Stottie

Creating great chances, just not converting them. The double save was very jammy. More class from Isak, right side putting great balls in, ASM very lively, the same old story of our mids getting into positions but not finishing them. Every defeat this season has had us conceding first half, so not so concerned about it being level at HT. We have a good bench today, so I think we can do this.

Brave team with Maxi. Hope he has a good one. Presumably he must be fitter than last time out. For them, Dalot over AWB and Sabitzer over Fred. Quite confident now. Howay the Lads!

I'd put Joelinton back in for ASM just for the pressing,but there you go. A very positive move from Howe if that's what he's doing. Maxi must be fitter than his last outing. He played the pass before the assis, but was barely involved in that half.

Liverpool's away form is now P14 W3 D3 L8 F14 A24 -10 Pts 12 That's worse than Southampton who are bottom.

Brighton's record vs. teams in the Top 9 (Fulham upward) is now P10 W2 D3 L5. They are too weak defensively against the better teams in the league. Brentford's second came about 10 seconds after a Brighton throw in. The third was a free kick with the defence AWOL at the back post. Conversely Brighton's equalizer pen came from a counter following a Brentford break with a few minutes to go. Very poor game management from them. Brighton's first was a simple long ball to Mitoma. Both teams have conceded twice as many as us and today was lots of evidence why.

Watching Liverpool, Brighton, and Bournemouth today and all three look vulnerable at the back, conceding goals which we wouldn't. I'm feeling quite confident now.

For comparison, our game at the Etihad a month ago (vs. Haaland and Foden) was 1.3 vs. 0.4. Our score underrates the Wilson chance, and we got nothing for Joelinton's airshot from that cross. xG only counts actual shots.

One more and Liverpool go below Brighton.

Not so long to go now. Seven games coming up in April, then five in May so lots of actual football to look forward to with no more interruptions. I understand the importance of international breaks, but my main allegence is to the Toon. Transfer speculation and non-stories about our ownership don't make for a good two weeks.

Brighton home to Brentford too. Brighton last 8 home 5-0-3, Brentford last 8 away 3-3-2.

Nah Tottenham or Brighton. In the current scenario. It would have been Liverpool too, but we messed that one up. I just want us to finish above the team in fifth.

The thing to note with fivethirtyeight is how low they are drawing the bar. They have us as fourth with 66 points. This sounds realistic to me, and the takeaway from it should be that we probably only need five wins. 5-4-3 gets us the 19 points to hit 66. Liverpool have three hard games coming up, starting with Man City. If you include the cup semi, Brighton have four in a row in April, Spurs and Chelsea away, the semi, then Man City two days later. The pressure is only going to crank up and a team having momentum is one way to counter it.

Are we now a club that has clear targets, leaks them when the window is closed, and still ends up going for them? With Botman or Isak even, weren't enquiries made before it became clear in the press that we were in for them? There is nothing for the club to gain from "in for McTominay" coming out in the press in March.

Yes, no nervy crowd please. This game must be about what we can win, not what we may lose. Fulham were set up to beat a very strong Man U team at OT yesterday, but lost on a catastrophic error, the kind of thing that can happen to anyone but is especially common for panicky teams lacking self-belief. With Spurs drawing from two goals ahead, that's the first piece falling into place. Setbacks for Liverpool and Brighton in their games mentioned above would also help a lot.

Spurs play today, then Man City home to Liverpool and Brighton home to Brentford before we play this match. Brentford have only lost five games all season. Hopefully Toney plays Brighton and then gets banned so he can't play us. Anyway, by the time this one comes around, we may have had some helpful other results and be in a stronger position. Miggy doesn't sound good, but I hope Gordon is fit enough for the bench. We've been a bit Jeckyl and Hyde recently, mostly good but with errors that we didn't see earlier in the season creeping in. Another one just yesterday. It's understandable as the pressure cranks up. I hope the crowd are up for it and not nervy as we saw at the Carabao Cup home semi. That seemed to translate onto the pitch. This is not a game we actually need to win. It's only three out of thirty six points available. I'd put Joelinton back in, play Willock left, and go back to the ol' high press. Their big threat is Rashford in behind, so don't give anyone the freedom of SJP to play him in as happened with remarkable ease between Trent and Nunez in the Liverpool game. Get some defensive solidity back and leave the rest up to the Swedish wonder.

This is the first time I've heard a number as low as 82% being given for decision accuracy before VAR. Other studies have suggested it was over 90%. The World Cup was not full of bad VAR calls. Does European football have them? If not, some degree of blame must rest with the Premier League refs.

https://www.espn.co.uk/football/english-premier-league/story/4722849/how-var-decisions-have-affected-every-premier-league-club-in-2022-23 Down to +2 now

I would assume it was the officiating. That scissors tackle on Schar after five minutes was ridiculous and set the tone for all that came in the first half.

The guy sticks out his leg to cut out the cross, of course it's deliberate.The ball only goes in the direction of Longstaff because of this. The Salah one is a through ball intended for him in offside position and reaches him by skimming off the defenders' head in the same direction. He as the offside player then receives the ball and scores immediately. No intervening actions or other players touching the ball like ours. For an offside throughball that skims off a defender to be acceptable and but a long chain of events like ours to be illegal is a complete joke. The refs' logic justifying it sounds like government spokesmen defending waiting times in the NHS.

First away win in five. First in 2023 too. Twelve points from our last eight games now, the same as Man U. 18 points from the remaining 12 gets us to 65. 5-3-4 or even 4-6-2 would do it. More points would be better of course, but 65 is looking like there or thereabouts. In the big games to come at SJP, avoiding defeat might be enough.

6 PL goals in 624 minutes = 7 games. Robbed of an assist too.

Statsbomb are big advocates of Maxi but even this is quite surprising. Given the absolute quality of the other players as creators just below him here, there must be relevance to this. The mitigating factor may be the limited time Maxi has played compared to the others. I've said it probably a dozen times, but if Maxi had better shooting boots, he'd be a 100M pound player. It's a skill that can be practiced to an extent. Wayne Rooney learnt to head the ball. The young Rooney couldn't do it.

The eye test should tell you whats going on, but Maxi passing stats this season and last season per 90 minutes played 2021/22 24 attempts per 90, 17 completed 2022/23 36 attempts per 90, 24 completed For context and to indicate our improved possession, Bruno 21/22 45 att, 38 completed, 22/23 53 att, 43 completed So we have the ball maybe 20% more, but Maxi's passing the ball 50% in the average game. In other news, Maxi has crossed the ball less than Matt Targett this season. Trippier's crossed it 256 times (!!!) The rest of the squad added together is 229. Targett has crossed it twice as much as BDB in one fifth of the time on the pitch. To go down the rabbit hole of stats analysis, start here. https://fbref.com/en/squads/b2b47a98/Newcastle-United-Stats

Lolz at NUFC.tv for not including the Pope incident in the extended highlights. All you get a close up of a sheepish looking Pope walking off at HT. I was too drunk/bad river to notice during the game, but this does look like handball following the Bruno header onto the bar. In moving images, it looks like him palming it away.