The
game that Newcastle fans have been waiting for since the opening day this
season, has now arrived. So incensed they were at winning with 10 men against
us, that this game has been looming like some sort of obsession for them. It’s all
a bit weird.   The incident that got them
all revved up was of course Ben Brereton Diaz taking a dive when Fabian Schär
stuck is nut in.   They don’t seem to be
remotely interested in the cause / effect side of things.  Schär caused it by sticking is nut and Brereton
Diaz produced the effect of throwing himself to the ground and rolling around
like a little bitch.  I don’t think
there’s a Saints fan out there who doesn’t think that our guy was embarrassing
that day, but there were plenty of Newcastle fans who don’t think their guy did
anything wrong, which is completely mental.  A recurring theme of the last few weeks has
been mental gymnastics. The mental gymnastics that people do to try and arrive
at different decisions when VAR is involved and in the way they defend the indefensible
and this is a similar example.  You would
think it would’ve been diffused by either the fact they won the game, the
passage of time since then, the fact we are bottom of the league and going
down, or even that fact the player in question has been loaned out by us to
Sheffield United, but no, the Geordies are still fuming about it. Fucking
weird.

They’ve been having such a tough time with it recently as well.  Nine wins in a row, which was only brought to
a halt last week with a surprisingly heavy defeat at home by Eddie Howe’s
former club, our friends from down the road in Bournemouth.  We got used to hearing from Eddie Howe all the
time of course when he was the Bournemouth manager, and on Radio Solent all the
time.  He was a moaning old bastard even
then.  He must be under pressure to
deliver this season at Newcastle and they have a pretty good chance of getting
a Champions League spot given the flaky nature of the top of the Premier
League.  It could well be very important
that they do that because you can’t imagine that players like Alexander Isak,
Bruno Guimaraes and even Anthony Gordon will be happy not playing Champions
League football.

Having been beaten by Bournemouth last week, this is a course the ideal game
for them to start another run with.  Saints
have so far proven themselves to be completely incapable of stringing together
90 minute performances, so that will be the aim today and the Newcastle will be
hoping to put another nail in our already nailed shut relegation coffin.

Ivan Juric was the bearer of bad news that his press conference when it emerged
that came in Sulemana will not be fit for this game, nor of course will Tyler Dibling
and our new signing, Albert Gronbaek be an option for next week but not for
today.  The major news of the week of
course was Gronbaek signing from Rennes in France.  He’s only been there since the start of the
season but hasn’t settled and we will be hoping he brings his Norwegian League
form to the Premier League. That’s a lot to ask for but we will be hoping that
as a full Danish international, he will be able to bring something to the
party. It sounds like he plays the same sort of position as Matty Fernandes,
but whatever he is, he puts some of our lesser players further down the pecking
order.  

Today, Saints have to front up physically against the gigantic units that are
Newcastle and if we decide to have fifteen minutes where we collectively stop
running, then this is going to be ugly. 
Fifteen minutes until kick-off and I’m watching the warm-ups from the Chapel
End. With the reconfiguration of the ground, I now have the opposition players
warming up in front of me and some things immediately stand out. There’s the physical
size of players like Burn and Joelinton, there’s also the speed and touch on
display in their warmup rondos. Then we get to the shooting drill and every
player is accurate and the ball is zipping into the top corners with the
goalkeepers not given a chance. A quick glance at the other end sees a lot of
shots closer to the moon than the goal. It’s about levels and standards.

The opening 10 minutes are all Newcastle, but we hold them at bay comfortably
enough and eventually get a bit of possession in their half with Fernandes
spreading the ball out to Jimmy Champo. His ball down the line finds KWP who
turns back and sets it up for Champo to cross it into the box first time and
Bednarek has ambled into the box and has not been picked up and rises to thump
a header past Dubravka. Fuck me, we are 1-0 up.

We take a bit of confidence from that, and Adam Armstrong gets the ball out
onto the left before firing a hopeful effort straight at Dubravka. Newcastle
start playing now and Fernandes gets booked for chopping down Livramento in
full flight. The ball gets played into the box and headed clear to Bruno on the
edge of the box and his cute reverse ball sends Isak through and he goes over
in a heap with Aribo in attendance.  The
ref gives a corner but he’s got the dreaded voice in his ear.

Errrr Sammy-boy, Stockley Park here

Yes, what?

What are you doing mate?

Corner – untidy challenge

Yeah, I know that’s what you’ve given but we’re looking for something… hang on

[Scotty hangs on for three minutes]…. Is it clearly and obviously a wrong
decision?

