Newcastle 0-0 Brighton: Toothless Toon held at home once again

Where to even begin. I mean seriously where? That was worryingly bad and THE worst opening 45 minutes of football I’ve seen us play in the Premier League, then it didn’t get much better. We had 29% possession..

It’s a miracle we weren’t 3-0 down at half time. Any team slightly better than Brighton and we probably would have been

A crowd of 43,316 saw a lethargic, clueless display. There were players questioning each other, questioning the manager, while big gaps in the crowd interrupted the apathy of the those who went. Welcome to Newcastle United circa 2019. With Mike Ashley, Lee Charnley and Steve Bruce in charge, what on earth do you expect.

We made Brighton look like Man City at times. The possession stood at only 21% after 17 minutes. The way they pulled our players out of position, begged belief. The space between the wide centre backs and the wing backs was almost amateur, and when Hayden and Schar told Bruce how it wasn’t working, apparently he changed to a back four.
I genuinely needed Graeme Le Saux to tell me that on the commentary, such was the lack of shape and cohesion. There was a half chance for Almiron and a free header for Joelinton which went begging but other than that, we spent the first half chasing the ball and the boos at half time were the loudest the crowd were all evening.

It was a much brighter start to the second half, with some high pressing and a half chance for Atsu, which was immediately dampened by an injury to Schar, who thankfully was ok. Interestingly we also went back to the original plan of 3-4-3. It seemed Bruce actually did something at half time, or at least tried to.

However, normal service was shortly resumed. Brighton were back to playing exhibition football by 52 mins. There was one point on 56 minutes when the ball went for our throw in 10 yards into the Brighton half, Joelinton went for the quick throw and there wasn’t a Newcastle player within 30 yards of him. There were 164 to 480 completed passes on 58 minutes……in Brighton’s favour. It really was that desperate.

A Shelvey long range effort and a couple of robust tackles from Hayden and Lascelles lifted the crowd a little, but it didn’t didn’t last long. Misplaced passes and players being caught in possession saw the atmosphere turn from apathetic to toxic, then back to apathetic again. Ki and Saint Maximin were introduced on 70 mins and after an incredible goal line clearance from Schar, the French winger had the crowd on its collective feet with a brilliant run and through ball to Joelinton but the shot was blocked.

On 79 minutes the biggest roar of the night came as Andy Carroll stripped off for his second debut.

His first touch set Saint Maximin away down the line but it amounted to nothing with a weak cross / shot.

There was of course time for Carroll to injure someone. Lewis Dunk was on the end of a hefty challenge from our own human wrecking ball.

We finished the game on the front front, that’s something at least. Saint Maximin and Carroll gave the crowd a lift, but it felt desperate.

If anyone reading this wants to debate with me that Steve Bruce is doing a good job and deserves time. Comment below, and come with your guns loaded.

Tactically we were a shambles, and we go to the King Power stadium next……it simply must get better.

(Fancy writing for us? Get in touch at [email protected] & we’ll get back to you!)

104 thoughts on “Newcastle 0-0 Brighton: Toothless Toon held at home once again

  1. It looks like Jabba has lost a bit of weight. There is a vid doing the rounds where a NUFC fan confronts him about ruining the club and telling him to sell up. Jabba just responds by telling him to “go please”. He looked a lot thinner anyway…

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  2. Seems this brochure is old news and was circulated last year according to The Chronicle. Whether that means last season or 2018 doesn’t really matter as it was done for Kenyon’s last bid which was turned down – at least I think that is what the Chronicle hacks are intimating.

    I wondered why they had Ayoze Perez on the cover of the brochure when he was no longer a NUFC player. Also, one of the most prominent pictures of a player celebrating inside the brochure was Joselu. When I looked at it I thought why would they have ex-players as the “faces” of NUFC but left it as I didn’t think anything would come of it anyway.

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  3. Stuart: I don’t mind us being bought by an investment fund. That is what Fenway Sports Group are. They need a backstop though in case their plans don’t work out immediately. Typically in the “2 and 20” private equity model the senior partners who run it don;t put up any money. If we were not successful immediately they would have to go back to the investors and ask for additional funds to protect their initial investment. The whole thing could collapse like a house of cards unless you have a backstop. Buying 14% of Bordeuax is not really that much experience either. FSG already owned the Boston Red Sox before they bought Liverpool so they had plenty if cash to fall back on.

