'll see it and change. But so far for the 1st half of the season he hasn't, but with window and him learning more about his players in certain situations i've no doubt he'll tweak it. I don't think he'll tweak it. We have a better squad than everyone else, we'll improve it in January and we'll keep on going as we are, which will still be enough to get promoted. We do, but in central midfield we are weak as p*ss for numbers and quality (Shelvey and Hayden aside). We must strengthen in CM, simply must. Sure ? After Shelvey and Hayden we have Colback and Anita. Doesn't sound good to us but as third and fourth choice in this division that's very good. Not helped by the tactics I'd say. By what standards are they good in this league as CMs? Colback has very little in redeeming qualities. Anita was weak in Premier League games as a midfielder, that's not going to change here. Have you not thought that Rafa might be trying to build something long-term for the club and its style of play? Not that I think he's shown tactical inflexibility, we've won games in all manners this season - sometimes counter, sometimes possession, sometimes direct, sometimes with deeper CMs, sometimes a more balanced midfield 4 approach etc. He's wedded to 4-2-3-1 as a shape but I don't see that as the real problem here, more the lack of balance the team has at times.

His rigid style compounded with the failure to address our hideous lack of creativity just isn't conducive to consistently winning matches at home. It affects the crowd too. The atmosphere is completely f***ing flat because we're predictable and safe when we should be rolling teams over. To be fair - from what I've been told - in the games we've played good football and comfortably won at home, the crowd have only been up-for-it against Norwich.

Think we have a clear style of play personally, both home and away. Away, we're very good at it. At home, we've been patchy. The possession work has sometimes been really quick and swift. At other times, it's been so slow and ponderous. For me, things are a little too geared toward one style, if anything. Need to add some variety, especially out wide.

This is probably a fair assessment. Easy to forget that Rafa is also planning for the long-term with this side and that'll be starting with shape and defensive work, first and foremost.

Well, that's really not true, is it?

It had the distinct feel of McClaren's early games last year (post-Southampton) where we tried a style of play with players who aren't suited to it. I know his philosophy is about players being able to drop in and know what they're doing but if they really don't have the quality for it then it's pointless. I mean, if you're going with flanks of Dummett, Gouffran, Anita and Ritchie, that's screaming out as a counter team. I think he attempted to trust a few today and he'll have seen they're short of what's needed; ergo, a reshuffle of everything for the next one.