Now, now Scotty, we don’t do fucking ‘clear and obvious’ any more

What do we do then?

We do ‘high bar’

What does that mean?

No one knows what it fucking means mate and one man’s high bar in another man’s
low bar, that’s the point mate, it makes us unaccountable

So what you’re saying is that you’re going to tell me I’m wrong, and overrule
me and all that ‘onfield decision carries weight’ stuff is bollocks, when you
feel like it….

Fucking right… however, we’ll send you to the screen first to use up more time

Cheers lads
 
To the surprise of no one, it’s a penalty and it’s Isak who is on it and he
isn’t going to fucking miss is he….. No, he isn’t and he calmly rolls it into
the opposite corner to where McCarthy has gone. Shit.

Five minutes later and Tall Paul is pushed off the ball by Burn and the ball
breaks to Murphy on the right hand side and the player who famously waived Caleta-Car
off in the League cup semi-final a couple years ago, waltzes past Aribo and
then slides the ball through to Isak who takes a ridiculous first touch before
passing it into the corner of the net. Absolutely quality goal and there’s
nothing you can do about that without spending Saudi levels of cash on a
striker.

The game now has a chance of getting grim as Gordon picks out Joelinton in the
box and he turns and smashes a shot off the post.  It was actually a really good save by McCarthy
and it wouldn’t have counted anyway because Joelinton was offside.  Isak then picks up the ball in the inside left
channel, before going for his hat-trick with a cross shot which McCarthy saves
with his foot.

Samuel Barrott the referee has given us absolutely fuck all so far and there’s
another one as Big Les breathes on Joelinton, which throws him off balance so
much that he lunges in studs up on Tall Paul’s ankle. Nothing given and no
review so that’s a Newcastle free kick. It seems that you can commit murder
after the whistle has gone and get away with it.

Half time and it’s been ok.  Yes, we’re behind
but at least we’re competing.  A couple
of players are struggling with Manning unable to get away from the hardworking
Murphy and provide any ammunition from the left and Arma has disappeared after
a lively opening ten minutes or so.

The second half starts with Manning winning a corner off of Livramento.  With our new found power at corners,  there is a bit of expectancy as Fernandes
whip the ball along the 6 yard line, Dubravka flaps it out and THB attempts to
hook it back over his own head, but Dubravka gets back to make a decent save,
pushing over the bar,

The next goal is of course going to be vital and we know that if Newcastle
score it then the game is over and with that, the ball bounces in midfield for
Tonali who gambles on himself to win it and heads it forward to Isak, one touch
to Gordon and another touch to Tonali who has continued his run untracked by
the FA Gambling Commission and he’s cleaned through and you can bet on Tonali…
you can definitely bet on Tonali not missing… in fact it’s odds on that Tonali
will score and you know that if he was allowed, he’d have money on it himself
for a goal at any time and Isak to get the first goal.  Anyway… against McCarthy and he’s not going
to miss and he doesn’t. 3-1 game over, betting slips handed in. Fuck.

Newcastle know that the game is over so they play within themselves from that
point on and we don’t really do anything either, and it’s boring bollocks,
punctuated with the odd Newcastle chance. Lewis Hall goes down on the edge of
the box and is screaming for a penalty and maybe Bednarek is a little bit
fortunate to get away with pulling him back. Murphy then takes aim from the
edge of the box and McCarthy gets the slightest of touches to push it onto the
post,

It’s substitution time which is always a bit of a nightmare for us, but at
least he’s picked the right two to come off with Ryan Manning and Adam
Armstrong departing to be replaced with Sugawara and Archer.  Newcastle are still occasionally looking for
another goal and Joelinton manages to fire the ball past McCarthy but Bednarek
has got back onto the line and it kind of hits him and rolls away for a corner.

It’s rolling eyes in the head time as the excellent Big Les is replaced with Smallbone,
which Ivan is clearly only doing for shits and giggles.  85 gone and a big boot clear by McCarthy is
misjudged by Schar and Fernandes is through against Dubravka and like with Tonali
earlier, but without all the gambling gags, he doesn’t look like he’s ever
going to miss and he pings it into the net to give us a fighting chance.  Oh hang on, we are off to fucking VAR again.

You’ve done it again Sammy-boy

What?

Given a goal … now we’re got to look for a reason to definitely allow it

Hang on… onfield decision is goal, surely you look for a reason to definitely disallow
it

We do what we please mate…. Hang on whilst we check.