    The one thing I am not getting is someone saying they would keep Bruce. I am not going to think too hard about it though as the rest seems old news, as I said.

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  4. I do think Kenyon is genuine as you just don’t spend the money he has done. But this brochure is obviously old and why anybody would leak it now is beyond me. What purpose does it serve?

    I saw Luke Edwards on basically say it has too many holes in it and the terms wouldn’t be acceptabe to Jabba. Well, why’s that? Two years ago he said he would accept installments and now he’s decided he wouldn’t… It all just points to me as Jabba being a brick wall and a very good way of looking at him is whatever he says, believe the absolute opposite.

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  5. Just read some of Mark Douglas’ Q & A on Kenyon etc. He said that in the brochure that the name Steve Bruce was a cut and paste job. Obviously, they had Rafa in before and said they would keep him. Putting Bruce’s name in there is just for current appearances. I have no doubt he would be gone within 3 months. FSG kept Brendan for a while if I recall correctly.

    This is obviously old news and Kenyon going on a fishing trip.

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  6. We can assume this takeover talk is BS, but what of team matters? What is happening with Dwight Gayle?

    They are sending him to Portugal for some warm weather training for 2 weeks. Then Bruce says he hopes he will be back after the international break which ends on Oct 19, so 3 weeks from now. No fckn way will we see him before the middle of November. But what will he do in Portugal? I am sure he has a family.

    Bruce says NUFC are sending someone with him. It has to be one of the physios otherwise it is a greater risk than keeping him in sunny Newcastle. Maybe the physio can bond with him and maybe they think the calf problems are as much mental like Rafa did with Gayle’s hamstring?

    He’s not going to know anybody in Portugal so it will be him and the physio. Whose facilities are they using? What will they do all day, they can’t train ALL day? A spot of golf? A massage and a nice bottle of Duoro over a romantic meal together after a hard days stretching?

    I have an idea. Wor Lee hasn’t been on a junket for a while, since pre-season. How about Ryder pops over to check on his progress and to prop up the bar. He can tell us 5 things he learned. I will miss his match reports though and especially his player ratings which seem to bear no relationship to the games I watch.

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  7. Since Ryder crept back into my consciousness here are his ratings for Brighton. A game where we had 28% possession and I think a total of 2 or 3 shots and scored no goals. I can understand defenders getting a 5 or 6 because we kept a clean sheet. But here are Lee’s scores.

    Dubs 7
    Manq 6
    Lascelles 6
    Schar 8
    Dummett 7
    Willems 6
    Hayden 7
    Shelvey 6
    Atsu 6
    Almiron 5
    Joelinton 6

    Remember, we were terrible. I gave some extremely generous ratings on here to the defenders because we kept a clean sheet. I could just as easily have given the whole team a 4. I did give Shelvey a 2. I think I gave Joelinton a 4 because he couldn’t get his header on target when he was 6 yards out, unmarked and in the centre of the goal.

    What game was the Chronicle’s Chief Sports Writer watching?

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  8. Having had time to reflect on the Brighton game, my memory of it is now that it stank even more than it felt it did at the time. I recorded it and was going to watch it again but after a day deleted it. I think I would rather watch re-run of Boris Johnson’s Prime Ministers Question Time, or Fox’s The Masked Singer.

    I also read reports from local and national reporters who were unanimous in saying it was the worst game they had watched all year; that they wanted that 90 minutes of their life back.

    But, Ryder seems to think we were OK, so that’s alright then.

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  9. Eric, we were **** apart from last 10 mins of game.
    If my details vanish again after this comment then i’m off as it’s a pain in the ****.

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  10. kimtoon:
    Eric, we were **** apart from last 10 mins of game.
    If my details vanish again after this comment then i’m off as it’s a pain in the ****.

    Kim – you aren’t clearing your search history are you?

