St. Maximin

I don’t think he is at all. He claims we ‘function better’ with him in the side, but our home form since he got back in the side completely suggests otherwise. Actually don’t mind him away for games like Villa (where he was good), but at home against weaker sides without the midfield cover, it’s suicidal. Far from all his fault as it’s a slow defence, but he’s the obvious change. People act like Livramento is unproven there too. He put in some excellent performances at both LB and RB and imo was our best player before Christmas. It’s not like he can’t defend either or even being a more attacking player would harm the way we ‘function’ as his recovery pace is so fast. Plus his mistakes don’t get highlighted as much because he’s on to help us salvage a result following goals Burn had a hand in. What I do agree with is on how the crowd reacts and it seems harsh when other defenders are at fault. But we all know it’s frustration at the manager not using alternatives.

This doesn’t seem unfair and I’m confused. Original post seems more of a criticism of Howe than scapegoating Burn. Leaving aside Burn’s performance, Tino was very good when he played earlier on this season and without assuming he’s the saviour of our season, he never looked like he’d get outpaced on a regular basis like Burn would. That’s not Burn’s fault though and I think he does seem like a very easy target, but it’s because there’s a pretty obvious alternative who has proven himself, whereas the likes of Botman, Longstaff et al don’t currently have that. Ultimately that’s a Howe issue though and quite concerning he’s not addressed it the bigger picture. Our home form of recent has been abysmal when you consider the goals were conceding and I have to say Howe’s approach has really cost us and in the case of Burn, is exposing him and making him a very easy target.

I tend to agree with the criticism of him, but I think lack of pace and poor positioning can be levelled against the other defenders too and so it seems harsh he gets more. Difference is they should all be first choice despite that, whereas I can’t see why Tino isn’t at LB. The fact Howe has sometimes made that switch early says a lot. You can’t have a regularly struggling starting left-back. Sure he’s had some great games recently and had a strong second-half yesterday too. Imo he’s absolutely an option for deeper and more defensive spells. But he’s had a huge hand in several goals recently and clearly being targeted. Cost of that can’t be ignored.

I think it can seem like there’s a lot of animosity because he’s constantly playing ahead of more natural full-backs, who are quicker and offer more going forward, as well as seemingly being harshly dropped. Seems the loyalty to Burn is unreasonably so much higher to him than Tino. Also maybe a reaction to him getting an easier time because he’s a local and a great lad (which he is and I’m sure offers enough to the squad by his leadership alone). We hear a lot about how he shouldn’t play against fast right-wingers because of his lack of pace, but isn’t that pretty much every right-winger in this league? You can’t get away with a full-back who is that slow; you’ll just get found out.

Don’t care for ETH, but Rashford was too ‘ill’ to train in Manchester after a night out in Belfast. Irrespective of what the manager is like, that’s pretty disgraceful and unprofessional behaviour towards a club that pays him crazy money and he should know better. The guy was a national hero not long ago and now he’s ruined his reputation and is acting like an idiot when he should really be maturing.

We’ve actually got it wrong all this time. Clearly Joey has actually been looking out for the female pundits, worrying about their mental health all this time. One of football’s good guys. https://x.com/common_sensepod/status/1749871853881987522?s=46&t=h8yv-Yp4IOGkVPLw7fULYw

Of course there are brilliant players who have played for that team. I just thought Sancho thrives on all the space that you get as a strong counter-attacking team in that league. Looks like he doesn’t have the pace or skill to be dangerous in a better league.

Sancho Well his Dortmund record was excellent, but it just seemed hard not to look good in that team and league.

Real sad state of affairs there are Toon fans that like this bloke and tbh I struggle to see why. He was good for about 6 months having spent a lot of his time in jail, went on some rants about Ashley while pretending to read philosophy and then promptly left. I appreciate he had a very tough upbringing but he’s never really tried to not be a horrible bloke. A lot of other people like him at least learn to grow up.

On the subject of Rafa, it might seem negative but I wonder if he could have experimented with the 3 CBs and WBs the odd match like Rafa did. Not his fault we had an injury crisis, but the same midfielders wasn’t working. Meanwhile we still had a few defensive options on the bench - sure Dummett/Krafth/Burn/Manquillo/Ritchie could have slotted in here and there…

Your use of the phrase ‘generally managed fine’ is pretty key here. While I agree, I think you expect a bit more than that from a full-back. I feel for a while he survived on having lower expectations than others - the reliable midtable CB playing LB and a local lad living his dream unexpectedly etc. As well as not offering lots going forward, I don’t recall him having strong wingers in his back-pocket. He just seemed mostly solid with clear limitations and one of them being lack of pace. I think managers eventually found that out and he started becoming more mistake-prone later last season. It’s not a surprise - he’s been a very solid CB imo but way too slow to be dealing with some of the quickest players out wide. Trippier isn’t especially quick either, but has sufficient acceleration and agility that Burn doesn’t have.

