Infinitely Content

My only real takeaway from yesterday’s game was that Mathew Ryan made two world class reaction saves which were appreciated by myself and a few of the blokes sitting near me. Shelvey, Merino & Lascelles were not bad, everyone else pretty bloody poor to totally abysmal unfortunately.

Cheers

Anyone ever had any trouble taking a camera into the ground? Got mine on me & would rather not go home just to drop it off...

I think you've missed the point...

...are you... Shelvey? He wishes I have a full head of beautiful thick Geordie hair and my pass completion is higher.

Absolutely.

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 Terribly sorry friend. Vision would be another, which is a separate attribute to passing, although they go hand-in-hand. His vision is out of this world at times. Brilliant.

See my other point, "chance creation" Shelvey creates plenty of chances tbh, his passes from deep out to the wings for Yedlin/Ritchie create such a high percentage of our goals in the last year. I'd like to know more about this chance creation stat you're referring to, and more so how it's decided. Say Shelvey finds a killer ball for Yedlin on the wing who crosses it into the box for one of our attackers. I would hazard a guess that Yedlin would be attributed with creating the chance, when really it wouldn't have been possible without the initial pass from Shelvey.

Again, stats can be misleading. Jamie Carragher's pass completion was 90%+, doesn't mean he was finding killer balls or springing his team forward with quick decisive passes. High pass completion doesn't mean the player particularly excels in the passing area of their game. I bet Colback's was canny high too, all backwards.

What areas of his game are second to none? He's a good passer, that's it And even then, as mentioned, his pass completion percentage is lower than Hayden, Merino and Diame. And this is a perfect example of why stats don't give you the full picture. Which is why I use my eyes as well. Can't wait until he's stinking up another team instead of us. And using your eyes, the best passer in our team is? Merino, by a country mile. Really? I reckon there's much more evidence pointing to Shelvey like, Merino looks good, but bar 2 or 3 passes I don't think you can really base your statement on any tangible evidence thus far.

What areas of his game are second to none? He's a good passer, that's it And even then, as mentioned, his pass completion percentage is lower than Hayden, Merino and Diame. And this is a perfect example of why stats don't give you the full picture. Which is why I use my eyes as well. Can't wait until he's stinking up another team instead of us. And using your eyes, the best passer in our team is?

What areas of his game are second to none? He's a good passer, that's it And even then, as mentioned, his pass completion percentage is lower than Hayden, Merino and Diame. And this is a perfect example of why stats don't give you the full picture.

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.

Just so blatantly wrong that's it's not even worth engaging you on why

Shelvey this weeks villain I see He's quite blatantly better than pretty much all the players mentioned in the past few posts. Certain areas of his game are near enough second to none, why do Newcastle fans self-sabotage so much? He's not perfect, obviously, but he doesn't need to be ffs, we're a lower to mid-table (at best) Premier League club at present, we should be appreciating decent players like Shelvey not holding weird grudges against them.

Yep, in the two games versus Arsenal & City, he has genuinely looked like he could be playing for the opposition. A classy player and a pleasure to watch. Hope he's here for years.

I agree with Alan here, absolutely pointless from Gayle. Idiotic in fact. Needs to improve a lot & show us something else going forward as that was embarrassing. Looked a pen where I was sat - do replays show it was a dive then? Odd he should dive as he was through on goal Other than that I think he did ok when he came on - I thought his header was in - must have been close. It was a blatant dive. And the fact he was standing there thinking about diving instead of doing what he is paid for and having a shot is embarrassing.

Nowt Elliot could have done more tonight. Not sure why anyone would even think to criticise him. Name any keeper and put him in goal and we probably still lose 0-1. Deserves a break, does Elliot.

I agree with Alan here, absolutely pointless from Gayle. Idiotic in fact. Needs to improve a lot & show us something else going forward as that was embarrassing.

His save in the first half was sheer brilliance. Reminded me of the type of reflex saves Shay Given used to make on the regular. Very well done, Rob.

Thing is, when you take into account the circumstances, he wasn't gash at the beginning, he was putting in the exact performances you expect from a player finding his feet in a new team & a new league. Mix that with the added pressure of the whole Newcastle supporter narrative, then what we seen of him was nothing less than how a lot of youth players perform in their first few games. There was nothing to truly back up the fact he was going to be a bad player. And now we're saying the good performances the rational few predicted would be the case.

Merino and Atsu were very good when they came on. Yeah Atsu done some good things too, think it was from his skill & cross that Gayle had his headed chance from. Man, if he left that for the on-rushing Merino we could have been celebrating a massive point here.

Happy with that performance, I’ve watched a few City games this season and we were in the game far longer than any of the other sides I’ve seen. We could have even nicked it. Lascelles returning has evidently galvanised the group, and I though Mikky Merino looked brilliant after coming on. Our players will have their heads held high going into the Brighton match, and for me that’s a result in itself. HWTL!