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  11. Where do these valuations come from? Are the journos just making them up? About a year ago I saw Pogba at 120 mil and Kane the same. That seemed extremely high for a player who turns up every 3 games but maybe about right for Kane given his goalscoring record. Now, nothing having changed, the journos are quoting Pogba at 180 million and Kane at 250 million. Seriously, who would pay that sort of money for those 2? All of this has gone down AFTER the Neymar and MBappe transfers so the inflation is taking place with no new benchmarks. Griezemann was about 100 million and Hazard 120-140. That should be about Kane’s value and I would say Man U SHOULD be lucky to get what they paid for Pogba. He is 3 years older and has shown absolutely no progression.

    Or, are the journos just making these numbers up? If Kane goes for 250 million I think it will be the biggest reach in the history of football. But it would be surpassed if Pogba goes for 180 mil.

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  12. Sharpy, no mate, i use my pc cleaner once a week and know that i will have to re sign in, once i do that it’s ok normally.

    I’m gonna try a different browser (chrome at the mo) and see what happens.

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  13. Eric, these prices for Kane and Progba floating around are just any old figures the press fancy if you ask me. There is no way they can justify those amounts, no realistic basis for that big an increase.

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  14. I think even the biggest clubs are back tracking on transfer fees. They’re all getting stuck with players nobody else can afford if they don’t work out. Like Bale, Coutinho and Sanchez. Who’s going to top the fee paid for Mbappe?
    We couldn’t even get our money back on Joselu!

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  15. OK, back to normal now. But jumping all over the place which is why I left viewing this site on IE in the first place. 🙄

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  16. I am not surprised that we are favourites to go down. The bookies don’t pull the odds out of thin air, most of it is based on money wagered. Us and Villa are the high profile teams in the bottom half so at this early stage a lot of money will have gone on us. A couple of good results can change all of this though. As the season develops, people get more rational about their bets.

    The main reason for us being favourites though is because the punters have seen us play. We have been the national game a couple of times and are again on Sunday. The exclusive National TV game last week and again this.

    If I was watching us last week against Brighton I think I would have rushed down the bookies and put a tenner on us for relegation.

    Watford have a minus 14 GD and even though 8 of those were against City that is usually a telling stat. Even this early.

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  17. I mean, Watford might be this year’s Fulham. You looked at how much Fulham had spent and the quality in their team and it looked like they were midtable. But they were leaking goals and lots of them. Watford lost 3-0 at home to Brighton on the first day of the season.

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  18. Disney have announced a 3rd Spider-Man movie. Seriously, hwo many more fckin Spider-Man and Bat Man movies can there be before the geeks stop going! I live across the street from a big movie theatre and haven’t been for a couple of years because all they seem to show are super hero movies now. Same plot, every film. Bad guy shows up, somehow hero loses powers, usually there is a love interest who the bad guy targets, hero gets his powers back, half an hour CGI fight scene where good guy defeats bad guy. The end, until it repeats on an endless loop on the 20th sequel in the case of Bat Man and Spider Man.

    I don’t even watch them on TV as I know the plot.

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  19. I never even read the comics as a kid. My brother had some and after skimming a few I decided even back then that the plot was always the same, they just changed the special powers the heros and villains have. It hasn’t changed and if anything has got even more boring as this genre has sucked the life and funding out of other films that could be made.

    And now Netflix are only making historic series looking for the next Game of Thrones. And for some reason they seem obsessed with serial killers.

    Waiting for the Liverpool game, and was watching Netflix!!!!

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  20. Has anybody looked at The Championship table? Huddersfield are bottom with 1 point. I don’t think we will get relegated but depending on what happens, Fatty should be getting the overdraft approved for January.

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  21. On Avast browser now, lets see how we get on.

    Isn’t it funny how with home attendances having gone from 47,000, 44,000 and last week 43,000 we now have renewed interest in take over via Peter Kenyon and his backers.
    This is a pile of dung once again, no one is fooled and shame on them if they are. Ash said himself that when we are sold it will be announced out the blue.

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  22. We will lose tomorrow sadly.
    Relegation this season beckons unless we can find a system that produces goals and manages to let us maintain possession for more than one pass 🙄

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  23. Well it has to be Liverpools year, such a stroke of luck that keeper blunder, gotta feel for Sheff utd if this ends in a loss.

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