Newcastle United v Leeds United | Page 2 | Vital Football

Newcastle United v Leeds United

Hmmm. Expected a draw at Leicester and 3 points today. Just didn't seem to turn up today and the squad isn't strong enough to bring on game changers
 
The Owl said:
Missed opportunity with Man City being held. Squad needs fresh legs. A consistant goalscorer and a winger needed. Arsenal next and if we play like that we will be stuffed. A centre forward like Wood who is a journeyman and Wilson who is fragile not good enough to maintain top 6. Need Isak to get fit and more.
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If with isak fit we need another striker. Wilson made of glass and wood well
 
We battered Leeds for the vast majority of the 2nd half and the game in general. We'll never again see Tripper have so many free kicks and put that many quality balls in without us scoring. As mentioned earlier the ref was a joke. Leeds used the sort of spoiling tactics that Don Revie himself would've been proud of. That being said Wood had two great chances and didn't take them and Longstaff could have bagged himself a brace on another day. We played with the sort of passion commitment and fight that we all thought had disappeared from the club until the new owners and Howe came along. We're not going to win them all but this is a team to get behind with all your black and white hearts. Howay The Lads !!
 
The Owl said:
Missed opportunity with Man City being held. Squad needs fresh legs. A consistant goalscorer and a winger needed. Arsenal next and if we play like that we will be stuffed. A centre forward like Wood who is a journeyman and Wilson who is fragile not good enough to maintain top 6. Need Isak to get fit and more.
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I said in the summer we needed 2 strikers and we bought 1. Sods law he got injured. Judging by how bad Chris Wood is we still need 2 strikers because he's not even good enough as a back up. Possibly a winger too because ASM hasn't improved at all, I realise he's probably not fully fit but it looks like opposition players have sussed him out. How times have changed Almiron is probably our MVP
 
Rza said:
I said in the summer we needed 2 strikers and we bought 1. Sods law he got injured. Judging by how bad Chris Wood is we still need 2 strikers because he's not even good enough as a back up. Possibly a winger too because ASM hasn't improved at all, I realise he's probably not fully fit but it looks like opposition players have sussed him out. How times have changed Almiron is probably our MVP
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We're third in the league man . Wood's the third choice striker. Which club's not in the Champion's League have a top drawer 3rd choice striker ? Also ASM did well when he came on, looked dangerous and made some chances. Sometimes it just doesn't go your way and today was one of those (and we should have had a penalty).
 
In all honesty, If that pen had been given and scored, I think we would have gone on and scored a couple more..
 
keggy_keagal said:
We're third in the league man . Wood's the third choice striker. Which club's not in the Champion's League have a top drawer 3rd choice striker ? Also ASM did well when he came on, looked dangerous and made some chances. Sometimes it just doesn't go your way and today was one of those (and we should have had a penalty).
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I'm not judging those players off today's performance. Wood can't hit the target unless it's a penalty. He ran onto that knock down and never looked like scoring. Strikers go through bad spells I just think Chris Wood is done. As for saint maximin, even if he is in top form he's another player who's lucky to play a third of the season. It seems like he's injured so much, when he actually plays he's never fully match fit. I've said for ages about his lack of goal contributions but even ignoring that he's really not doing enough.
 
Rza said:
I'm not judging those players off today's performance. Wood can't hit the target unless it's a penalty. He ran onto that knock down and never looked like scoring. Strikers go through bad spells I just think Chris Wood is done. As for saint maximin, even if he is in top form he's another player who's lucky to play a third of the season. It seems like he's injured so much, when he actually plays he's never fully match fit. I've said for ages about his lack of goal contributions but even ignoring that he's really not doing enough.
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You said our performance the day was shocking, it really wasn't. You were hammering Murphy after we battered Leicester. Look at what we've done as a club in the last year, look at the strides taken by this squad and staff. It's as close to miraculous as you could get. So on a day when we play good enough to win and don't, on a day when the lads have tried their hearts out, try tempering what appears to be your natural inclination to lean towards the negative and accept it sometimes doesn't go our way. We weren't humped like the Bruce days, we weren't outfought or outplayed we just didn't get the win. That's football sometimes.

