alexf

Offensively he's still one of the best around for a CB. Legs have definitely gone from a defensive point of view. Pretty much every game now he's sliding in for stuff and not getting there anymore. It's the classic thing of he body not performing as your head thinks it still can. If we leave him and Burn exposed with careless passing like Osula tonight and Barnes did in that Brentford away game then it's going to be a goal near enough everytime unfortunately. However I feel sorry for both Burn and Schar in that the club have unfortunately left Eddie short of options and the old boys need to play every min of every game and generally have played well when not exposed. But we do need to give them protection because pace is a real issue for us if not.

Same thing would happen to us if we finally won the league cup. Media would belittle it and make out it's not a serious trophy and would continue to claim we have won anything "major" in years, like they are doing with Spurs.

Shame big Joe is out but he's been looking like the walking wounded for awhile now and could do with the rest, especially after getting his face trampled on tonight to add insult to injury. Willock looked decent when he came on and hopefully he's injury free and ready to put in a performance. On paper to me the Willock, Tonali, Bruno mid 3 is potentially out best but we are yet to see it properly. Having said all that, it'll probably be Longstaff who comes in after being suspended for tonight.

Never looks in control of the ball. Definitely needs to calm down a little. Hopefully he's learning and studying Isak in training everyday. Looks a long way off being ready however, which isn't his fault and circumstances of having a sick note 2nd choice striker

Those suspensions have put a bit of a dampener on things. We need to be full strength to have much hope of beating any of the potential remaining opponents. Such silly yellow cards to get aswell from both of them. Although the ref was handing them out like confetti first half.

Never thought we saw too much outright pace from him when he was here. Probably cus secretly his age was probably pushing closer to 40 than 20 He had explosive shooting however.

Haven't seen any updated version but I remember back around a year a go, the stats when Bruno didn't play were pretty awful. I think it was almost as bad as if he doesn't play we didn't win a game or something. So you could argue he is our version of Rodri (in terms of importance to results) and it is a dangerous risk to let him go, especially if you can't use that money to boost the rest of the squad in the same window. That being said, if you were forcing me to choose between one of Bruno or Isak then i would reluctantly have to sell Bruno. I don't think we can go out and find a Isak replacement in the current market.

Just don't show Wissa and Mbuemo inside on their stronger foot for free shots or let a long kick from the keeper bounce into our penalty area for a free shot and we'll be fine

Yeah I couldn't quite understand not getting off our star players earlier. Leicester were cooked even at 3 nil. But certainly at 4, Gordon and Isak should have been hooked straight away to protect them. Was even calling for Joelinton to be rested as he's played through injury and was on 1 booking away from a ban and low and behold he went and got booked in a silly way. No offense to Murphy but he can play the full 90 for me, stay on and try and get your hat trick. But he's not as valuable as Isak or Gordon so should have stayed on.

He gives us balance when he plays. But his inconsistent finishing is frustrating. Great he got two goals but pretty confident Barnes scores more than two today with the same amount of service. But I know that's not how things work so fair play to Murphy. Just be nice if we could upgrade finally so he is the squad option still and not the starter.

Beginning to grow in confidence in a Newcastle shirt. Looked like our leader and heartbeat today.Really liked his performance. Was a little glimpse into life after Bruno perhaps. Love Bruno but I think the position change will suit Bruno and Tonali. Been obvious ever since that Chelsea cup game. Hope Tonali is here for years to come and keeps developing, his ceiling is high.

Yeah this game proved nothing to me really. We still missed a boat full of good chances that we should be scoring, but Leicester were so poor that we simply had so many chances that we couldn't keep missing. Positives were the set piece routines coming off nicely. The overall balance of the side was good, and the energy was generally there. Isak in particular was pretty unplayable at times with his assists to Murphy. But we were untested going the other way and like I say, still abit wasteful with our finishing as we have seen in other games. So could easily see us come unstuck against Ipswich and with Joelinton getting a needless ban lets hope Willock is ready to step in and is injury free after Brentford. It's why I don't feel any negative towards Howe even when we have been inconsistent, because it does feel more that the players just have been hit and miss this year more than anything Howe is getting horribly wrong. Good performance overall though and nice to see a one sided home win.

Yeah that's probably true. I'd probably rank it the same, especially as you don't want to be competing with Liverpool for an elite RW if they are looking for a future Salah replacement soon. RW - no current starting quality ST - Isak but then drop off to Osula or Gordon through the middle is vast CB - Schar, but getting older and no cover for RCB, Burn to Kelly is a big drop off at LCB, Botman may take long time to recover form, Lascelles no return date. We really need all 3 but we've been saying the same for about 3 windows. It's all to do with circumstances though, if we get lucky with injuries to current players then RW is clear priority. But we have muddles along with Murphy and moving others around for so long then maybe we can get by for another 6 months. With Isak being so fragile himself I think not having a genuine back up is a concern if we are trying to turn our form around. Schar or Burn picking up any suspensions or injuries at the moment also fucks us, not to mention Schar has looked off it alot this season. if we were able to spend this Jan then we could really attack 2nd half of season. If we don't then it's gonna be much of the same as the 1st half unfortunately and we'll be lucky to finish top 10.

or we could just leave him to continue developing at left back where he is progressing well and he can be ours and England's locked in left back for the next decade? Feels like there are a considerably more options out there for attacking midfielders than there are finding good quality left backs.

