Surfer

It would have been a tough season even without the injuries. But the fact is we have them and the players we have left fit are not good enough to successfully compete at this level. Now there is nothing we can do to change that until January or the injuries start to clear up, so in the meantime the team needs our support. Whinging doesn't help - unless you have a concrete suggestion to make?

Obviously from my earlier comments I agree with that, but I'd still hold on to that view if we were relegated. If we did have a drop in attendance (although I think that unlikely) we'd have space to move City Stand fans to other areas of the ground, and there is no way we'd be spending all the monies raised from player sales on replacements. So what else would we do with the excess monies? Build a stand and build the next generation fan base would be a worthy outcome from even one season in the PL.

I was actually thinking if we go down, sell Godfrey, reinvest in both the squad and the stadium for a renewed assault on the Prem.

Financing it is easy - sell Ben Godfrey.

Yes, a severe hair cut apparently, robbed him of all his strength.

Of course it's not just injuries. Nobody has suggested that it isn't. But you can't say that injuries are not making our task significantly more difficult. Yesterday for example we had no midfielders on the bench.

I agree with this - the difference between VAR with offsides, and goal line technology, is that for the latter there are sensors / cameras set up in correct alignment with the goal, so very little margin of error in the measurement / analysis for a simple question "did the entire ball cross the goal line" With both match officials and VAR review of offsides, you have to understand when the ball was passed, and where the defender and attackers are - all from TV cameras that are not parallel with the last defender and only capture 50 images per second. As Jamie Vardy has been measured burst running at 35Km/hour = 9.72 meters per sec = 382 inch per sec that equates to almost 8 inches between each TV image. Then if the exposure time is about half the frame rate, that means light is captured for 1/100th sec, so there is motion blur equivalent to about half of that distance i.e. about 4 inches of that movement are blurred, the other 4 inches are not captured at all. So, yes offside errors should be "clear and obvious" before goals are overruled by VAR.

Great shame that massive clubs like Newcastle have to play against the likes of Leicester, the sooner the big clubs set up their own protected league the better. Says nobody.

One place above the relegation spots, that's exactly where we'd expect to be after this initial run of games. West Ham no mugs, Burnley no mugs, Crystal Palace no mugs, all away and all playing the physical athlete game; plus Liverpool, Chelsea, Man City and ..... Newcastle. Back the team, this is a really bad spell for us, especially injury-wise. The players need us to help them retain their confidence as they work through this. p.s. If Hanley was fit I would have played him last week, but not today, he has no pace and Palace would have murdered him. OTBC!

I could accept an argument that as we are now coming up against bigger and stronger athletes, our stamina advantage works less well than it did last year, however what is the alternative? If we lose our physical fitness will we not just be battered worse?

Fact is the manger picks a team and tactics and then it’s up to the players to execute that. So first level analysis should be - did the players execute? And the answer to that, yesterday, was no. Our goal scoring machine didn’t score, and several times our defense gave the ball away to their press. So plan B would be what? Normally swapping the players who are under performing with like players who may be able to execute better. So what is plan C and D? I think we have to solve our injury crisis before we worry about that.

Yup, we all knew it would be tough this year. The guys need our full support to stay up, we will have plenty of poor days but plenty of good ones too. And we are going to play our way come what may. OTBC !

My thoughts too Wacky. Would have been harsh to have dropped Tettey and McClean but I would have preferred to see - maybe next week we will Byram Hanley Godfrey Lewis Leitner Amadou

Or we could defend better and take the chances that we do create rather than missing them or hitting the woodwork....

👍

Also why I suggested one of the reasons to get the current squad on such long contracts this summer may be to pressure the FA to agree we had a legal obligation, and any such rule changes must have a grandfather provision to cover existing contracted players.

Yes I made the same points in the Brexit thread and was shot down as being part of "project fear", but there is no way they can sustain one rule for footballers and another for other workers, you either are skilled or you are not and Zimmermann et al can't qualify without making a mockery of the visa scheme. The big boys will be fine as they sign established internationals.

Will be interesting to see how Steve Bruce sets Newcastle up to play Man CIty this season.... 🙂

In Garth Crook’s PL team of the week I see, alongside Buendia. When was the last time we had two players in that honorary team?

I think it's kudos to Webber and the scouting team to have brought in Byram and Amadou this summer. Immense performances from both of them.

Todd is doing great. He's not quite there yet, still has to learn to manage the ball, still too prone to losing possession; but that said he's proving the naysayers were wrong. Going to be a top player for us over the next few years.

Keeping hold of Godfrey, Lewis, Aarons and Buendia will be a bigger issue....

Well Lawro did get the x - 2 bit correct 😂

Fair dues Lakey. I had to miss the game to attend a memorial service, and then checking the score afterwards - wow. Sporting miracles apparently happen too.

We can make U21s available if the manager wants them though - he’s obviously not done that for a reason.