As a side note I was surprised Wood started as I've heard he's going back to Leeds this window.
 
keggy_keagal said:
You said our performance the day was shocking, it really wasn't. You were hammering Murphy after we battered Leicester. Look at what we've done as a club in the last year, look at the strides taken by this squad and staff. It's as close to miraculous as you could get. So on a day when we play good enough to win and don't, on a day when the lads have tried their hearts out, try tempering what appears to be your natural inclination to lean towards the negative and accept it sometimes doesn't go our way. We weren't humped like the Bruce days, we weren't outfought or outplayed we just didn't get the win. That's football sometimes.

As a side note I was surprised Wood started as I've heard he's going back to Leeds this window.
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Can you genuinely say that was a good performance? Seriously? Did meslier make 1 good save? Give me the name of ONE of our players you'd give a 7/8 to. Trippier was as bad as I've seen him and he had at least 20 set pieces. Joelinton uncharacteristically had a bad game. Bruno was off. Willock not his usual self. Wood and longstaff shocking. I'd say our best player was schar and he could have had a hat trick. I'll say it again Leeds didn't play well. I understand we'll have bad games. We'll drop a lot more points but we did not deserve 3 points today a lot of bad individual performances
 
Rza said:
Can you genuinely say that was a good performance? Seriously? Did meslier make 1 good save? Give me the name of ONE of our players you'd give a 7/8 to. Trippier was as bad as I've seen him and he had at least 20 set pieces. Joelinton uncharacteristically had a bad game. Bruno was off. Willock not his usual self. Wood and longstaff shocking. I'd say our best player was schar and he could have had a hat trick. I'll say it again Leeds didn't play well. I understand we'll have bad games. We'll drop a lot more points but we did not deserve 3 points today a lot of bad individual performances
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A centre half can possibly have a hat trick and we're shit are we ?

Trippier put plenty of decent balls in we just didn't take advantage of them .

Meslier made 5 saves. Willock 7, Schar 8, Joelinton 7, Burn 7, Botman 7, Pope 7 (great save from Rodrigo). I'll concede that Guimares wasn't at his usual high levels but he was getting repeatedly fouled and hardy given anything by the ref. Longstaff's all round game was decent but his finishing was awful a 6 from me. Wood was crap .
 
If a attacker can't read the flight of the ball, how is that Trippiers fault...
 
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It seems strange to be disappointed with a draw to me that just proves how far we have come. Some days are like this and we will probably have a few more. Arsenal away is a big test but I am looking forward to the game.
 
The only thing I agree with Raza about is I thought that was Trippiers weakest game for us to date

The height difference for the set pieces was almost comical but the vast majority of Trippiers balls were lacking

He put two straight into the keepers arms from similar positions

Today was a drop in performance by our recent high standards but that's all it was - no need for jumping off cliffs
 
Chris Wood has a similar stature to Billy Rafferty, big Billy would have clattered that skinny keeper in the first five minutes going for a ball in the air, the keeper would have been reluctant to catch anything in the air for the rest of the game...
 
Im in agreement with Keggy's assessment of things. To add, this is a reality check to the media driven angle that we all think we're nailed on for a Champions League spot. We're not.

We have a decent starting XI, in fact it's very good but in regards to the full squad, we're lacking by a few. A minimum of 5 players id say. We're a couple of seasons away from the top 4 but we're well placed to be challenging and could yet finish there as plenty can happen.

Today's game and games like this happen to the top teams all of the time and it's not so much as being depressed about these games happening, it's about how you react in the games that follow in order to stop a potential rot setting in. We have the perfect game in Arsenal away to channel any anger or attempt to bounce back.

Leeds high press will have set Eddie Howe's mind working overtime and I think if this happens at their place and we get free kicks in the same positions that we got today, then you will see players running short or to the wings in order to get their press to shift. That was my only grumble today about the tactics. I just think we were too static at set pieces. On another day we had enough chances to win by 2 or 3.
 
Hopefully discipline can improve for next game. Could have had a few sendings off. (Wilson, Shar, Joelinton)
 
Suspensions may well stretch the current squad as the bench is not that strong. WE all know how far we have come and the Leeds result was disappointing. We need to see at least one or two additions in the January window. Unfortunately its still the case that other top clubs seem to be a bigger draw because of European matches and location.
The club have acted on the U21 Coach, not before time, results have been poor.
We can forget Fraser, Shelvey, Dummett from being part of the squad and there are doubts over Wilson and ASM long term due to ongoing injury problems, so additions are needed and hopefully the club will bring some quality in.
 
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