timeEd32

Things must be grim if you’re losing hope!

Really poor. I’d send his agent the ‘highlights’ of his play today the next time he reaches out.

Players passing to the other team, not controlling the ball, and regularly being muscled off it are not a tactics issue. Neither are missing 1v1s, penalties, or failing to make passes that a U13 coach would scream about.

A lot of words will be spilled in this thread but the main difference in that game is that their best player is genuinely elite and ours 1) aren’t as good as him and 2) were bad today. Eddie needs a good look in the mirror but so do a lot of our players.

And Spurs. And Brighton and Villa draw. Massive missed opportunity.

So incredibly soft.

Tonali’s technical ability with Longstaff’s positioning is the player we need.

I think we’re going to be more solid with Longstaff in for Tonali and I can’t believe that’s a sub I’m happy about. Willock should have lots of space to run.

They are begging to let us back in this game if we can just show a little bit of quality.

Miles off it today.

Is he? Can’t think of anything he’s done well.

It’s hard for me to care about formation and tactics when our players can’t control or pass the ball. So incredibly sloppy.

Genuinely pathetic five minutes.

Nice one Isak

Given other results and current scores we have such an opportunity in these 45 minutes.

Isak’s first touch poor multiple times. Bruno completed at least four passes to them. Tonali is mindlessly wandering around the midfield and leaving Palmer tons of space. Eddie’s right about our Champions League players.

Tonali’s positioning makes no sense. Seems like he’s spent more time in the middle and on the left. Not surprising that Palmer keeps finding himself in acres of space down our right. Bruno and Joelinton keep pointing him to the right so does not appear to be tactical.

How you could possibly tell from that angle is beyond me. That was an outstanding team goal.

It’d be nice if Bruno could stop passing to blue shirts.

We’re so bad at tracking runners. It’s like we’re surprised someone is moving in behind.

Yikes

The final straw for you was how we traveled to our first CL game in 20 years?

Good results for us today. A win and we’re right back on track in terms of the table.

I'm assuming everyone saying we should have kept him is joking. Not even sure what to say if they aren't. But it's a very Newcastle thing that even the best outgoing business we've done in the last few years is looking bad at the moment.

We almost certainly should have spent less or we should have sold high on Wilson / Miggy (but I can completely understand why we didn't). There are many paths we could have taken and people will have different opinions about what would have been optimal, some of which are easier to see with hindsight, but the path we chose was flawed. It's why we had no money in January, why we had to panic sell in June and also take on additional costs in the process, it's why our budget this past summer was small, it's why we have mediocre options at RW, and it's why we have an imbalanced squad. This is why summer 2023 was ultimately a failure.