St. Maximin

Facundo Ferreyra

The guy is brilliant. Comedy career very much in the pipelines for when his football managerial career soon ends.

Yeah perhaps, I see it both ways. At the very least I think it’s fair for Southgate to experiment with both a back three and four as always good to have different options, and I wouldn’t say the back three is proving disastrous. It’s just a shame excellent attacking players won’t even leave the bench as a result. I at least hope the midfield has a bit more going forward - Rice and Henderson are without doubt good players, but pretty underwhelming as a CM pair.

Big squad expected due to three matches, but even then does the 10 man defence suggest Southgate is going to persist with the back three/wing-backs? I get that when you look at the underwhelming options there, but just seems wrong a team far better going forward has to sacrifice a great attacker for a mediocre defender.

While I can empathise with the hesitation to celebrate thing, I don't agree with the argument that you can't properly celebrate goals now. Most of the time you can see it's highly unlikely a goal will be overturned due to an offside or handball etc. And despite the increase in overturns, it's not like goals were never ruled out before. I have mates saying they haven't properly celebrated a goal since VAR came in, but I have to say they are so anti-VAR that their cynicism makes them think that way whenever the ball goes into the goal. They have to review and adjust VAR (it looks like they have done a shambolic job of this so far), so I'm in favour of keeping it for now as long as that happens. It shouldn't be a case of no VAR or VAR as it is currently. Technology and how it's used is always improved over time.

Didn't watch him but he scored 9 in 39 in the Championship last year as a winger, so probably better than bang average imo. No doubt he has the ability but as was mentioned before he often fails to rise to the occasion. He did look bright that last two times he came on, so would definitely start him. Also don't mind Ritchie getting some time on the wing. As well as being a leader and fighter, he's definitely got decent enough technique out wide and unlike Joelinton can strike a football properly. Surprised he hasn't played more tbh.

I don’t really care about the Sunderland thing but it’s not surprising a guy who managed both Tyne and Wear, Birmingham and Sheffield clubs has persistently showed a lack of loyalty throughout his managerial career.

To be fair he managed most of those clubs in the league below at least part of the time, so not sure they’re fair comparisons. There’s enough stats from this season we could use that would be far more effective.

He smashed that goal in against Morecambe tbh.

This is one of the best yet...

To be fair, has he even pretended he joined us a Newcastle fan? He talked about being a boyhood fan when he got the job, but I’m sure all that dedication disappeared years ago. I think it’s often thick people in the media and the like who exaggerate the connection, what with Bruce being “one of their own”. We’ve had blokes from London and Spain manage us in recent years who are more Geordie than he is, upbringing aside.

I have a mate whose wife speaks Portuguese and has got to know Joelinton and his wife a bit. Apparently getting settled here has been tough and they haven’t felt well supported by the club there. Hardly surprising really.

More than 3 and a half minutes between every pass he made. Nice.

That for a time being he actually looked nowhere near the level of rubbish that Hendrick has for us so far. Admittedly he played a lot more but clearly he had a few good moments in that first season to go with the rubbish. Hendrick has looked consistently horrific ever since that goal against West Ham. I’m genuinely not sure what he’s supposed to be good at. The absolute state of our midfield options. Regarding Matty I’m still mystified what he’s done to be not getting in the squad now, let alone on the pitch. Actually looked like a semi-competent midfielder against some of the best sides then is nowhere to be seen while idiots like Shelvey and Hendrick stink up the place.

