AbsoluteZero
Active member
- Joined
- 10 Oct 2018
- Messages
- 331
A few words on Newcastle. Apart from a short spell where they passed the ball between themselves in triangles but standing still so not going anywhere they didn't play much football on the ground and the level of aimless hoofball was pretty shocking really. We were done by the law of averages with Saint Maximin, 90% of the time he runs at speed and has no end product whatsoever, 5% of the time he gets lucky and creates something only to mess it up, the other 5% of the time he is completely unstoppable. When he got the ball on the left it needed Long to rush forward to him and boot him in the stand. Newcastle were set up very defensively and well organised. Almiron is a complete joke, the one thing he does have is a good engine to be able to run quite quickly for a longer than average time. But that's about all he does, you notice him because he runs around headless chicken style, doesn't do much on the ball, knows how to cheat.
Tiny margins decided the game. The high tackle by Longstaff when he pretended to be hurt was a clear yellow. The nasty elbow by Bentaleb was spotted by the ref but gave yellow not red. When Sykes beat Lejeune in extra time to be clean through for a shot on goal to be brought down was a red, it could only be a yellow if a penalty was awarded. 2nd goal was after a foul. This is where VAR is a problem, to have it in some games and not others in the same competition is wrong. Prem refs are relying on it so their own match judgement where VAR is not in operation is now nowhere near as good as they are no longer trained or able to make correct decisions because in the prem they don't necessarily need to.
For all the decent play, I can't help but feel we again didn't test their keeper enough which has been the problem for quite a few weeks. But we did finish both games against Newcastle much the stronger in 90 minutes so that is a real plus for the fitness team and I guess a huge minus and embarrassment for the Newcastle coaches. I hate being a plucky loser and really hope we can move on from this and get some good results that this team deserves.
Tiny margins decided the game. The high tackle by Longstaff when he pretended to be hurt was a clear yellow. The nasty elbow by Bentaleb was spotted by the ref but gave yellow not red. When Sykes beat Lejeune in extra time to be clean through for a shot on goal to be brought down was a red, it could only be a yellow if a penalty was awarded. 2nd goal was after a foul. This is where VAR is a problem, to have it in some games and not others in the same competition is wrong. Prem refs are relying on it so their own match judgement where VAR is not in operation is now nowhere near as good as they are no longer trained or able to make correct decisions because in the prem they don't necessarily need to.
For all the decent play, I can't help but feel we again didn't test their keeper enough which has been the problem for quite a few weeks. But we did finish both games against Newcastle much the stronger in 90 minutes so that is a real plus for the fitness team and I guess a huge minus and embarrassment for the Newcastle coaches. I hate being a plucky loser and really hope we can move on from this and get some good results that this team deserves.