Last week Newcastle saw themselves lose two league games and exit the EFL Cup, but was the week as bad as some would have you believe?
Starting with the Blackburn game, there can be no excuses made for that one, the side were not good enough. Rafa Benitez may have made a lot of changes, but the side should have been good enough to win the game.
After the game, many people just wanted to put the game behind us and look forward to the Hull City game on the Tuesday.
After the EFL Cup defeat to Hull, in a penalty shootout, there were more complaints.
However, these complaints seemed to be a bit poorly thought out to me. The side had just gone away from home and held out for a draw against a Premier League side, something that they did not manage too often last season and if we are promoted, something that I hope we can continue next season.
Newcastle then travelled to Nottingham Forest, they were in control of the game at the beginning but two red cards later, Forest took over.
Usually, two red cards in a game would cause uproar but in this instance, it was certainly the fault of the referee.
The red cards were not the only contentious decision, Newcastle also had a goal wrongly disallowed and two penalty claims turned down.
There really was nothing the side could do about that game.
When all things are considered, the week was certainly not as bad as the results make it seem.
Cheers Jake. There’s a bit of blood on Rafa’s hands for the Blackburn game but the other two was just rotten, rotten luck.
It would be interesting to see how we’re faring now compared with December in the 2009/2010 season we got promoted.
Andy The Magpie(Quote)
Surely the performance of the ref for the Forest game is having his performance reviewed by the FA? He should be punished. Don’t want to see him ref another of our matches. A little slump was bound to happen at some point. I was disappointed by the Hull outcome considering they were down to 10 men. The Birmingham match is obviously a big one. Get it back on track Rafa! 😀
GeordieTwo(Quote)
football is all about results, and the results were 3 defeats, so I reckon it was a bad week. Hull especially was pretty galling, because they were there for the taking, and we could have enjoyed some high profile exposure in a two legged semi final. we probably wouldn’t have won, but the boost would have been massive and the fans could have a had a couple of parties ?
what people seem to ignore is the fact that 20 games in we still can’t get the final third right… thats worrying, along side the reliance on Shelvey. Now someone else needs to step up to the plate and fill his shoes. of course we can throw money at the problem, and will, but we are still stuttering along the way.
pretending that everything is just brilliant is not the right way…
Munich Mag(Quote)
MM ime pleased someone else has a concern about our attack,some fans want Mitro up top some Gayle some want both,to think Gayle is going to score 20,25,30 goals this season from where i ask,Shelvely 30/40/50 yrd passes i dont think so the final third needs a lot of work imo maybe thats what Rafa means when he says we can improve well it needs to be addressed quickly as we are lacking badly in that area,top of lge or not hopefully Rafa is working on a better supply to the final third
icedog(Quote)
Jake – I think it’s been a dreadful week mate, and I agree with Eric in that the Bburn game was were the stitching came away. There were too many changes & we lost momentum.
I think over the course of the 3 games it has shown we really aren’t as strong a squad as we thought – Sels, Gamaz and Lazaar haven’t settled yet & the likes of Mbemba & Perez haven’t turned up yet this season.
I’m not slagging Rafa off, and of course he’s a top manager. But it does concern me all these changes he makes – it’s generally been at least 2 per games and I’m not sure it’s necessary personally.
Sharpy17(Quote)
BERAHINO on loan would be a help in the attack,the lad needs game time he hasnt played since Sept and would help us imo
icedog(Quote)
Ice – have you seen in the papers today that WH & Palace supposedly keen on Mitrovic?.
I think you could be right with the loan of Berahino – nowt lost loaning him, especially if we negotiate a fee should we want to buy him.
I believe Derby are struggling to agree a new deal with Will Hughes as well – I would take him for sure. He’d be a good no.10 option I reckon.