[Scotty hangs on for four minutes]

Offside Sammy… you’re wrong again

Even though Schar went to head it?

Yeah but we can’t prove he did touch it

Can you prove he didn’t touch it?

Don’t be smart Sammy-boy, disallow please.

Oh well, it could’ve been exciting for the last 10 minutes . Another overturn
of the on field decision.  I bet we don’t
come last of that particular fucking table this season.  In the event, nothing much happens in the
last 10 minutes. Juric makes another joke substitution bringing on Lallana to
partner Smallbone in the midfield engineless room and Ryan Fraser comes on at
right back, which means that the calamity defending of Sugawara is now in the
place where it can do most damage in the centre of defence.  Another couple of Newcastle chances ensue, with
McCarthy again doing well to block a shot from Almiron.

And so another game ends in defeat.  Not
too many complaints, as we were beaten by the better side and at least we kept
playing for the whole game. We needed everything to go our way to get anything
out today and not a lot did.  Two
decisions went for us in real time but were both inevitably changed by VAR.  Both reviews took four minutes each, so
clearly not obvious howlers.  Newcastle would
probably have won anyway but we needed those things to go for us to make up the
seismic gap in quality between the two teams.

The overturn by VAR call for the penalty was absolutely inevitable but I do
question whether it’s clear enough to overturn it with the alleged high bar for
overturning decisions and the original decision carrying weight and all that
shit.  Yes, it was probably a foul by Aribo
on Isak, but nothing with VAR should surprise anyone because they clearly make
it up as they go along. Yes they probably got it right today by the clarity of the process to arrive at decisions is all over the place.  If the same thing happens next week, they probably
wouldn’t give it and the onfield decision would be upheld and there is the
problem. 

Newcastle’s goal at the start
of the second half, which killed the game somewhat, was followed half an hour
of absolute boredom before we thought we’d got a goal back through Fernandes
and we might be in for a decent last 10 minutes… but no, the decision again
went our way, and then they spent ages yet again looking for conclusive proof
that the goal should’ve been given, instead of what they should be doing which
was looking for conclusive proof that it should be disallowed.  A four-minute review for VAR again and
offside.  We won’t have this shit to put
up with for much longer and we won’t be singing “it’s not football any more”.  Another joke was that only five minutes were
added at the end for a four-minute VAR check, six substitutions and a goal… and
that’s before you even get to ‘normal’ extra time.  Not that I gave a shit because be it five or
ten extra minutes, it wouldn’t have made a difference.

Outside of the VAR random decision generator, Samuel Barrott was fucking
horrendous. He didn’t give us a thing in the first half and Dan Burn was
allowed to throw Tall Paul around without a single free kick given against him
and the incident with Joelinton’s lunge and high foot on Tall Paul wasn’t even
looked at because Big Les has breathed on him a second earlier.

So, the quality issue.  Up front, they had Alexander Isak and Anthony Gordon and we had Tall Paul and Adam Armstrong.  The End.  Well it’s not the end as they have better players all over the pitch but it’s the starkest comparison.  It was hard to
argue against any of the starters playing given what has transpired over the
last few weeks but if you take a step back and look at the team, there are six Championship
level players in there. One or two might play well enough, but the rest won’t
and you are gonna struggle to win any games because of that. Newcastle were at
full strength and it really showed.    Of the six, Alex McCarthy did pretty well and
wasn’t at fault for any of the goals conceded and made three excellent
saves.  Jimmy Champo, Tall Paul and Joe
Aribo were ok without being outstanding, but Ryan Manning and Adam Armstrong
really struggled.  None of those six
should be in a first choice XI in the Premier League but here we are.

Having opened the scoring with a lovely cross into the box by Jimmy Champo and a
header by Bednarek, we then continued to work crossing positions and then
didn’t cross the ball.  It’s maddening.  The mindset from Russell Martin’s era is still
very much present at times where we just don’t put the opposition defence under
pressure, and instead we turn back to the halfway line with some grand vision
of scoring the perfect goal.

Ivan Juric maintained his hundred percent record and though there are slight
improvements, we are continually losing and there are still some mystifying
substitutions going on. Ryan Fraser going right wing back and Sugawara to centre
back, when he could have brought on ABK? Mental. Ending the game with a
midfield of Smallbone and Lallana, whilst Flynn Downs doesn’t make it off the
bench. What the fuck?  Juric can’t afford
to lose next week.  It’s Ipswich away and
if we do, I feel that getting less points than the all-embarrassing Derby team
is very much on the cards.

Up the Fucking Saints.