So, Sky duo Roy Keane and Graeme Souness decided that whatever Newcastle did or didn’t do against Leicester on Sunday, it wasn’t good enough.
Hard to disagree with them and whatever you think of them they probably got this one right.
After the miracle of Christmas, a point against Liverpool, we went into the Leicester game with a little more hope. Ok, perhaps some didn’t, but surely if we got a point against The Champions, we could do similar or even go one better here?
So, what did the pundits have to say? Keane gave his typically brutal verdict half-time:
“Newcastle, as the home team, have to do a bit more. I’m really disappointed.
“I think it’s been dreadful – a really, really poor game.
“Both managers will be really disappointed. You look at Leicester, they have the better players, the better team, more quality, but we’ve not seen it.”
Hard to disagree. The only thing I would say is that it doesn’t seem to matter about home/away without fans in the stadium. If anything it helps the away side more and at the very least it seems like a level playing field.
Then to Souness, who appears to be appreciating how tough we are to watch on the eye:
“Newcastle have to offer more in terms of keeping the ball and being a threat. They are at home.
“It’s got to be a hard watch if you’re a Newcastle supporter.
“There’s nothing there in that 45 minutes to get you on the edge of your seat and get you excited about watching your team.”
They were both right and it hardly got better in the second-half did it? Mind you it’s interesting in that whilst both were scathing in their attack on the team they didn’t actually directly call out Bruce!
As for Leicester, who won the Premiership, have a brand spanking state of the art training facility, and currently sit third in the Premiership after their win yesterday. A team a lot compare us against, but let’s face facts – they are light years ahead of us at the moment.
After Liverpool it seemed we had a bit of hope but as per usual after seeming to take one step forward we took another two backwards. All very depressing yet again!
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It’s about time someone in the game; someone who is respected (love them or loathe them, each of these two is has a sparkling footballing pedigree) started to see this tedious saga from the fans’ point of view. Synonyms for the Toon have become things like:
Abject, apathetic, bland, boring, ****, dire, dismal, excrement, flacid, ghastly,humiliating, insipid, etc, etc. The team takes the hit every time whilst Brucie escapes thanks to “The Old Boys’ Network.” They must all have been laughing up their sleeves to see him take the helm at SJP but stand by his pathetic, uninspiring management and join in, echoing his lame excuses. I wish Keane would aim both barrells at him, verbally, and show him up for the empty vessel we all know him to be…
Lindsay Wilkinson(Quote)