Sharpy17(Quote)
I think it is certainly recoverable. Birmingham will be no pushovers but if anything they may come with confidence and leave us space to break into. We have lost at home to teams who have parked the bus and then hit us with a sucker punch. (Although we have also had some games where the players didn’t turn up at home) I hope Birmingham will come to play football at SJP. I just look at Norwich and Huddersfield, the early pacesetters who are now 10 points behind us and that is what cheers me up. It is a long difficult grind of a season. We’ve just drawn Birmingham in the cup so will play them 3 times in four months, it would be nice to beat them on Saturday and set the precedent. I don’t worry too much about Brighton and Reading, I don’t think they will have enough in the tank. Shelvey has let us down though, he has been our most creative and influential play-maker and to potentially lose him for the whole of the busy festive period and well into January is disastrous. I think we do probably need a creative midfielder in January now. Shelvey needs to behave from now on, he did lash out at Lansbury and it was unnecessary.
DJG(Quote)
i think Rafa will let Mitro go dont think he rates him much its a case of needing strikers at the club to get out of ccc in the summer he will go imo,ive watched a few games (on tv) of Derby the kid seems a canny player but it doesnt help the kid with the club keep changing managers plus hes had a bad injury but he has something is he PL class ???????
icedog(Quote)
I don’t think for one minute Mitrovic is the player to take us to the champions league but I would try to keep him in January. Firstly he has shown some improvements with his temperament and to his all round game, he is like a rough diamond that we have half polished up. I would wait another 18 months and if he’s no better then consider selling. Plus if Dwight Gayle was injured for 3-4 months I wouldn’t fancy Perez and Murphy to take all of the pressure. Who could we replace Mitrovic with for £14m in this day and age? Honestly, we probably couldn’t.
DJG(Quote)
Some people may not rate Mitrovic but when he’s played recently he’s pretty much scored a goal per game. I’m not sure what more can he do to be honest. Be careful what you wish for!
DJG(Quote)
Of course Pards is interested in Mitro, he likes all our players 🙄
kimtoon(Quote)
Well it feels like a bad week Jake, but **** happens and the players just have to dig deep and get back to winning ways pdq.
Re the rotation of players, I know it used to drive Pool fans round the bend even though they loved Rafa.
kimtoon(Quote)
3 losses is not good enough. We are supposed to be the pace setters of the division. If we had maintained our shape and disciple, we could be way out in the distance – but not for the first time this season we failed to keep our shape and concentration by letting a side straight back in after taking the lead. For Blackburn, Rafa made too many changes and the players that came in did not deliver, at home, again at a relatively poor side – which is not exactly reassuring for the future. For Forest, the players lost their discipline. The Ref was poor but so was our attitude, especially Shelvey who should have known better and ruined the game for us.
Yes it has been a bad week from a club point if view. The manager and the players let their standards slip at an important time repeatedly and that is not good enough. Did we get away with it? Yes, but only because the planets aligned and other ‘top’ sides slipped up too. We can’t rely on other teams messing up to get us through as Champions. We need to step up every game, all game.
Shamrock(Quote)
Ice – I think he’d be good enough for mid-table and below, which lets face it, if we get promoted will be the positions we are looking at in the first couple of seasons at least I’d reckon.
I like Nathan Dyer as well. He’d be a good wide man to go after as for some reason he isn’t getting his chance at Swansea. Doesn’t seem to be injured so maybe Bradley doesn’t like him.
Sharpy17(Quote)
DJG – I rate him mate, but he’s just too much of a hot head. If he stays focused on football he’s a beast, but if he sees red he’s just nuts!!.
He just doesn’t seem to be able to control that streak in him.
Sharpy17(Quote)
I think this week just proved to me (what I already knew) that you don’t change a winning team and especially not the defence/goalkeeper. I think Rafa will hold his hand up and admit that he tinkered too much with three changes at the back. Also it showed us just to try and win the next game in hand, forget about the next two games after that. And what happened, we lost them anyway. Rafa will get it wrong occasionally, he is not the god of football! Would I want a different manager? Of course not.
