We're all pissed off...but

[WiganSpur]

Yes there were so many frustrating things about today:

• Townsend's shooting
• No Lamela
• The Defoe sub
• Wrong team selection which wasted a sub
• Our terrible first half
• Krul
• Poor finishing

But: When was the last league game where we created so many chances and played with some real intensity and urgency for once? We murdered them in the second half and genuinely could have had 3 or 4.

Our finishing wasn't up to scratch but the point is we looked threatening. We actually got crosses into the box, we actually saw some movement.

Of course it's no good looking threatening if you don't score but as far as i'm concerned it's progress. How many times have we seen us create fuck all this season? If we can keep up that intensity and sort our finishing out then things will look rosier. Creating opportunities and not being able to take them is a better situation to be in than not looking like opening teams up in a month of Sundays.

Slowly but surely AVB is learning more and more about the new players. It's only a matter of time before Lamela comes in now and from the half time sub today i'm sure Andre is learning he needs Sandro or Capoue in the side. Three times AVB has tried Defoe & Soldado 4-4-2, hopefully he knows this isn't the way to go now.

Give AVB a chance to find his best team. If lessons are not learned by the next calendar year and the goals are still not coming then i'll start to have doubts about whether the manager is taking us in the right direction.

 

[beats1]

There is a difference between a chance and a clear cut chance like the eriksen one! We havent created many clear cut chances!

 

[kaz Hirai]

Yes there were so many frustrating things about today:

• Townsend's shooting
• No Lamela
• The Defoe sub
• Wrong team selection which wasted a sub
• Our terrible first half
• Krul
• Poor finishing

But: When was the last league game where we created so many chances and played with some real intensity and urgency for once? We murdered them in the second half and genuinely could have had 3 or 4.

Our finishing wasn't up to scratch but the point is we looked threatening. We actually got crosses into the box, we actually saw some movement.

Of course it's no good looking threatening if you don't score but as far as i'm concerned it's progress. How many times have we seen us create fuck all this season? If we can keep up that intensity and sort our finishing out then things will look rosier. Creating opportunities and not being able to take them is a better situation to be in than not looking like opening teams up in a month of Sundays.

Slowly but surely AVB is learning more and more about the new players. It's only a matter of time before Lamela comes in now and from the half time sub today i'm sure Andre is learning he needs Sandro or Capoue in the side. Three times AVB has tried Defoe & Soldado 4-4-2, hopefully he knows this isn't the way to go now.

Give AVB a chance to find his best team. If lessons are not learned by the next calendar year and the goals are still not coming then i'll start to have doubts about whether the manager is taking us in the right direction.

Get the fuck out of here with your level headed thinking and support of our manager!

Everything and everyone is shit you hear me!?

 

[Gedson100]

Any other day we'd have scored a hatful.

Not bringing Lamela on was a very dodgy decision, but then team selection and substitutions have been a notable weak point for us this year IMO. How we actually play isn't the problem.

 

[Donki]

It's not really Townsend's shooting it's his decision making that really fucked me off today, but yeah I agree with all you say. Oh and Sandro should be the first name on the team sheet.

 

[$herringham]

100 million spent.
Can't score at home with so much possession.
Sugar coating it doesn't wipe out failure and I think it's a little degrading to how far we've come to take positives from the hull draw and Newcastle defeat. Positives should be taken from top teams away, not mid-lower teams at home.

Slip ups is one thing but I'm seeing a pattern weekly. Europe win, EPL draw/defeat

 

[Armstrong_11]

gutted and disappointed...

but this is how i feel, posted it on the match thread...

just gotta grit our teeth for the next 2 weeks. and hope it motivates the team and fires them up for city. at the end of the day, don't think we played badly, don't think we deserve to lose. sh*t happens... thats life. we need to move on. it doesn't get any easier for us, and the team needs us, all of us behind them.

Luck wasn't on our side, get over it and...

even the best teams lose.

 

[kendoddsdadsdogsdead]

Newcastle are poor at the back and although we had a couple of chances I still wasn't convinced we would score.

 

[poc]

I really do understand the level headed responses on these threads but are you honestly saying this inverted wing bollox and Siggy at lw rofl is good mgmt we were only dangerous even on the right side when Townsend stopped cutting in and got to the fucking byline. Well done to the fans who got at walker when he tried to slow it all down yet again after that we played with real intensity. Sooner he stops being loyal and trying to be the players friend and plays our best 11 we will be a cracking side.

 

[Syn_13]

Yes there were so many frustrating things about today:

• Townsend's shooting
• No Lamela
• The Defoe sub
• Wrong team selection which wasted a sub
• Our terrible first half
• Krul
• Poor finishing

But: When was the last league game where we created so many chances and played with some real intensity and urgency for once? We murdered them in the second half and genuinely could have had 3 or 4.

Our finishing wasn't up to scratch but the point is we looked threatening. We actually got crosses into the box, we actually saw some movement.

Of course it's no good looking threatening if you don't score but as far as i'm concerned it's progress. How many times have we seen us create fuck all this season? If we can keep up that intensity and sort our finishing out then things will look rosier. Creating opportunities and not being able to take them is a better situation to be in than not looking like opening teams up in a month of Sundays.

Slowly but surely AVB is learning more and more about the new players. It's only a matter of time before Lamela comes in now and from the half time sub today i'm sure Andre is learning he needs Sandro or Capoue in the side. Three times AVB has tried Defoe & Soldado 4-4-2, hopefully he knows this isn't the way to go now.

