3 hours ago, Frankie8Lampard said:

we're literally playing kids

That’s literally all we have left!

2 hours ago, Sconnie Blue said:

 

Hasn’t taken long for the cracks to appear. A project with ‘potentially talented’ youth players sounds great, until the reality on the field hits home.

”The young lads are great Todd, and we can definitely make a profit on them, but any chance I can have a Ballack, an Essien and a Lampard just so we can challenge for a trophy?”

25 minutes ago, Snedger said:

Hasn’t taken long for the cracks to appear. A project with ‘potentially talented’ youth players sounds great, until the reality on the field hits home.

”The young lads are great Todd, and we can definitely make a profit on them, but any chance I can have a Ballack, an Essien and a Lampard just so we can challenge for a trophy?”

All well and good until the solution for "experience" is a guy who is 21 and has played 45 games in the PL.

In addition, the "experienced" players in our squad are currently the ones you'd say are the weak links ... Kepa, Cucurella, Sterling (and I really hope we won't eventually have to add Nkunku to that little list)

Edited July 27, 20232 yr by Sexyfootball

50 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

All well and good until the solution for "experience" is a guy who is 21 and has played 45 games in the PL.

In addition, the "experienced" players in our squad are currently the ones you'd say are the weak links ... Kepa, Cucurella, Sterling (and I really hope we won't eventually have to add Nkunku to that little list)

Pochettino use the word experience but what we need is simply a very good midfielder

 

Cucurella and Mudryk just doesn't work down the left flank. I hope we don't keep trying to make that work.

Both of them are all wrong positionally for the Newcastle goal. Both too narrow and ball watching, leaving two players free on the overlap. Humphreys has moved across too far for me as well. 

I think Casadei and Fernandez need to do better defensively. Gordon pretty much has a free run through our midfield. Beats Fernandez very easily, and Enzo doesn't react or try and sprint back. Casadei isn't bad positionally, but doesn't do enough to try and get close enough to Gordon, and is possibly put off my Mudryk, as he slows down when Mudryk moves towards Gordon. 

Cucurellà absolutely HAS to go this window. If we cannot get half our money back on him then lets atleast loan him to a club where he may succeed and put some value back on his name, brighton loan as part of a caicedo deal?? Sterling should go too but im not optomistic hes going anywhere this season.

4 minutes ago, ALTE said:

Cucurellà absolutely HAS to go this window. If we cannot get half our money back on him then lets atleast loan him to a club where he may succeed and put some value back on his name, brighton loan as part of a caicedo deal?? Sterling should go too but im not optomistic hes going anywhere this season.

Either a loan or a permanent deal as makeweight for the Caicedo-deal. Maybe they'll agree to sell him for £70m if they get Cucu back.

Could be that they'd want £120m if they have to take Cucu back though 🤔

4 minutes ago, Hanzen said:

Either a loan or a permanent deal as makeweight for the Caicedo-deal. Maybe they'll agree to sell him for £70m if they get Cucu back.

Could be that they'd want £120m if they have to take Cucu back though 🤔

I think Brighton have well and truly moved on from Cucurella, They consider his replacement is a clear upgrade !

26 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

Cucurella and Mudryk just doesn't work down the left flank. I hope we don't keep trying to make that work.

Both of them are all wrong positionally for the Newcastle goal. Both too narrow and ball watching, leaving two players free on the overlap. Humphreys has moved across too far for me as well. 

I think Casadei and Fernandez need to do better defensively. Gordon pretty much has a free run through our midfield. Beats Fernandez very easily, and Enzo doesn't react or try and sprint back. Casadei isn't bad positionally, but doesn't do enough to try and get close enough to Gordon, and is possibly put off my Mudryk, as he slows down when Mudryk moves towards Gordon. 

I like you put some effort on writing all this but if Cucurella was basically just someone else from our squad there is no free run and no goal...

I didn’t actually think Enzo was all that wonderful if I’m honest. He is about as good at goal shooting as Kovacic 

1 hour ago, Sexyfootball said:

Cucurella and Mudryk just doesn't work down the left flank. I hope we don't keep trying to make that work.

Both of them are all wrong positionally for the Newcastle goal. Both too narrow and ball watching, leaving two players free on the overlap. Humphreys has moved across too far for me as well. 

I think Casadei and Fernandez need to do better defensively. Gordon pretty much has a free run through our midfield. Beats Fernandez very easily, and Enzo doesn't react or try and sprint back. Casadei isn't bad positionally, but doesn't do enough to try and get close enough to Gordon, and is possibly put off my Mudryk, as he slows down when Mudryk moves towards Gordon. 

Have to say SF that is an overly complicated analysis of what is really a very basic defensive mistake. All that needs to happen in that moment is Cucurella has to stay with Almiron rather than gambling on stepping forward to try and cut out the pass to him. That was David Luiz style defending at it's worst.

29 minutes ago, just said:

Have to say SF that is an overly complicated analysis of what is really a very basic defensive mistake. All that needs to happen in that moment is Cucurella has to stay with Almiron rather than gambling on stepping forward to try and cut out the pass to him. That was David Luiz style defending at it's worst.

Devil's in the detail !

Cucu's is merely the last error in a chain for me. 

I agree though, much more convenient to blame the whole thing on Cucurella LOL.

