Enda

It would be silly money. Promotion is worth 50 odd million.

Not really. Too big a club maybe, but everyone could see our squad was crap. Cissokho, Lescott, Bacuna, Gestede, Richardson all regularly starting. Useless team.

Dean Smith knows more about football than I do. But so does Steve Bruce. Fact of the matter is we’re top 10 based on the first 45 mins of matches, and rock bottom based on the second half.

You might not intend it to, but this literally implies Smith is above criticism. I don’t buy that. At all.

Yeah! And MON even evolved to simply never naming a right-back in the starting eleven. Tactical brilliance.

Fair enough.

Perspective! Half an hour ago ya told me to take a "long hard look" because I wasn't heaping enough praise on Jack (after I said he'd been magnificent!). But sure, continue lecturing me on perspective No need for you to insult/sneer at the opinions of other members, though.

Making my point here is going to take a bit of explaining. But when there's 100 things going on in a match (starting eleven, formation, subs, if the ref suddenly gives the opposition a harsh penalty, etc etc) you just can't use the result to get the whole picture. You can win the game even if you make bad subs. You can lose the game because of a bad VAR decision. So you need to keep them all in perspective. I don't agree we were cruising around 70 mins. When Gayle came on, and Andy Carroll had that chance, McGinn was bit off the pace, and Hourihane was becoming quieter. At that time the game was in the balance then. Obviously it ended up not mattering (thankfully) but we could all have seen that match going another way. A bit like taking off Wesley and bringing a centre-half with 5 mins to go against Liverpool could have won us 3 points. It might not have worked but it sort of makes sense when you're playing the percentages. Not freshening up that midfield in the second-half wasn't playing the percentages today. We were lucky Newcastle were so crap that it didn't matter in the end.

Right, right. Here's some quotes from the match thread: @sne"Boggles the mind why we are always so late with the subs." @bojong "Nakamba for Hourihane for last 10" @PieFacE "Unpopular opinion. I'd bring McGinn off. Doesn't look himself." @AVTuco "Maybe Elmo on for Guilbert? Need some strength." @Dr_Pangloss "Midfield gone to shit now, needs a change." @osmark86 "I would sub mcginn for nakamba. He's been ok but we should really just bring the brick wall back to these suckers. Would devastate them." @KHV "Changes please Dean" @deeps "McGinn needs a rest badly." @Dave-R "Can see gayle changing it for them, i agree with other we need to chsnge things up abit." But maybe we were all imagining things?

Talk about dramatic After the match I said he was magnificent. I agree with you if that's as negative as possible I should get another job. Sure we'll just keep you happy and say 100% of his shots tonight were simply awe-inspiring. Good stuff.

He was magnificent tonight. Best player on the pitch. And was weak with his shots. Why is everything black and white with you?

I'm abroad so only early afternoon here. Obviously it wasn't consequential tonight, but three points against an awful Newcastle side don't cover up Smith's unwillingness to make changes at 70 minutes.

We did win, but we didn't help ourselves. Play that match again and we'd throw it away. It's nearly December, not preseason. "Get used to putting in a 90 minute shift" is not an excuse to have kept John McGinn on that pitch.

Tactically speaking, fantastic starting eleven tonight. Dropping Nakamba (controversial) meant we were on the front foot all day. Well done. Unforgivable to not make any changes after 70 minutes. Very bad sign.

Controversial opinion: he's crap at shooting.

Get Nakamba on for McGinn.

Only the one goal and a single assist in the first 45 minutes here against Newcastle. Lazy player, no end product.

Unsworth will leave without actually playing a game.

Absolutely. He's at another level. Our second best player, imho.

I said during the week Trez could turn out a better signing than El Ghazi and was called mental.

To be fair even the commentator on my stream suggested bringing on a fifth defender, after about 60-70 mins.

Yeah, maybe his best performance for the club. There's something missing to his game... maybe it's muscle, maybe it's confidence, but it's definitely not work-rate and I don't think it's ability. Think he'll come good and be a very good squad player for us.

Not really. Was just an excellent header from a corner.