King HTT III

Maddison can press and does, he’s like Bruno in that he’s not very quick, but he can do that side of the game. Leicester are not really a pressing side and are more possession based, I’m sure under Howe Maddison can do the press as well as what he does best. He’s versatile too and can play a number of roles. He’d be an amazing signing. I somehow think we’ve moved on from looking at signing him though and can’t see it happening.

He’s not slow, but if he had real pace, you’d be thinking he could be the best CB in the world right now in terms of overall attributes. Whatever we paid for him is looking like pennies right now, he’s going to be our Kompany type signing in that area of the pitch and Bruno our Silva type signing, not that I want to compare because we are a totally different takeover/development situation to City when they were taken over. More players like this please NUFC not your Robinhos et al. Back to Wor Sven, I love his switch passes, he turns back to goal, flick his head and plays a straight as dye ball to midfield on the deck or just calmly clips a lofted ball to Burn or Trippier.

I can’t believe he’s not an automatic starter for what I feel is an average Brazil side which starts Fred. He’s arguably now the second best midfielder in the league behind De Bruyne. He was sensational yesterday and you felt like he wasn’t even getting out of second gear. Put equal quality around him and, well…

I was gutted when he left and at the time, cynically, was angry with him, but that’s all water under the bridge now. I thought his questions and general punditry was excellent yesterday, I’d love to see him co commenting, he has a certain vibe about him like McCoist, who for me is the best co commentator there is. That and how giddy he was about our performance, the club, fans and well, he’s as much a supporter as any of us are. I love it and love him. You can see he’s just a lovely all-round fella so he is.

I think this may be tactical, but I’ve noticed Wood plays between the half-way line and 30 or so yards from the opposition box rather than getting in the box, where he can break to press going forward and retreat to almost give us an extra body in the centre which allows our wide men to break and gives the likes of Trippier more licence. He’s never going to score lots of goals for us when starting, but I honestly feel he gives a lot to the team off the ball. Wilson of course scores goals and is more dangerous and more of a threat, but when Wood plays the dynamic of the team on and off the ball seems to just fit. That was his best game for us yesterday.

What is so evident now under Howe is how difficult we are to play against. We are tough to play through, tough to play over the top against and even tougher to play across whether that’s from up front, in midfield and especially at the back. We mop up attacks pretty easily at times and we are clearly a nightmare on and off the ball to face.

He’s been a great signing and his distribution is improving massively, he’s Peter Schmeichel like with his saves using his feet and the way he plucks high balls out from the air is so impressive. He’s on course for my player of the season.

I know all of these boys and all of their parents (some are personal mates), they play for my son’s club and I have to say from what I’ve heard the club have been absolutely amazing since the takeover, from the owners to the players and manager and other staff with all the local grassroots clubs, stadium tours, tickets for games, Xmas gifts, lunch with the players, training sessions with the players and constant communication for the academy kids. There are some seriously talented kids in that group btw. One reminds me of a young Andy Cole (Rooney actually, seriously). By the way these are 7 year olds, what an experience. I’m not sure this ever happened under Ashley. Some of these kids maybe future stars and under Ashley I know for a fact they weren’t that into NUFC, now they are, now most have season tickets and those that don’t, want one, same with my boy. NEWCASTLE UNITED!