He shouldn’t and won’t be under pressure for a long time, but needs to take account for this. It should be a routine win amongst a tough run, but it’s made it incredibly hard for us and now we’ve got really tough away fixtures. Our inability to break down defensive teams is coming back to bite now. But I at least expect us to defend properly Can only assume Livra had a knock, otherwise he’s had a howler there.

Got us knocked out of Europe too. Ridiculous that a fairly slow centre-back thinks he can dribble through teams like Messi.

Presumably the club like the idea of wishing in different languages. I imagine Karius can speak English too.

Pretty sure that’s the Russia flag upside down on those sleeves #sportswashing

I’ve seen Howe get stuck for in-game management but tactically I tactically I think he’s largely brilliant in addition to his man-management. It’s more the selections that seem to concern me. You can’t keep picking the same teams, often for a full 90, with the fixtures we’ve had. Even if Howe doesn’t ‘trust’ the youngsters, it’s backfiring as we’re losing games either way and becoming more knackered in the process. No way did Gordon look fit enough today also. Also I don’t know how much of a day he has, but the summer transfer activity wasn’t quite right. The Hall loan was weird and we don’t need another full-back. We need to offload instead of adding new players to sit on the bench, even if that means loans. And I’m sure he’s a great leader to have around, but no way should Matt Ritchie be getting near a Premier League bench in 2023/24.

There’s clearly multiple things going on, but surely age isn’t helping him maintain consistency in amongst a busy schedule. The guy was terrific only a couple of months ago and he hasn’t just all of a sudden become too old in the last few weeks, but as has been mentioned he’s past his peak and naturally will find it harder to maintain high level performances consistently especially with a busy fixture list. The schedule might ease, but he’s not getting younger. Not unusual for players to go from being around their peak to back-ups/playing in weaker leagues within a couple of years for players early to mid 30s. At the end of the day he’s 33 and imo has done remarkably well to perform at such a good level when many wide players are way past their best by then. Whatever else is going on for him, I hope he gets the support he needs.

Like a young Davide Santon.

I don’t rate Southgate as a manager but not buying the hatred though. He definitely seems like a good guy. I do see people defend him by saying international football is often defensive though and I don’t really agree. You could say France were a great save off winning their second successive WC despite being dull to watch, but nobody would say it wasn’t working. In contrast Southgate’s style clearly led to our failure to win on home soil in 2021 imo. And more recently Argentina won in 2022 through playing entertaining football. I don’t think many would have seen them as best ‘on paper’ before, but they didn’t resort to cautious play as it probably wasn’t playing to their strengths, like with England it wouldn’t either.

A bit tongue-in-cheek I admit, but if we talk about how well Southgate has done based on his record, we might as well be praising Bruce for comfortably keeping us up two years in a row.

I’d agree that Drury is cringe thinks he’s a poet, but I’m not buying the hate here. Despite all that, even though I can’t exactly say why, for me his style is just really effective for huge games and perhaps even his more cringe moments help make games and moments more memorable.

VAR causing confusion again and tbh I’m not entirely sure what goes on in the officials’ minds half the time, but it’s certainly causing some drama and talking points. We all love it deep down.

It’s cringe chanting I agree, but a load of Newcastle fans on a night out drunkenly showing warmth to some Saudi tourists isn’t really the same as being an apologist for KSA’s human rights record surely? What should they be doing - lecturing them about their views on homosexuality and women?

I think he’s excellent personally and easily England standard, which makes it even more frustrating he’s not playing for his club. As far as England goes, I’m more frustrated with the message it sends by Southgate to pick players who are not playing club football (or at a high standard) and (unsurprisingly) also not performing for England when they get on - both to the players and those in-form who could be selected instead, Newcastle players included. It seems Southgate doesn’t want to experiment when he has the perfect opportunities to (between tournaments) and sticks with his favourites who “never let him down”. Eventually he’ll need a bit more than simply not being let down, with the fans expecting higher.

I agree and I’ve clarified my view above but I just don’t think anyone has said that. You have to bear in mind the context here being Keegan’s recent comments, rather than someone just out of the blue having a rant about women commentators because he heard one on the TV and didn’t like them.