Bertrand Tells Minamino That He’s Not Going Back to Liverpool

Having given them a 1-0 start, we now begin to play and there’s
some encouragement as Stephens and Adams combine to send Ings though on goal
but for some reason he takes an extra unneeded touch and the angle disappears
and Darlow blocks well.
 
Back come Newcastle and a speculative ball from right to left
again finds Stephens absent.  St. Maximin
picks it up and finds Almiron before anyone closes him down and Almiron just
smashes it across.  It’;s speculative but
it works and Bednarek plays a 1-2 with his own amazing dancing feet and
deflects it past McCarthy.  There’s a
massive amount of luck in this but it’s still shit from our point of view. It’s
fucking garbage to be honest



There’s not too long to dwell on how shit everything is as
Bertrand surges forward on the left, plays it in to Minamino who takes a
sublime first touch past a defender before lashing it left footed into the roof
of the net at the near post.  What a goal
that is.  It’ll be funny if Liverpool don’t
score in their next game.

Newcastle are rivalling ourselves on the injury front and have lost both
Manquillo and Wilson in the first half with Krafth and Joelinton coming on. At
least it’s not Andy Carroll who would have been guaranteed a goal today.  Willock then again easily beats Stephens and
sees his show clawed away by McCarthy, who doesn’t look comfortable at all.

There are about 30 seconds to go until half time and following
a free kick from the toher side when most of our players are forward, Redmond picks
it up on the right, about 30 yards from goal. 
There are players ahead of him that he could try and find but oh no, he
turns and goes backwards and eventually we go back to McCarthy, who produces a shite
underhit pass to Bertrand and he loses it to Almiron who runs through and
scores easily at the near post for one of the shittiest goals you will
ever see conceded.  Just fuck off.  Talk about self inflicted.  No need for Redmond to go backwards, no need
for McCarthy to pass it short, Bertrand should have just whacked it and
bollocked him.


The half time reshuffle consists of Bednarek and Stephens
swapping over.  They both had a mare in
the first half but it’s interesting that the Stephens at right back plan for
the rest of the season has lasted all of 45 minutes.  Down the other side at the start of the half,
Willocks works his way across and tees up Shelvey, who Redmond has tracked from
a distance of 10 yards, observing social distancing protocols but Voldemort
inexplicably puts it wide.

It’s a big let off and we have a chance to capitalise as Hayden carts
over Adams about 25 yards out.  It’s
predictable – we know what’s coming, Darlow in goal knows what’s coming and JWP
knows what’s coming.  Over the wall and
ripping away into the near top corner – simply brilliant, 3-2.  We should definitely still be on for a point
at least here.

Even When Faced With a Wall Containing Voldemort, the Magician Strikes Again

As I’ve said before, Jeff Hendrick is a very average
footballer and it appears he doesn’t have a brain either as Minamino gets away
from him and Hendrick grabs his shirt – second yellow.  Jeff has forgotten that he got booked for scything
down the same player in the first half so it’s one of the most brainless red
cards from an experienced player that you will ever see so now, Newcastle have
10 men.

It looks like Newcastle are pressing the self-destruct button as Schar
needlessly brings down Adams over on the right wing.  We win a corner following the free kick and
JWP’s kick is met at close range by Vestergaard and Darlow doesn’t know much
about it but he spreads himself and saves it.

It’s pissing down even more now and the pitch is beginning to suffer with
standing water right down the middle.  It’s
not helping but we do breate a great chance as Adams plays Redmond in near the
goal line and his cut back is met by Ings, clipped over the keeper, onto the
inside of the post and straight back to the grounded keeper.  Fucks sake.  Another chance goes by as Ings latches onto a
loose ball and gets it past Darlow and Adams bundles it into the net.  They’re both offside though.


A rare Newcastle attack sees Almiron try to burst past
Bednarek and he goes down holding his throat even though the contact was across
his chest.   Definite free kick though
and it’s shite and hit into the wall.  As
it bounces out, Schar tries to shoot and gets there at exactly the same time as
Vestergaard and that’s like kicking a wall. He’s injured and has to go off and
Newcastle now have nine men. 
Nine, it’s the magic number.


There are 18 minutes to go and Ralph makes our first sub with
N’Lundulu replacing Stephens on 81, so now it’s a kind of 3-4-3 formation.  Nothing happens as we just crab aimlessly
across the pitch.  There is a moment of
excitement as Romeu’s cross is flapped out by Darlow and Ings shot is cleared
off the line by Hayden. Vestergaard has gone near the keeper so that’s a foul,
so it doesn’t matter anyway.



We carry on in clueless fashion til the end. Vestergaard is
up front as well now though he’s not the best person to be up there when the
crosses are knee high and rarely beat the first man.  There is one unscientific almighty scramble
and it’s Vestergaard who has the chance but as the big man swings, Hayden gets
a touch on the ball and Jannik hits it over the bar. Full time. Pathetic.