I sometimes feel like clubs become obsessed with only getting in "elite" players for the positions they need. Sometimes an average player can make a team considerably better just by being a specialist in a position. When Chris wood came in, it was clear he wasn't of the standard we want or as good as an Isak or younger version of Wilson. However our form transformed when he came into the team and played the position that none of the rest of our squad at the time were capable of and it allowed the rest of the team to function well. We have seen it plenty with Longstaff. It's seems a popular opinion that he's a very limited player and not the standard we want going forward. However in his position and especially during that champions league season, he allowed the rest of the team to perform better and unlocked others potential etc. I sometimes think, if you gave Eddie some of the squads of other teams I think he would be doing better than he is with us, because whilst he might not have the quality of an Isak, he would have more depth in other positions that we don't have here and often in team sports, the collective overcomes a few individuals. All I'm saying is, I'd happily take a "lesser" player if they were a dedicated RW or CB etc. They may not be as good as a Barnes or Gordon in terms of talent, but if they would better at RW and that would help the balance of the team.

Looks like big Joe had heavy strapping on that shoulder as early as the last international break which was before that crystal palace game, so he must have been struggling with it for longer than I thought. Think if he can't do the things that make him impactful then we are just asking for trouble playing an injured player every game. Obviously doesn't help if Willock is injured again though.

Agree with you. Just saying at the time all the sound bites coming out of him and the club were that his knee was fully recovered and he was 100%. But to the eye he was clearly a shadow of what he was previously and then with the reoccurrence in that arsenal game I think it was proof his knee was never right. Felt like a shit show from the medical team at the time and still does now to be honest.

My expectations are low as I hope most should be for his level of performance when he returns. I know with hindsight now he was likely still struggling with something wrong in his knee last season, but when he returned from that first 3 months out he was awful. Painfully slow, making mistakes etc. He claimed at the time his knee was fine during that spell but I'd like to think he was covering playing through a problem. If he does eventually return to the player we had in 22/23 then he has a massive impact. I truly believe that part of why we don't press so aggressively now is because Burn can't do what Botman does. Botman used to press super aggressive and steal the ball high. Burn can't do that or when he tries he doesn't get there and gets exposed. Likewise now with an aging Schar who is a yard slower aswell now and we keep seeing going sliding in to tackles and missing them because his body can't do the thinks his head things it still can. So I feel we consciously try not to expose the back 4. Although somehow we still look easy to play through, so clearly this hesitation to press isn't working. A fit healthy Botman will impact the whole team positively 🤞

I get the pessimism. But there's still 23 games still to play this season, were still 4 games away from being half way through the season and 5 points off European places. Yes it's not looking great currently, but I'm not ready to write the season off yet just because we've had an inconsistent first 15 games. Who's to say with a bit of luck with injuries, perhaps some movement in the January window we couldn't go on a good run of results and rapidly climb the table. Apart from Liverpool and now Possibly Chelsea, no other team is putting consistent runs together and we've seen how tight the table is and how quickly things could turn around. I bet very few would have thought we'd finish in the top 7 around January or whenever last year when we were on a bad run. I've seen us have strong 2nd halves of seasons in the past and make late runs for European positions. Glen Roeder in 05/06 brings a wry smile when I think about it and the doom and gloom of the Souness era that preceded it.

Yeah he's missed the odd chance but agreed he has been starved of service. Don't remember a single time we played him in 2nd half against Brentford. It's more annoying when it's visible he's looking sharp but we can't get him the ball in areas to do damage. My only criticism of him, if you can even call it that, is his fitness record. It's been very stop start and it's the only thing that hurts his value. Because when he's fit and on form he really is top 3/4 strikers (no.9s) in the world for me. What would make it worse if he was sold is that he would look even better in a Man City, Arsenal, Liverpool or even Chelsea team. Because they create a lot more generally and keep the ball better than we do. Too many times for us, especially away from home he is just isolated and starved of the ball.

Yeah if you bring Trippier in, it's more an attempt to improve the attack than defence. Leicester have some fast skillful wide players so might not be the right game to drop Tino.

Rotate him with who though? Kelly? We literally have no other choice until we sign someone better or Lascelles and Botman get back fit and healthy. We went into a premier league season with only 3 fit senior CBs, 2 over 33 and another on a free who is a LB/CB hybrid and so far has looked poor. I bet if we went through every other squad, especially the teams we're meant to be competing with for europe, I bet they have far more depth at CB than we do. Villa, Spurs, Chelsea, Man U, Brighton, West Ham, all have atleast 4 senior CBs off the top of my head.

Don't think the players weren't motivated today I just think once again we had the chances to win the game and defended poorly when we conceded. It was clear in the first half when we showed glimpses that we were the better team but we just seem to have a soft underbelly. 2nd half never got going, most the players began to tire, but that poor third goal seemed to really knock the stuffing out of us to come from behind a third time.

Yeah have to say, I've noticed too when you see replays back of goals it's often Big Joe is at fault recently. Also don't like him in midfield. He's too awkward and gets dispossessed on the ball quite often when they swarm around him. He's alot more useful as a wide player when we need that extra defensive cover for Hall. Agreed also that he looked knackered and is clearly still struggling with that shoulder problem from the palace game.