Apologies for the long post, I haven’t posted in a match thread for a while now, so I’ve a lot to say lol This has the feeling of a must win game, at the very least must not lose. I disagree with Dean that we played well against Chelsea, we were better defensively for the most part, but we were beaten by our inability to get the ball out of our third for more than a couple of passes. You can’t win football matches whilst sustaining that kind of pressure. Also, as a lot of posters have said since the restart, it’s still evident that we’re heavily over reliant on Jack. Teams cut Jack out, and we have no other creative outlet, every good bit of play seems to come through him at some point. Teams are resorting to openly fouling him when he attempts to attack now as well. These fouls are cynical and are clear attempts at stopping play unfairly, more needs to be done about it, but that’s nothing new to any of us. The wingers are still obsolete. We’re not playing a 4-3-3, the wingers are that far back that it’s a 4-5-1. Davis, to his credit has done a great job at attempting to hold up the balls that we’ve largely hoofed his way, but he’s not the answer. I like Davis but I’m not confident in the remaining games that he’ll finish the limited chances we’ll create. That’s not me being negative, even when we’ve played well we haven’t created too many chances. Maybe try him with a partner, Samatta could do with somebody with him, as he looks like he knows where the net is but gets pushed out when he’s isolated. I have no idea as to what formation or line up changes should be made, but something does need to change. Whatever we do, the striker is isolated and the wingers are creating next to nothing. We’ve missed a specialised RB, Konsa is a decent defender but plays like a CB. We need somebody supporting and if Freddy isn’t ready Elmo needs to play to sort that out. That, and Hause needs out. He’s great in the air but seems unable to read the game and his negatives for me, outweigh the positives. On a positive note, Douglas looks to have come back a different player. I think he’s been great the last two games, he looks like he’s showing some of talent we’ve seen but with the confidence he’s been missing. But with him maybe being the answer to our current DM problem? This new Douglas won’t be up creating any chances which is what is sorely needed, which is another headache. We have arguably 5,6 maybe 7 premier league level players, we shouldn’t be conceding the shots/chances/possession that we have been. I knew anything other than a relegation battle our first season up would be anything other than difficult. It was always going to be tough but we’re just too easy to play against, I like what Dean’s trying to do but it’s not working at the minute. On tonight’s game, I’ll admit to having not watched much of Bruce’s Newcastle so I’m not sure what to expect. I know Joelinton managed to finally get a goal the other day so I imagine he’s going to be up for it. I’m hanging my hopes on Smith’s form over Bruce in the past. That away performance to Brentford in particular sticks in my mind. I want to think positive so I’m going for Smith to make an actual formation/player change that isn’t just a variation of what we’ve been doing already, and a 2-1 win with Mings and Samatta scoring. We have some talented individuals but they need to start playing as a team, some in particular need to start fighting more for the team and their place in it. Here’s to tonight being the night. UTV!