Give AVB a chance to find his best team. If lessons are not learned by the next calendar year and the goals are still not coming then i'll start to have doubts about whether the manager is taking us in the right direction.

As @beats1 said above, it's all about making clear cut, goalscoring chances. I agree that we've stepped up from making no chances whatsoever to making some but I'm still seeing a lack of urgency in our play. We move the ball too slowly, Paulinho and Dembele were very guilty for this today and until we do learn to move that ball quicker our high line possession strategy is impotent.

I think, ultimately, today's failure was a collection of little things going wrong - pretty much what you've set out in your bullet points. AVB needs to get over this idea that we need to physically dominate every game, all of the time. We have to sacrifice a little of that for some guile. I do wonder if he's ever going to turn us into a 4-3-3 team, but don't know if we have the right players for it.

We were better in the 2nd half because we brought Sandro on, which allowed Paulinho to push forward (although he still had a poor game by his standards) and left Eriksen free of defensive responsibilities. Paulinho is a workhorse, no doubt, but he's not very creative and I do wonder if we should give Holtby a try alongside Eriksen, with Sandro anchoring.

 

[idontgetit]

Sorry but the only reason we played with any urgency was because we went a goal down early in the match

 

[sweyid]

I really hope that AVB uses the international break to it's fullest extent and sits down with the match tapes and takes a good hard look at where it's going wrong and makes adequate adjustments to the tactics and player choices.

 

[Damian99]

Any other day we might not get as many chances and you must make them count, we didn't/don't.

Newcastle have conceded 15 goals this season highest out of the top dozen teams so it's not much to brag about.

From now up to and beyond the xmas fixtures will show us exactly what AVB is all about. He is either going to be a tactical genius or if we are carrying on in the same vein then basically full of crap.

I really hope it's the former.

 

[TaoistMonkey]

I'm not even annoyed. We absolutely battered them. Any other day etc

We all move on

 

[daehanmingook]

I wouldn't say avb is learning but rather it is taking time for the team to play a certain way. his focus has always been on defense first and now he is beginning to develop the offense. you can see the leashes are becoming loosened as we are making more crosses into the box and upping our tempo but there is still some way to go. he basicallh inherited a brand new team this season so has to start over much of his work from last season. however seeing the way southampton and liverpool have been playing with likewise new managers, it begs the question why avb's methods need so much time. either way I amm going to wait until the jan window closes to evaluate avb, as his process still seems to be a wip

 

[Hoddle&Waddle]

Key thing here is, yes we murdered them in the second half, but are first half performances have been poor, consistently. AVB needs to do more to fire the lads up for KO, theres no excuse for not coming out the traps quicker. We seem to give opposition teams encouragement with our pedestrian first half displays.

 

[Strikeb4ck]

The one thing that's really pissed me off about AVB is his treatment of Benny and Ade.

 

[onthetwo]

I'm happy with our back Five, good options, look generally solid, clearly need Rose back soon to give us width down both flanks instead of just the right at the moment. Same for the two in front of the defence, good options etc.
For me, everything in the front of that lot looks disjointed, capable of creating a few chances here and there but little else. I'm looking for green shoots to see something promising from them, combinations, signs of an understanding between any of them but I honestly can't see it yet.
Guess we have to hope that something clicks soon. All a bit ho-hum for me.

 

[Stavrogin]

Yes there were so many frustrating things about today:

• Townsend's shooting
• No Lamela
• The Defoe sub
• Wrong team selection which wasted a sub
• Our terrible first half
• Krul
• Poor finishing

But: When was the last league game where we created so many chances and played with some real intensity and urgency for once? We murdered them in the second half and genuinely could have had 3 or 4.

Our finishing wasn't up to scratch but the point is we looked threatening. We actually got crosses into the box, we actually saw some movement.

Of course it's no good looking threatening if you don't score but as far as i'm concerned it's progress. How many times have we seen us create fuck all this season? If we can keep up that intensity and sort our finishing out then things will look rosier. Creating opportunities and not being able to take them is a better situation to be in than not looking like opening teams up in a month of Sundays.

Slowly but surely AVB is learning more and more about the new players. It's only a matter of time before Lamela comes in now and from the half time sub today i'm sure Andre is learning he needs Sandro or Capoue in the side. Three times AVB has tried Defoe & Soldado 4-4-2, hopefully he knows this isn't the way to go now.

Give AVB a chance to find his best team. If lessons are not learned by the next calendar year and the goals are still not coming then i'll start to have doubts about whether the manager is taking us in the right direction.

That makes the assumption that the problem was lack of creativity etc.

There have been plenty of occasions in the past couple of seasons where we have played attractive, urgent football and created chances. But they have been limited and they never blossomed into a prolonged spell of good performances.

I would argue that the abiding problem of AVB's tenure is that he has not, with a few exceptions, managed to get the players performing at anywhere near their best.

The majority of the squad are in poor form. Dembele, Defoe, Sigurdsson, Walker, Lennon et al have shown glimpses that they can do well under AVB but ultimately they haven't. Why not?

We see players come in and make a big impact, Townsend, Lamela on thursday, Eriksen when he first arrived. Their passing and control is sharper, they do good things, beat men etc. which improves our play immeasurably. It's obviously not just about tactics or team-mates - I think the problem is far more basic.

We can speculate all day about how this can be addressed but the issue is whether AVB has the capacity get the best out of this squad and its key players. I think he can but and the same time, there has been little indication so far that he will.

 

[CosmicHotspur]

We have to play all of our best players. We didn't today.