Aye, get your point, missing front 3 and Schar is leaving anyone a mountain to climb, but I can’t excuse the total drop off in intensity and change of approach. He bottled it missing those players. We saw same approach he kept persisting with earlier this year when he was without ASM. Backwards passing from midfield, no runners forward, no intensity in anything, rushing the ball forward, and clearly just trying to play directly to Joelinton against a full back. He went back to same approach he was responsible too before Jones came in. Proves the ‘doing it my way’ stuff was bollocks, as today must have been him just going back to how players wanted then. Carbon copy approach, plan and performance to any of those games up until Everton away. Could have easily shoved Fraser into Almiron role, and Murphy/Ritchie (lol) wide left. He shithoused it and stuck Hendrick back in. Squad may be less talented and full of dossers, but he’s incapable of getting anywhere near best from them. Whether that’s tactically, or just numerous factors going into them wanting to play for him and run through brick walls to get a win. Yep, I still agree with all that. Tactics were horrendous throughout and we heavily relied on luck earlier on also. Not really getting the persistence with this formation. It seems set up to support Miggy but surely today of all times he needed to mix it round. We can keep the higher intensity and pressing under Jones under a different formation I’d have thought. No proper wingers or strikers seems a bit odd unless you’re Barca under Guardiola etc.

our injury crisis only started this past week. We had the covid crisis also. I know every team has been affected by it but we had ASM out for two months and hardly had great alternatives.

I’ve said before I don’t want to defend Bruce, especially today, but do we really have a top 16/17 squad given our injury crisis? Fulham, Palace and Brighton have more depth. Burnley are probably worse on paper though. Fulham just brought Loftus-Cheek off the bench and Mitrovic can’t get a game. Our best 11 on paper included Shelvey or a Longstaff until one of Arsenal’s fringe players joined. I am kind of playing Devil’s advocate as we all know it goes much deeper than positions and points, but I can kind of see why dim pundits defend him.

Joelinton offers us more than Carroll I disagree, he's utterly s***. Theres f*** all evidence to suggest he offers more other than he's played more minutes than everyone at the club. It’s to suit the formation though isn’t it? He’s played as a wide forward, which doesn’t suit Gayle and Carroll. Fraser definitely won’t be playing as a traditional CF. I mean I’d rather we mixed it up and played 4-3-3 but maybe Bruce/Jones want to stick with the this formation.

The coward is playing for the sack surely?

Colback had 4 goals and 6 assists in his first season apparently. His all round game was terrible but even then it was better than Hendrick’s. I’m still not sure what he’s supposed to be good at.

Yeah I try not to see it as a big issue. It’s more weird. These guys are pretty irrelevant and it’s uncommon for fans to be singing their praises for their punditry. I agree about Keys also but he’s far and away the biggest laughing stock of them all and widely considered an awful bloke.

Such pundits are becoming parodies of themselves but I do wonder if Bruce has pictures of them naked or something (not something I try to think about mind). I’m sure Bruce has genuinely convinced some people he’s a nice bloke, but I really doubt he has enough time on his hands to be bessies with them all. I doubt many of them really know him. Simon Jordan actually said he didn’t speak to Bruce for four years after he ditched Palace (he is a nice bloke though) and still weirdly sticks up for him. The reluctance to criticise an imbecile and terrible manager is just a bit weird to be honest.

Yep. I think VAR should be still be used as the technology is excellent and available. Other sports use it so football should also. However, it's been used so badly that I can understand why many would rather it wasn't part of the game. I like to think the issues could be addressed rather than seeing it as a case of no VAR or VAR as things stand. I wouldn't be too sad to see it not being used for offsides but I think it could be an option for the most blatant offside errors, so all the bother of organising an offside trap isn't going to waste etc. I think that seems pretty reasonable compared to what we saw last night when Werner was effectively offside for pointing where the pass should be received.

He’s not wrong but the Fulham disallowed goal was crazily still correct and due to a stupid rule. I think they should change that rule to make exceptions for such cases as well as some of the protocols such as marginal offsides (I mean Werner’s tonight was ridiculous), but I think a chance for the ref to rewatch is good to have for red cards, penalties, key fouls etc.

Fantastic. Saying that Hope is normally spot on about Bruce, but was he right on this occasion? I can understand why Bruce got annoyed but then again I'm past caring now. I still can't get over the fact he's still in a job