Gallowgate Toon

Assist for Hayden

Sounds like Hayden is more of a CM than an out-and-out DM.

Let's go and smash this lot, now.

Get in. As daft as it sounds, this could be a massive moment in our season. Get some momentum going and get the signings in we need.

This is where we should probably get Aarons on. They're pushing and he'll have space to break in to.

We'll be nervous. Just need to weather the storm.

Yep. They now take momentum into the next 45. Funny how a good 5 minutes can pretty much obliterate a good 40.

Just keep it tight, man, you idiots.

Right on half time again, man. For fucks sake.

Sounds like we're playing a lot better. Encouraging

They said on the chron that we've put the most crosses in of all championship sides so far. Yet we're 17th or so for having the ball in the oppositions final third & 19th for shots. Which suggests crossing the ball to a 5 foot 9 lad continously rather than playing it through might be the very specific issue. He should have a partner either way. I'm assuming that's been Benitez's angle when he's talked about players not doing what they've been practising. Probably working on them spreading play, working openings & speeding up passing in key areas, but they're doing it so slowly it just ends up with aimless, panicked punts into the box that Champ defences gobble up time after time.

I think Gayle needs someone with presence next to him, in our current state. Someone to just make space and take defenders away. Was hoping Diame would do that the other day There's no excuse for starting Riviere, though.

Some wider comments from him after the weekend: “We have to improve in defence because we are making mistakes, we have to improve in the middle and move the ball quicker, and we have to improve in the final third because we were not precise. “We didn’t have enough good movement and the right patterns to our play. “We didn’t do what we’ve been doing in training sessions during the game.”

Even I find Wenger hugely frustrating. Just go and buy a striker and centre back, man.

The comments in this article http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/newcastle-looking-clear-out-unused-11746659

I don't think we're set up to counter, his sides are usually about possession, but it seems he hasn't quite got the attacking players he needs to make this work (yet).

Whilst I do agree with this, I think our lot will become more accustomed to playing that way even if we don't get more in (which we need). Rafa said his methods take a few games to kick in, I'd expect that to be the case here when it's a very different type of football to the one most of our squad have been playing.

I wouldn't say so much physicality but certainly one of the strikers or attacking mids needs to be less of a support player and someone who can do it more on their own. We need dragging along, atm.

We played 4-4-2 yesterday in the first half. We definitely did in the first half against Fulham too. Perez would constantly hit the flanks, pretty much never sat in the hole at all.

The quality's f***ing abject, man. Give over. Just look at the Burnley side that won it. I agree. Huddersfield did nothing yesterday except put their team behind the ball and fight for every ball. As we've seen over the years once it became clear we didn't have a plan to break them down they grew in confidence. Still should never have lost. We beat ourselves yesterday. We did have a plan, apparently. It just wasn't followed. As someone else said, Rafa has spent the majority of his career playing against sides that sit & concede possession to his teams, he obviously knows how to get the results. If you saw a credible plan in that yesterday then you know something I don't. Our own manager said the players didn't follow 'instructions. He said they weren't doing what they'd practised in training. Ergo, I'm assuming there was a plan.

Boro just got promoted playing with 1 up top. We'll have to sign a new defence for that to work. As we are conceding some shockers so far. 2 games into the season.

The quality's f***ing abject, man. Give over. Just look at the Burnley side that won it. I agree. Huddersfield did nothing yesterday except put their team behind the ball and fight for every ball. As we've seen over the years once it became clear we didn't have a plan to break them down they grew in confidence. Still should never have lost. We beat ourselves yesterday. We did have a plan, apparently. It just wasn't followed. As someone else said, Rafa has spent the majority of his career playing against sides that sit & concede possession to his teams, he obviously knows how to get the results.

Boro just got promoted playing with 1 up top.

He's obviously brought in some better characters but the attacking spine is definitely still missing some leadership, like. Need a fulcrum.

We seem to be getting countered easily, is opening the game up going to help that? By the sounds of it, the first half today was really open between the sides and we were apparently still pretty hopeless. I'm not so convinced that going full 4-4-2 and blitzing it is going to work this time either. Teams seem a bit better than the last time we were here, especially tactically. My gut instinct is that the bigger problem is the players' mentality (not attitude) rather than Rafa's tactics - he was pretty open in his NUFCTV interview that they simply didn't do a lot of the things they trained on. That team today, 'on paper', should've still had enough to beat Huddersfield.