DJG(Quote)
Careful mate, I said something similar last week and got attacked for daring to say anything other than Rafa is a footy god ??
Sharpy17(Quote)
Rafa has and will mistakes. He is still by far the best manager we have had since Sir bobby and is the best manager we could hope for for the medium to long term future. He also deserves a lot of respect for a) coming to us and b) sticking with us. He has won it all but he is not a Demi God. But he’s the next best thing in footballing terms!
Yes it has been a bad week, but there is no panic and no doubt he will get it right. Do we have enough talent and character in the squad to get promoted? Yes. Do we have enough to survive next season? Probably not, but we have 2 windows to address that, so I’m not worried.
Shamrock(Quote)
Agreed Sham Rafa will get us there,then we will see a lot of buying and selling he knows what’s needed
Icedog(Quote)
Sham – couldn’t agree more mate. Rafa is a great manager and the fact he stayed with us (regardless of how much he’s getting paid), the fact that he has/is showing the club the error of its ways is an absolute godsend. But that doesn’t give infinite immunity, and if I think he’s made a mistake I will post it. But some the other day on here found it blasphemous!!.
Sharpy17(Quote)
Yeah lads. Rafa is just a man like anybody else and he will make mistakes, only he will make far less than your Pardews and Souness’ and he conducts himself brilliantly and values not just the fan base, but the region and community. We should still call a spade a spade though. Nowt wrong with that.
Shamrock(Quote)
Kim it’s a crying shame Pard’s didn’t take Colocini off our hands last season. Maybe if he did we would have defended still be a PL team.
Jake it’s been a bad week result wise lucky to still be top. As for Mitrovic his has scored when played, can’t ask for more than that.
Stem(Quote)
Eminem says – what people seem to ignore is the fact that 20 games in we still can’t get the final third right… thats worrying,
😯 😯 😳
so a +21 goal difference is the result of our final third not being right… god help the rest of the competition when it does click!! 😉
Aussie(Quote)
So we have Birmingham away in the FA Cup 3rd Round, meanwhile cathro has gone to Hearts.
Shamrock(Quote)
Sharpy/Sham – Rafa did admit he’d made mistakes for the Blackburn game. In my mind 6 changes to a good team are far too many. Another thing with this team is you can tell how it’s going to work out in the first 15 mins. Against B’burn and Wolves you just knew it wouldn’t be our day. I’ve finally stopped fuming about Fridays ref.
I see we’re being linked with Herrera (Mexican) from Porto. I’d prefer Bruno Silva from Monaco with next season in mind but would he swap CL and sunny weather to drop into the EFL.
Who know but money still does all the talking.
georgio(Quote)
so Rafa has written to the FA about the standard of refs in the ccc i dont think they will take any notice they are a pack of know-all arseholes,should have been sorted out years ago a FIFA type clean out is badly needed
icedog(Quote)
Jake the Snake has a January transfer window thread going up at 5 (sorry Eric!)
And I will have one stat piece at 8am tomorrow.
Andy The Magpie(Quote)
Don’t blame him ice, he could probably get the signatures of every cc manager to the end of his letter tbh. I think they are all to a one beyond pissed off with the standard. And we thought PL refs were bad 🙄
kimtoon(Quote)
justice mate both players have had their ban lifted
icedog(Quote)
So there is nowhere to write on the new article ??.
Ice – just saw that on SSN – so based on the fact 2 poor ref decision have effectively cost us 3 points I’d be asking what they plan to do to compensate us – firstly.
Second I’d be looking for retrospective action to be taken against both the ref and that cheating little ***** Lansbury!!.
Sharpy17(Quote)
bloody too right bud
icedog(Quote)
Sharpy I have just nipped in and enabled comments.
https://www.nufcblog.co.uk/2016/12/06/5-players-rafa-could-look-to-buy-in-january/
Shamrock(Quote)