What a lot of dogs. Once again Newcastle United leads 1-0 and loses. Again, terrible during menopause. Here too, individual mistakes are punished.
We seem so easy to play against. So brittle, so vulnerable. That is not what this club stands for. We have to be tough.
As hugely grateful as I am for what he has contributed to the club, Kieran Trippier is done at this level. Jacob Murphy was thrown in at the deep end – so few minutes and then a start. He was shockingly bad.
Joe Willock was decent…but he’s Willock. Newcastle United simply don’t have the depth to compete on four fronts. There was obvious fatigue, but I’m tired of making excuses as to why we just weren’t good enough.
After an opening in which Brentford were slightly the better team, but that was not clearly the case, we took the lead with a simple corner kick. Sven jumps highest in a swamp of bodies and shoots him past Kelleher. I honestly hate being the first to score this season.
I won’t go into the appeal against Trippier’s sentence because I think it was clearly not a pen. However, he shouldn’t have been caught on that side of Lewis-Potter.
Notice the inevitable mess we make of these things. Murphy presses extremely high and centrally. Wissa is too far behind to influence the press, but continues anyway instead of putting in the effort and covering Murph. He is played too easily, leaving Tripps one on one with Dango. Somehow Ouattara gets more than five meters of space without doing anything other than running across the line and delivering a brilliant cross. Botman isn’t close enough to Janelt and finds himself under and behind the ball, not even able to challenge, and Janelt buries him. So sloppy.
Then we get a stroke of luck with the penalty decision. It was one of those where, if the referee doesn’t give it, the VAR doesn’t intervene. It seems that VAR was told to simply defer to the referee’s decision on those ‘subjective’ decisions, and I have to say I thought it was ridiculous. Look where the ball actually hits Murphy’s arm; it’s about as close to his side as you can get. But again, we were absolutely terrible in transition and deserved to concede after being three on three at the back again. In my opinion it was a bad decision, but a fair result.
Thank goodness Eddie Howe responded by bringing on Elanga and Woltemade. I’m sure he’s kidding himself for starting Murph and not Elanga, who was one of the few bright spots in our pretty dismal recent run. Not to beat a dead horse, but I suggested this formation a few weeks ago (after Villa I think), and it really works. The double pivot with Tonali and Bruno, Woltemade who knits everything together in that attacking role in midfield and Wissa (or someone else) at the top. I think this is the only way to fit Woltemade into this team. He doesn’t have the instincts of a striker. He doesn’t want to get into the box at the end of the crosses. He was very effective yesterday in the spaces between attack and midfield. Let him do what he is good at.
We increased the pressure and looked good. In control, creating some reasonable openings without that confidence in the final third to really make Brentford suffer. That will come with time, but scoring two at home should be enough to get something out of each game. Even though we weren’t at our best up front, that wasn’t the reason we lost this match.
The punishment we received was a pen and Bruno duly sent it. I was pretty sure we would get another one and win the game.
The momentum was on our side. Nowadays, however, that matters little anymore. One problem with the formation as I described it is that both Tonali and Bruno tend to move a little too far forward. When one goes, the other really has to sit down to clean up those transitions.
No one was in that space for Brentford’s third goal, which, as Eddie Howe said at the end of the game, was a terrible goal to concede. The second ball bounces to Jensen, he plays an easy ball to Ouattara, who has broken away from Thiaw, who seems completely unaware of where he is. Tripps is too high and can’t apply pressure. Dango hits it well and it goes through Pope, who was unlucky.
Just so typical. Too often we get out of position. There seems to be so little situational intelligence on this side. We are constantly vulnerable at times when we really shouldn’t be.
It’s so frustrating to see us these days.
Of course we miss Joelinton, Schar, Tino, Gordon and Miley, but we still can’t lose as we are. Those guys who are out shouldn’t turn our defensive solidity into a spider’s web.
#brittle #vulnerable #club #stands #for..