Match thread - Stoke v NUFC

[Sanchino]

Gett in!! A cracking 3 points. Gives us some confidence for Swansea at home. Perez should be starting more often than not and I liked the three upfront today with Atsu in behind and Murphy/Ritchie on the wings just wish Atsu's finishing was better as he could have a couple today but all the front three were lively, energetic and looked threatening, Ritchie worked hard, defense was solid having Lascells/Clark partnership back is a big deal look so much better than having one of them partner Leajune. Shevely was decent in midfield but looked tired in the last 20 mins and Diame despite his usually donkey antics he's had worser games and overall did OK pressing down, winning aerial duels, tackling and intercepting play. Shouldn't be in the starting line-up though but credit were credit is due. With Perez scoring, hope Rafa starts him at the weekend I don't want to see a Gayle/Joselu partnership again, mix things up Rafa!!!

Team for Swansea

Darlow
Yedelin Lascells Clark Manquillo
Merino Shevely
Murphy Perez Atsu
Gayle

Only way is up!!!

[ALF]

A wins a win. 4 points from 18th and 7 teams below us. Win against Swansea and we're level on points with Watford, so that's another team sucked into the fight.

[Lord Rafa]

Gett in!! A cracking 3 points. Gives us some confidence for Swansea at home. Perez should be starting more often than not and I liked the three upfront today with Atsu in behind and Murphy/Ritchie on the wings just wish Atsu's finishing was better as he could have a couple today but all the front three were lively, energetic and looked threatening, Ritchie worked hard, defense was solid having Lascells/Clark partnership back is a big deal look so much better than having one of them partner Leajune. Shevely was decent in midfield but looked tired in the last 20 mins and Diame despite his usually donkey antics he's had worser games and overall did OK pressing down, winning aerial duels, tackling and intercepting play. Shouldn't be in the starting line-up though but credit were credit is due. With Perez scoring, hope Rafa starts him at the weekend I don't want to see a Gayle/Joselu partnership again, mix things up Rafa!!!

Team for Swansea

Darlow
Yedelin Lascells Clark Manquillo
Merino Shevely
Murphy Perez Atsu
Gayle

Only way is up!!!

I agree. When there's a lack of quality, work ethic is next best. Priority is to buy better players but in the mean time I would rather Perez, Murphy etc.

[Slim999]

Made this point the other day, 7 from 12 and played West Ham Man City Brighton Stoke over 10 days, before West Ham everyone would have snapped your hand off for that return.

Results on Saturday didn't really help though, considering all the teams around us picked up points. Hopefully results go our way tomorrow, but I'm not sure what the best results from Southampton v Palace / West Ham v West Brom would be for us. Draws for both? Or Southampton, West Ham wins?

I'd take a draw for both.
Or West Brom losing is ok also - I reckon they are going down.
Think it's gonna be Swansea, West Brom and 1 from any of the bottom 8.

[Somebodys pinched my sombrero]

Bloody great when we win! Fkn happy days.

[Toondes]

Highlights

http://sportyhl.com/video-stoke-vs-newc ... ighlights/

[Slim999]

Shelvey made 54 passes completing 77%
Diame made 42 with 76% completion

Diame also won 8 aerial duels and won possession back on 10 occasions
Shelvey won 2 duels and won back possession 4 times

Now please tell me how Diame didn't have a good game yet you have put Shelveys name up there as one of our standouts? Both have very similar stats with the difference being one leaning offensively the other defensively which is logical given the standard tactical roles.

Okay stats like that prove absolutely nothing. Aerial duels are winning the header, not where the ball goes once its won. And as for mentioning the passing stats, watching the game you would have seen Shelvey playing forward passes as opposed to Diame who played mostly sideways, again proving nothing. Attempting forward passes youre going to have a lower success rate.

Forget all the stats, just watch the game. Diame had a poor game, he looks like hes knackered after about 10 minutes and makes more errors than anyone else. I'm sure if you pull up his passing accuracy for most games he wouldn't look too bad, doesn't mean he's had many good games.

"he looks like hes knackered after about 10 minutes"

Not every player runs like s greyhound. Waddler used to get similar comment- and he could play a bit.
You can't ignore the stats - although You gave to put it into context of the game

[ColbacksFlamingBarnet]

Just seen the highlights. I take back some of what I said about Perez. Maybe he should player striker a bit more but needs consistant support. If atsu works on his finishing he'd be lethal, he gets himself into good positions.

[Toondes]

Oh, Joselu will be back for Swansea . I was listening to radio Newcastle and Rafa sad he didn’t play today because he had a minor injury

[bodacious benny]

Just seen the highlights. I take back some of what I said about Perez. Maybe he should player striker a bit more but needs consistant support. If atsu works on his finishing he'd be lethal, he gets himself into good positions.

Definitely needs support if he's to play as a striker. Despite the goal I thought that it was like we were playing without a striker for much of the game. Fair play to him for getting himself into the right position for the goal. But we definitely lacked any form of focal point upfront.

Yeah, Atsu looks really dangerous at times and could/should grab a few more goals.

Won every game this year

[MultipleJesuses]

f*** me, some of you really are emotional wee men, aren't you? Paul Dummett's right foot and Hjl especially. Genuinely, 99% certain some of you are fans of another team that are here trolling. There's no conceivable way you could be a fan of a team and talk s**** the way you do.

f***ing get over yourselves. Entitled to an opinion, just as I am, fair enough, but I've honestly stopped believing you support this club, and I don't know why you waste your time here.

