Apathy. Everywhere you look, complete and utter apathy. Dejected supporters left and right. Some of us have been coming for a long time, 1989 for this writer, but we can sense things, we can believe our eyes.
Pardew was finished under any owner except Ashley after Cardiff at home. If you can’t leave the dugout during a basic 3-0 home win to give instructions, your race is run. McClaren was seen off by Bournemouth and a certain E Howe, a Riviere up top as a parting gift on the team sheet. Brucey got his 1000th game and then took off to watch England playing cricket somewhere, or if not then Portugal, which is where he was most international breaks.
This team isn’t playing for the manager anymore, bar the odd exception. There has been no update of the coaching staff in five years, no new or fresh ideas, no evolution to keep us on our toes, so we end up here, like this, with no idea from the powers that be whether to stick, twist, or wish. Number 1 by 2030 – do me a favour, find eleven players who want to be here and have a will to win whilst they are here.
Team sheet drops and Anthony Gordon (he of the Bayern Munich bids) is not on the sheet. Rightly or wrongly, rumours start of a bust up between player and manager following the Friday press conference. So Harvey is back in. And the final member of the leadership group (Murphy) is out, so Elanga is back in. Bruno on the bench.
It’s real we must win territory. The manager had called out the squad for a reaction again. The players hadn’t responded to Barcelona or Sunderland, would they to Palace? Well, for about five or six minutes they’d look interested, before completely reverting to type.
For some people, there were questions over whether the sun pouring down on the East Stand was impacting the players … or whether Botman could even see with his Spiderman mask on. Was this the reason why nobody was able to pick up a runner, or why with one small tactical tweak Iraola was able to solve their midfield issues of the first ten minutes or so and suddenly we looked completely blunt as an attacking option?
We have scored three goals in our last three Premier League games, all defeats by two goals to one. None of those goals have come from an attacking plan. Largely they’ve been gifts (see Sunderland at home), link up between two players (see Palace away), or luck (see today and thanks Evanilson).
Otherwise we haven’t been able to fashion chances to win games of football. Yet time and again we line up in the same system, with the same issues and get found out in the same way when we don’t get to play the underdog. Our xG for the first half was 0.37, and even that flattered us.
Lewis Hall came off for what we have now been told was a tactical substitution. If I was him, I would be furious. Yes, he got beat for the ball in, but Tino regularly gets caught in the same manner he did for their first goal. He then goes off injured later, so that Dan Burn can get back on the park. We could have just swapped Trippier for Tino? Was that not an option?
Another sub who should be livid is Nick Woltemade. He scored goals with relative ease when he arrived, now he’s barely allowed to play up top, and when he does, he looks a shadow of the player who arrived full of confidence from Germany.
I’m really pleased we have tried to turn him into an eight, or give him five minutes with the game already gone against a crowd that are likely to greet his arrival the same way laughter filled the pub last week when, as Mateta scored, Eddie readied Elanga and Wissa … do me a favour.
For all those who want to point to the failings of the summer, the only number one target they got was Elanga … fifty-five million quid. I’ve said it since Leeds away at the start of the season – he isn’t a footballer. I’ve seen nothing to change my mind.
Some people will have come here for a match report. What I can report is that Newcastle United put in nothing deserving of the words display, performance, or anything like it. Bruno coming on livened us up, but even he must be starting to worry about what this looks like long term. He is coming towards his supposed peak years, does he want to spend them doing a rebuild here where another Carabao Cup might be all he gets. For us it’s like winning the World Cup, but for a kid from Brazil … who knows?
Ultimately, we are where we thought we would probably be. This will either show us where we are going, or show us that the club is rudderless and that the words of the CEO mask his inaction. We have been very poor since January, we have spent an awful lot of money, we are going to lose some of our best players who no longer look interested.
We need to decide who is on the bus, get those who aren’t off it quickly and then we need to decide who the bus driver is. For me, after today, the current passengers don’t want to play for this driver anymore.
Stephen Ord
