triggs

Merino's touch is really inconsistent

He can't run with the ball either to carry the ball out of defence. If he sees nothing on down the line, his next instinct is to pass inside to the nearest CM or CB, or back to the GK. He's hopeless man. That's not anything to do with his defensive contribution. Did a nice pass in the build up to our last corner btw Of course it is! A League Two defender can block shots, head the ball, hassle a winger, etc. Being able to bring the ball out of defence and turn a defence into an attack is a massive part of his defensive duties. How come they haven't created anything so?

He can't run with the ball either to carry the ball out of defence. If he sees nothing on down the line, his next instinct is to pass inside to the nearest CM or CB, or back to the GK. He's hopeless man. That's not anything to do with his defensive contribution. Did a nice pass in the build up to our last corner btw You can't play good football with one nice pass in 45 mins. Aye well he clearly isn't a good footballer

Clark is terrible at clearances with his right foot

Awful Merino

He can't run with the ball either to carry the ball out of defence. If he sees nothing on down the line, his next instinct is to pass inside to the nearest CM or CB, or back to the GK. He's hopeless man. That's not anything to do with his defensive contribution. Did a nice pass in the build up to our last corner btw

None of our players actually look for the ball tbf. If he loses the ball its generally from a hoof or a ball up the line where there isn't much danger so I don't think it has anything to do with the defensive part of the game

Don't think Shelvey would have made any difference. We can't get the ball in midfield unless its in broken play

Been good defensively. He's as he always was on the ball

Awful that. Merino at least started to get on it and start passing it forward in the last ten minutes or so. Thought Dummett and the centre halves were decent too defensively

Difference is restricting them to a few not many like we did against Liverpool and Tottenham. All teams will usually get one or two chances in a game. They got behind us time after time except for the last 15 minutes when we started to actually put pressure onto them. They didn’t get behind us time after time, that’s nonsense. They got behind us once in the first half, when they scored. And when Aguero got in behind Dummett and missed a sitter, Aguero missed another sitter but I think it was wrongly called for offside anyway, Aguero actually missed another easy chance that I had totally forgotten about where he tried to place it when he should have smashed it, think de Bruyne's sitter was the first half as well

Didn't we play 442 against West Ham?

To get his full potential you would need to make someone like him a captain. As silly as it sounds and nobody would agree, he would benefit from being a leader. Hes the kind of player who needs an arm around him now and then, but would feel immensely important and loved if he had a big role to play. Trouble is somewhere someone might trust a lad like him with this responsibility, but Rafa would never. He's captained us a few times under Rafa iirc and anyway there is nothing to back up anything you just said

Yeah good points from both of you. I just think when you play with two deep midfielders already as we do that having a defensive or slow winger on one side is overkill. It must be tough for him though to go from being one of the better technical players in the championship to being basically just a hard worker who takes set pieces and the odd decent shot in the PL

He's too slow to be a good workhorse

No overreaction at all just telling it how it is. As for far superior teams as some on here keep saying maybe Bristol City should have played the same way the other week then with a team assembled for pennies if they had I don’t think they would be in the semi final right now. That performance until the subs come on was shocking and in 46 years of watching football I have never seen any Newcastle team play in that fashion what happened for the first half. You’re not going to change my mind or others and vice versa and I accept that it’s football and footballs always been about opinions but it damn well certainly wasn’t a overreaction. Well football's moved on from 46 years ago, it's a shame in many ways, but we can't really turn the clock back unfortunately. I’m talking about the whole 46 years and not actually 46 years ago. Never seen any team play like that formation in my life with no attempt to even try and combat the threat. This suggest you don't understand our tactics against Man City and that you don't understand how tactical shape, positioning, discipline etc. works. Watch the Man City game less than two years ago and you will see how tactical shape, positioning, discipline and with a counter threat should be. So yes I fully understand what it takes to play against a superior team. What I saw on Wednesday is a team that was able to practically walk the ball into the last third of the pitch, no challenges and players losing their markers at will resulting in chances and shots on goal happening every few minutes. When the subs were made I saw the team then press city ensuring space and chances were kept to a minimum and we then started to push city back, which was like the full 90 minutes of the last city game. I understand fully I certainly don’t think you do though. City have 58 points at the moment. That City team finished on 66 points

What areas of his game are second to none? He's a good passer, that's it Erm, you said it yourself - passing... When we're actually playing on the front foot and have possession for decent stints, Shelvey is comfortably the best & most talented player in our squad. Ah right, I thought when you said "areas" which is plural you might be talking about more than one area. Silly me

What areas of his game are second to none? He's a good passer, that's it

When has he been a cracking player this season?

Technique on that Chema one is amazing. Have that just above Messi's because the keeper should probably save Messi's one

Exactly this. The only semblance of hope we would have of a takeover being done is if we were being linked to players who are in the 15m plus bracket. Scraping around the bargain basement is going to get us nowhere but the Championship. If you buy cheap quality in life its usually s**** Trying to link transfer gossip in tabloids to the takeover not happening. Pure THERE IS NO AMANDA STAVELEY

Get tapatalk

Was Bellerin always this bad defensively?

No

Fabregas-esque from Wilshere