Match Thread: Newcastle v Leicester

[ALF]

At least people in the mainstream are realising how bad Bruce is now. Even the 'banter' accounts on twitter are talking about how boring we are.

[Sanchino]

Opposition manager masterplan: Let them have some posession as they've no f***ing clue what to do when that happens.

Once again we were industrious for about 10 minutes of the game and we scored. Quite how this a**hole of a manager can't see that continued effort and attack causes problems for the opposite team is beyond me!

Why do we only play for about 10% of a f***ing game? Why was our set up and game plan so f***ing different to the previous game? Why the **** can't Shelvey play football? Where the **** has Sean Longstaff gone? How the **** do we keep playing Joelinton? When the **** will Almiron come good?

Too many f***ing questions Steve Bruce cant fuckin answer!

This.. just this.

I think the majority of us want Bruce out.. and if he can't beat a Sheffield United side bottom of the table with 2 points and very low on confidence then he has to go, that would be the final straw and would put us in real danger.. massive game as it'll define weather we'll be scrapping for 17th / fighting for relegation or comfortably in mid-table. A true six-pointer.

[seaside nipper]

More stable door bolting tactics.
At it for a portion of the last ten minutes well after the race is run. Not much else to it, except to say that as the hone team do you not have an obligation to try and win ffs
#grimwithnooptimism

[Hjl]

I highly doubt he is going anywhere. He fits Ashley's ideal manager perfectly. Doesn't criticize or ask for anything.

[CIH]

I know there's still a distance between us and the bottom three, but it's shortening every week. Sleepwalking to relegation. Ashley's mandate is obviously to stay in the league with the minimum amount of outlay. He did sack McClaren in the end, admittedly far too late. Hopefully he's learnt from that. Losing against Sheffield, or even just playing the way we have been, is unforgiveable. Although we'll prob get a half decent win and Bruce will get a reprieve. At least from all his mates in the punditry teams.

[Bodacious Benny]

Most of Sheffield United’s defeats have been by the odd goal, I’m expecting a close game.

[ALF]

I know there's still a distance between us and the bottom three, but it's shortening every week. Sleepwalking to relegation. Ashley's mandate is obviously to stay in the league with the minimum amount of outlay. He did sack McClaren in the end, admittedly far too late. Hopefully he's learnt from that. Losing against Sheffield, or even just playing the way we have been, is unforgiveable. Although we'll prob get a half decent win and Bruce will get a reprieve. At least from all his mates in the punditry teams.

Agreed that it's worrying how the gap is closing bit by bit. TV pundits seem to be learning as they're forced to watch us. It's just his radio mates and guest pundit mates that chat s**** still.

[Bodacious Benny]

Who’s actually worried about relegation? I don’t think that we’ll go down but if we did I won’t lose any sleep over it. Even if we didn’t come straight back up chances are we’d be playing to win more weeks than we’re playing not to lose as is the case now. The Saudi takeover is also dead in the water so it won’t effect that. The only person benefitting from us being a PL side is Ashley.

[TJR]

Who’s actually worried about relegation? I don’t think that we’ll go down but if we did I won’t lose any sleep over it. Even if we didn’t come straight back up chances are we’d be playing to win more weeks than we’re playing not to lose as is the case now. The Saudi takeover is also dead in the water so it won’t effect that. The only person benefitting from us being a PL side is Ashley.

There's no way we will get relegated. Too many worse sides. Sheffield Utd are down already and West Brom aren't too far behind them. There is only one relegation place to avoid really and Fulham, Brighton, Crystal Palace and Burnley are worse than us.

I don't even think we're in a relegation battle. Which says more about six teams I mentioned than us because we are absolutely atrocious. We're just lucky the standard in the league as a whole, from top to bottom, is probably the worst it has ever been this season.

[Bodacious Benny]

Agree on Sheffield United and WBA, I’d also be a bit worried if I was a Brighton fan. Fulham have improved lately but still got work to do. Palace are on 22 points already and are kind of doing what we try to do more effectively than us i.e. let the opposition have most of the ball, be a bit s***, but scrape wins together.

[Beatski]

Who’s actually worried about relegation? I don’t think that we’ll go down but if we did I won’t lose any sleep over it. Even if we didn’t come straight back up chances are we’d be playing to win more weeks than we’re playing not to lose as is the case now. The Saudi takeover is also dead in the water so it won’t effect that. The only person benefitting from us being a PL side is Ashley.