So, we had 20 minutes against 10 men and then 20 minutes
against nine men and we couldn’t score and that was absolutely pathetic. Looks
like Newcastle learned more from our 9-0 battering on Tuesday than we did.  If you take the game as a whole however, the
fact of the matter is that if you throw three goals into your own net against
anyone, then you do not deserve to get anything out the game and you are going
to struggle to get anything out the game even if it is against a team as limited
as Newcastle.


When we got tanked by United last week, there were a host of mitigating factors
but today, the only one was the heavy pitch. 
That maybe stopped us moving the ball as quickly as we needed to but
regardless, there was no excuse for playing sideways through the mud, working a
crossing opportunity or a 1v1 opportunity and then passing back across into the
mud.  All of this is done 40 yards out
and then someone basically puts the ball into the mixer.  Just loading bodies up front is never the
key, it’s what goes on to draw the defenders out to make a bit of space,
creating overloads.  It’s a training
drill that you do from about Under 12s.  Our
‘plan’, such as it was, was to crab across the pitch and eventually cross from
deep into our forward line which consisted of Ings, Adams, N’Lundulu and
Vestergaard.  It’s been nagging at me for
a while now that our players are very well drilled in Ralph’s system but do
they have the ability to think on their feet? Is there a section in the SFC
Playbook about 11 v 9?


Newcastle deserved their win because they dug in and showed a
real desire to defend but they were helped to do that, even when they had nine
players, by our total ineptitude to speed the game up, spread the play, put
decent crosses into the box and pepper the goal. On top of that, when we lost
the ball we usually committed a foul and allowed Newcastle to waste time and
then put the ball up our end of the pitch for a minute and a half.

Some of the players need to take a good look at themselves.
The key incident of the game was the third goal. We were on the attack with 30
seconds to go to half-time and Nathan Redmond has the ball on the right about
30 yards out with most of our team in the penalty are from the preceding free
kick. Instead of trying to go forward he turned back which eventually means
that we gave it back to McCarthy who then gave Bertrand an absolutely shit pass
which he then gave away and we end up 3-1 down at half-time. I don’t think
McCarthy was particularly to blame for any other nine goals against Manchester
United during the week but he looked today like his confidence are taking a bit
of a battering. He was awful on the third goal, not just giving Bertrand the
hospital pass but also not getting back into position and allowing Almiron an
easy pass into the goal of the near post. It was pathetic.



I’ve already touched on Nathan Redmond and his desire to go
backwards all the time. The  only
situation in which he is any good is if we are on the attack from deep and it’s
kind of broken field possession where there is lots of space to run into. As
soon as an opposition player gets anywhere near him or a defence is set, he
just turns back in plays safe. Any time he gets into a position to actually
cross the ball it’s knee-high and always hitting the first defender. Since he came
back into the team after his injury he is now played about three games and I
don’t think he’s actually taken on a player once.  He’s clearly scared to try, so what is the
point of him being out there?


As is obviously the plan given the defenders that we have in
the squad, Jack Stephens played right back today with Vestergaard being fit
again. That experiment lasted for the first half because Stephens was
absolutely woeful, offering absolutely nothing in attack and not looking like
he had a clue in defence.  Bednarek had an
awful first half as well, being at fault for the first two goals and he got the
job in the second half.  Rather than the
experiment I would rather play Kayne Ramsay if KWP is not available. That one
is on Ralph, as is leaving Redmond on the pitch for 95 minutes when Djenepo,
who can actually beat a player and commit defenders, was left on the bench, as
was Nathan Tella.  Djenepo should have been
on for Redmond when Hendrick got sent off and Tella for Romeu when they went
down to 9.  What was the point of leaving
Romeu on?  Maybe Tella could’ve come on
and played on the left with Minamino playing in midfield instead of Romeu for
the last 20 minutes. Oriol was understandably off the pace today with his first
game back.  That’s all with the benefit
of hindsight though.


In some ways it was worse on Tuesday. We were playing a team
who are utterly crap even with 11 men and we just did fuck all really. There
was no cohesion to our play whatsoever, yet we scored 2 brilliant goals.
Another freekick masterclass from JWP and a wonderful touch and shot by Minamino
which will have the Liverpool fans purring. Minimino had a good day because his
goal but he did drift out of the game quite badly at times but a lot of that
would’ve been down to us not keeping possession well enough or attacking
quickly enough.  The thought of him on
one wing and Armstrong on the other is certainly appealing.



Up front, Danny Ings looked about half the player that he was
at the start of the season and Che Adams never really look like scoring. When
he did put the ball in the net you just knew it was going to be offside and
those two have to get back on it as soon as possible.



A depressing end to a shite week of football. We have a
player sent off and collapse and get absolutely fucking demolished whereas
Newcastle have a player sent off against us and hold on to win. Not good enough.


Next up is the double header against Wolves, FA Cup away on Thursday followed
by League at home on the Sunday.  Fraser
Forster will start on Thursday and it should also be a debut for Mohammed
Salisu.  I feel that the 5 defeats in a
row that we have suffered will mean that maybe 1 or 2 are rested.

PS. After a couple of games where we’ve been on the end of some shockers from
the referee, I’d like to highlight how well I thought Craig Pawson refereed the
game today.