[Aldridge Prior]

Diame has looked solid but not creative and Shelvey has looked like he has his head on. Both worlds better than Hayden

Yea Hayden, show us your quality. You f***ing donut.

Hayden sucks so much dick, I really don't get the wet dreams half of the guys on this forum have about him. He sucks massive donkey balls

Also, Hayden sucks

Hayden is trash and needs to sold asap.

So what are your thoughts on Hayden?

Ffs man

[Hjl]

Diame has looked solid but not creative and Shelvey has looked like he has his head on. Both worlds better than Hayden

Yea Hayden, show us your quality. You f***ing donut.

Hayden sucks so much dick, I really don't get the wet dreams half of the guys on this forum have about him. He sucks massive donkey balls

Also, Hayden sucks

Hayden is trash and needs to sold asap.

So what are your thoughts on Hayden?

Ffs man

lol, I assume thar your fan of his?

[Hjl]

**** me, some of you really are emotional wee men, aren't you? Paul Dummett's right foot and Hjl especially. Genuinely, 99% certain some of you are fans of another team that are here trolling. There's no conceivable way you could be a fan of a team and talk s**** the way you do.

f***ing get over yourselves. Entitled to an opinion, just as I am, fair enough, but I've honestly stopped believing you support this club, and I don't know why you waste your time here.

Im not a wee man, in fact im actually quite fat!

I get excited during games and my opinion generally calms down a bit afterwards. I thought on the balance i was pretty positive today though, I thought we did well until the last 5 minutes.

I didnt mean to upset anyone thought and if I did then I certainly apologize.

[Don Sholeone]

Everyone is entitled to an opinion, it's when that opinion just becomes completely filled with irrational hate for players and the team that it becomes really annoying, I wouldnt mind so much if proper reasoning was given, but it very rarely is, it's always X,Y,Z is s***, even once a team is announced it starts, it gets to the point even a good game is completely written off just because the player in question is hated, sometimes it feels like some need to bang in a hat trick before they are even looked at with some positivity.

Everyone always says the old line of this is a forum for discussion, which isn't false, but how the hell can you have proper discussion with completely irrational, overly emotional, "opinion" that feels like it's negative for negatives sake.

[Bruuuuuuuuce ()]

It’s stick with that front four. Perhaps find a replacement for Ritchie. I mean, at least Murphy has some pace to break with. Ritchie hasn’t done a lot since we last played stoke.

[ColbacksFlamingBarnet]

Thinking about it, this front 4 was all about pace, and I think bringing a slower player back could hamper it. I'm kind of reminded of our last game before relegation in 15/16 against tottenham, Mitro got sent off but Sissoko and Gini just went full throttle. By sticking Joselu or Ritchie in robs the counterattack.

[Colly]

It wasn't negative for negatives sake though, had we lost yesterday the fantastic "7 points from the festive games" line isn't there and we're back to the same grumbling that were happy to mock Stoke for, resting players for a big opponent then failing to win the one you've saved players for.

We did win though which is absolutely fantastic (I'm not commenting on performance having seen none of it, bar a stuttery replay of the goal...) and leaves us looking a bit more positive going into January. I just hope Rafa builds on it though rather than rolling the dice again with another mass rotation. Don't forget that before West Ham we'd gone on a run of 1 point from a possible 27, to suggest the negativity was unfounded is just silly. It's the next few games where we find out if we've turned a corner rather than this being a blip against a poor Stoke side, and the home performances have to improve dramatically.

[overseasTOON]

I for one would like to apologise about my negative comments over recent months.

It was never my intent to question the tactical rationale of Rafa or his player selections in this campaign and I’m sure with more additional minutes on the pitch that Joselu will undoubtedly become a strong finisher and prove himself as the best striker at the club in terms of goal return.

I now understand that this squad is quite young and as such has a certain naivety when it comes to playing week in, week out on the highest stage so my expectations of performances; be they team or individual have to be somewhat muted.

[Don Sholeone]

It wasn't negative for negatives sake though, had we lost yesterday the fantastic "7 points from the festive games" line isn't there and we're back to the same grumbling that were happy to mock Stoke for, resting players for a big opponent then failing to win the one you've saved players for.

We did win though which is absolutely fantastic (I'm not commenting on performance having seen none of it, bar a stuttery replay of the goal...) and leaves us looking a bit more positive going into January. I just hope Rafa builds on it though rather than rolling the dice again with another mass rotation. Don't forget that before West Ham we'd gone on a run of 1 point from a possible 27, to suggest the negativity was unfounded is just silly. It's the next few games where we find out if we've turned a corner rather than this being a blip against a poor Stoke side, and the home performances have to improve dramatically.

We didn't lose yesterday though so there is no point arguing the situation had we lost, also it was never a line it was stating a fact about our situation. A win sees us well on track for our points total and that was the case.

Yeah we had a poor run of games but the effort never stopped, if we were winning games in that period we would be up in and around the top 6 and you could argue we were more than exceeding expectations, ATM we are where we are on merit, the table doesn't lie on that regard, 13th is a fantastic position for the mid way point for a newly promoted club, do you think Brighton fans and Huddersfield fans look at their season as negatively as our fans do, there is only a 1 and 2 point difference for them.

As for rotation we had 4 games in 10 days, team selection was never going to be consistent with anyone barring some of the top clubs.