There's no way we will get relegated. Too many worse sides. Sheffield Utd are down already and West Brom aren't too far behind them. There is only one relegation place to avoid really and Fulham, Brighton, Crystal Palace and Burnley are worse than us.

Palace and Brighton are better than us, the latter has been especially unlucky; (I know it's not the be all and end all of stats but) an xG table has them 12 points better off and sat in 7th while we're 2 points worse off sat in 17th.

https://understat.com/league/EPL

[Bodacious Benny]

Yeah I’m not a huge fan of all this xG stuff you get now. Yes it can be ‘unlucky’ in some instances, but if you put the ball in the net you deserve the points, if not then that’s tough.

[Colly]

xG (and it's associated xA's and various other nonsense) is a load of bollocks, and I say this as a football fan and an analyst. It's a blunt instrument applied as if it's a clever technical technique and is fundamentally a tool to make daft people sound clever. It's no more accurate than just using shots on goal (and of course that has it's faults), football isn't an easily quantifiable sport with the exception of "goals".

[krully]

Just from watching brighton I can see that some of their losses are undeserved, but there does come a point where bad luck and the likes doesn't cover up that they aren't that good of a team. Far, far better than us mind, as we have been beyond fortunate with results, coming across an off colour Wham, burnley, Liverpool and fluked a point off Spurs.

Only seen the first half but we looked somewhat decent, we pressed high, kept a good shape, but we were completely toothless in the final third and seemed to be so slow. Our opposition were the sharp, in contrast. I can only assume we kept to this slow performance and got whacked by Leicster on the counter. Very annoyed that Carroll came on and scored, it giving Bruce food for thought is very displeasing.

[Remember Colo]

Just from watching brighton I can see that some of their losses are undeserved, but there does come a point where bad luck and the likes doesn't cover up that they aren't that good of a team. Far, far better than us mind, as we have been beyond fortunate with results, coming across an off colour Wham, burnley, Liverpool and fluked a point off Spurs.

Only seen the first half but we looked somewhat decent, we pressed high, kept a good shape, but we were completely toothless in the final third and seemed to be so slow. Our opposition were the sharp, in contrast. I can only assume we kept to this slow performance and got whacked by Leicster on the counter. Very annoyed that Carroll came on and scored, it giving Bruce food for thought is very displeasing.

Yeah, we've definitely looked slightly better pressing the ball in the past couple matches than previously. Attack languished as per usual though. Both goals against were on the counter, and really highlighted the Longstaffs' flaws. For the first, they each were too slow to keep pace with the player dribbling the ball, then lacked the discipline and awareness to defend the pass to the top of the box, instead aimlessly chasing the ball into the six yard box where several of our players were already defending it. Which isn't to suggest Shelvey would have played it better, as was shown on the second, just that it continues to highlight CM remains an area needing improvement irrespective of who manages us.

[ALF]

Sheffield United are down barring a miracle but even then they're probably a better side than us. We're arguably the worst team in the league.

[Colly]

Sheffield United are down barring a miracle but even then they're probably a better side than us. We're arguably the worst team in the league.

This is nonsense. Sheffield United have 2 points from 17 games. West Brom are a Championship side and are frankly doomed. There's other sides down there you could make arguments for, but we are by no means the worst team in the league.

[Remember Colo]

Sheffield United are down barring a miracle but even then they're probably a better side than us. We're arguably the worst team in the league.

I get whey we're frustrated with our performances, but we're talking about a side that hasn't won in 17 matches, or in West Brom's case, already has a goal differential of -28. Those are two teams that are distinctly worse than everyone else.

[ALF]

Sheffield United are down barring a miracle but even then they're probably a better side than us. We're arguably the worst team in the league.

This is nonsense. Sheffield United have 2 points from 17 games. West Brom are a Championship side and are frankly doomed. There's other sides down there you could make arguments for, but we are by no means the worst team in the league.

We create less than anyone else in the league and concede more shots than nearly everyone. We might not be the worst in terms of results but along with West Brom, we're probably one of the few teams that neutrals watch and have no idea what we're doing.

[Colly]

What's your metric for worst team though? Results? Players? Or performances? It's only the latter where you can even start to argue the point.

On paper we're vastly better than both of those teams, and we're let down by woeful tactics. We create less, but we have a finisher in Wilson. We concede shots, but have Karl Darlow. Simply by virtue of having better players we're a better side than both of them.