There was so much to dislike about Sunday’s 3-1 defeat at West Ham, I’ve spread it across two articles.
After discussing the Joelinton problem, Gordon’s stinker and Pope’s disaster-class in part 1 (read it here) of my reflections on yesterday’s game, I am back with a few more here in part 2.
In this one, I look at a bad day at the office for Eddie Howe and our big issues at full-back:
Eddie’s tactics and bizarre subs
This was quite possibly the worst display United have put in under Howe because of the context (West Ham are awful) and the gaffer seemingly getting every tactical decision wrong, coupled with reverting to the side that is regularly accused of containing many of his “undroppable favourites.”
Normally, with the level of detail that goes into the modern game, I’d dismiss those sorts of comments, but Howe did himself no favours as he simply got every selection call wrong before the game and every tactical call during the game wrong too.
He tried to react to the poor first half with a trio of substitutions at half-time, but it was perplexing that Woltemade came off (I’m praying he’s not injured) and the other changes (Schär & Ramsey for Gordon & Krafth) resulted in a strange formation shift that the players didn’t seem to understand.
At various points in the second half we had either Thiaw, Sandro, or Murphy playing at RB, which was just weird. Why did Joelinton also end up back on the left wing when Barnes was sat on the bench? It was a mess.
And if you can tell me what position any player was playing in by the end of the game, then fair play because it stunk of when the previous manager used to just chuck all the attackers on the pitch and hope for the best.
Trio of missing full backs is killing us
Losing Lewis Hall last year was a hammer blow but the side recovered (and Tino stepped up), achieved its goals, and so it went under the radar just what a big loss he was. His injury this season, coupled with Livramento’s, and then Trippier’s illness, has completely killed the team’s build-up play and one of its major attacking outlets.
Enough has been said about Dan Burn at LB so I’m not going to go over old ground again, but Emil Krafth on the right side was equally horrendous. I’m not sure the Swede completed a pass in the first half, and he was rightly hooked at half-time, but what is a third-choice RB supposed to do when he’s had barely any minutes? He just about lasted 70 mins on Wednesday and he looked shattered when he came off, and the lethargy continued into this game.
This combination of circumstances and available players meant United had no attacking outlet down either flank as both Krafth and Burn were basically ignored when overlapping, meaning all West Ham had to do was mark Murphy and Gordon and our attacking threat was killed every time.
Sunday was a tough watch, and we will be looking for the lads to put things right on Wednesday to put this disaster-class behind us quickly, and Brentford next weekend will be huge to see if any lessons have been learned from this clown show of a performance.
Keep the faith. HWTL
No defence for Howe who was as bad as his players on Sunday.
He puts so much effort into a cohesive team mentality to have his teams be more than their sun of parts, it’s jarring when it falls apart like it did on Sunday. Wether Sunday is instance or systemic we’ll find out but no doubting somethings not right with the squad / coach mindset
GR(Quote)
It’s jarring because a fall apart like that is so rare with Newcastle these days.
Howe takes the plaudits when things go right (and they usually do) so has to be open to critism when they go wrong. That said as a coach and manager you can imlement tactics and motivate but if the players have a collective off day like Sunday there isn’t much he can do in that moment.
Sunday’s issue wasn’t tactical it was mental, most of the squad thought they could just turn up and roll these over. I think a bit like Liverpool did with us in the cup final in March, thought they could just turn up and win. As a manager I don’t think you can predict when that happens as it’s down to the players believing their own hype. Getting over-confident.
Hopefully we see a good reaction on Wednesday night and player putting a shift in again. The acid test will be at Brentford on Sunday, this is a crucial match (I won’t say must win because it’s still a bit early for that) as we need to prove we can perform away from home and sets the tone going into the international break.
If we can get to the break in good shape with no new injuries and Hall and Livramento coming back with Wissa gently feeding back in then we could have a good season. Lose to Brentford and the mood music changes and gives the players a black cloud to dwell on whilst having no games to put it right.
Johnny Mac(Quote)