 

Do we have any theories or injury news on colwil which kept him out of the newcastle friendly? Football london speculating a deal is being done for caicedo with colwin included. I'm getting rather rattled at the idea our clueless owners might be cooking up a deal with brighton. If they get their hands on colwil now after all the disrespect which has been thrown, then i'll throw every toy out the pram. Id rather keep colwil and go elsewhere for a midfielder.

17 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

Devil's in the detail !

Cucu's is merely the last error in a chain for me. 

I agree though, much more convenient to blame the whole thing on Cucurella LOL.

 

If Cucurella stays with Almiron that goal doesn't happen. It doesn't get any more complicated than that.

1 hour ago, ozboy said:

I didn’t actually think Enzo was all that wonderful if I’m honest. He is about as good at goal shooting as Kovacic 

I'll probably get run out of the forum for this opinion, but I don't see what all the fuss is about with him. He's not shown me anything special so far. Barely seems an upgrade on Kovacic.

22 minutes ago, just said:

If Cucurella stays with Almiron that goal doesn't happen. It doesn't get any more complicated than that.

And if Enzo doesn't buy the dummy from Gordon, but instead only gives him an option to go sideways or backwards, then the move stops right there ...

19 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

And if Enzo doesn't buy the dummy from Gordon, but instead only gives him an option to go sideways or backwards, then the move stops right there ...

Being sold a dummy (an act of skill by an opponent) versus simply not picking up your man are not the same.

In fairness, anyone can make a mistake and they all do sometimes. But Cucurella just isn't very good generally and we are stuck with him.

1 hour ago, Sexyfootball said:

Cucu's is merely the last error in a chain for me. 

That's generally the case when you're a defender though isnt it? You tend to be the last line of defence.

Which is why it's important your defenders don't regularly try to jump out and intercept balls if failing to do so means giving an attacker a free run at goal.

We've seen Cucurella make that exact error several times now. He doesn't defend with patience.

25 minutes ago, Zeta said:

I'll probably get run out of the forum for this opinion, but I don't see what all the fuss is about with him. He's not shown me anything special so far. Barely seems an upgrade on Kovacic.

I agree with that. And I admit that I was absolutely desperate that we signed him because I was caught up in the post WC hype and we as a club were desperate with the on field sh*t storm. But so far he looks like very expensive average.

31 minutes ago, Zeta said:

I'll probably get run out of the forum for this opinion, but I don't see what all the fuss is about with him. He's not shown me anything special so far. Barely seems an upgrade on Kovacic.

To be fair though you rarely have anything good to say about any of our players 

3 minutes ago, timetowaste said:

To be fair though you rarely have anything good to say about any of our players 

And in fairness, we have in most recent times had so many players that even their own mothers would struggle to praise!

2 hours ago, ALTE said:

Do we have any theories or injury news on colwil which kept him out of the newcastle friendly? Football london speculating a deal is being done for caicedo with colwin included. I'm getting rather rattled at the idea our clueless owners might be cooking up a deal with brighton. If they get their hands on colwil now after all the disrespect which has been thrown, then i'll throw every toy out the pram. Id rather keep colwil and go elsewhere for a midfielder.

He did feel something in the game against Brighton when he slid for the penalty. Something thigh related or so, maybe he didn't play as a precaution. Absolutely need to take risks of people getting injured right now, especially with Fofana and Badi out. 

To sum up pre season in layman terms so far.

1. It's clear we won't recover in the short term as well as the last time we finished mid table.

2. Anyone expecting us to not be much better than last season or even have a sequel are being very dramatic.

A lot of fairness around here 😇 ^^

But to be fair (JK) is see a massive difference between the two. IMO Enzo was a positive part of very bad team in the second half of the season.

Falling for a dummy happens. After all it's a dummy.

Doubt that a lot knew him prior to the WC.

Going to Benfica and being a instant starter while later on being a starter for Argentina in the WC; that's not random.
- It's due to quality! He does what Jorginho does - just faster, better and direct. Dictates the play with mostly progressive passes. Decent in ground duels. 

We decided to pay that much in the last second of the January window as we'd sold Jorginho, while Kanté was a walking injury.

We put ourselves in that situation.

 

Cucurella, however... He was one of the first transfers we did; in the summer even. Seems like we just splashed the cash to beat City to him. 
- He's a defender. The last line of the team. He starts out attack and - sometimes - ends the oppositions attack. 

It just happens to be that he unsuccessful at doing he's defensive part very often.

He's had a year to settle now. Many managers, sure. So has others had. He had the advantage of being able to play both LCB and LWB/LM in the system we already knew inside-out under TT. After that, his former manager joined. Still made errors.

He's been used as LCB in both a 4-man and 3(5)-man backline. He's been played as LB in a 4-man backline. LWB/LM in 5-man midfield.

Probably best in the LWB/LM in a 3-4-3 perhaps? Potentially due to the backup he'll be getting from LCB, LCM and LW.

He's not getting that backup at LB in a 4-man backline. He is the last piece. Headless pushing up to the field and bad positioning will be punished now.

1 hour ago, Argo said:

To sum up pre season in layman terms so far.

1. It's clear we won't recover in the short term as well as the last time we finished mid table.

2. Anyone expecting us to not be much better than last season or even have a sequel are being very dramatic.

Preseason kind of a blessing its against Premier League opposition. 

Another positive is that our defence still looks relatively solid bar a certain individual.