At Newcastle United, everyone knows what has gone wrong this season.
A simple inability to cope with fighting on four fronts.
Our new signings never really had a chance, given how they arrived and the total lack of time on the training pitch to bed them in.
People seem to have completely forgotten how we took our time with signings like Lewis Hall when he arrived.
The rat deprived us of that luxury and now the football gods have duly punished him.
Our defence is so bad and we can’t hold a lead for exactly the same reasons – fatigue and rotation has opened the door for uncharacteristic mistakes leading to bad results, leading to the utterly ridiculous spectacle of fans booing at St James’ Park, which has resulted in a feedback loop of a lack of confidence and belief.
Football is a percentage game.
Eddie’s fast paced aggressive style is what gave us the edge, the 1%, over the so called big teams. It’s up for debate if there’s anything else we can do, but the answer won’t be clear until we’ve had a full pre-season to see if Wissa, Nick and Ramsey can do what Eddie wanted them to do when he signed them.
I can’t imagine that was anything other than continue with the same style. Aggressive pressing and going man for man. Nick Woltemade as an attack minded bridge between defence/DM and attackers, with YoaneWissa as the new Alexander Isak. If it aint broken…if teams like Manchester City let alone Barca still can’t defend it when it’s working, why change it?
What has gone so right this season?
Well, if giving Barca a real test in the last 16 in the Champions League really isn’t good enough, we can point to the very obvious fact that Lewis Hall is an elite player, Jacob Ramsey is an excellent signing, Lewis Miley is even better than we realised, and my number one thing – despite all the challenges, there hasn’t been a single sign of discontent within the group. We are United.
Fans need to realise how easy it would be for us to descend into Spurs/ManUre/Chelsea levels of utter farce, or even come across as having the sort of imposter syndrome that is gripping Villa, if we don’t start appreciating who is behind pretty much everything that’s gone right at NUFC both this season and the recent past.
His name is Eddie. And he is a God among men.
Let us not crucify Him before we realise it.
Happy Easter folks!