We could still be arguing for many more pages to come whether are we happy or are we not with our performance and for where we are in the league position now. But for now, let's accept the fact that for where we are now, the fault lies with our midfield and this is one area that's never gonna get us to top 4, let alone first, we'll most probably finish sixth.
Henderson is not the answer, he'll even struggle to get into Southampton 11 at the moment, Stevie is winding down but is still better than many while Lucas is good at what he's doing but speed is not one of his strong points. Spending almost 1/2 the game in possesion knocking the ball outside the oppposition box not knowing what to do with the ball, plus playing against 10 men for 50 mins tells us that we're void of ideas how to break down defences. Yes, Coutinho is out so we're weakened but I'd expect others to have the quality to step up to do the job, but we have none at the moment, only too many average Joes in midfield at the moment.
I was switching between channels during and after the game and presenters said the same thing, we lacked creativity from midfield and I won;t disagree.
Yes, I'm the strongest critic of Moses in this game, but in hindsight I don't blame him fully, why is he at the flank, he's the most dangerous behind the 2 strikers where his speed and thrust will see him go past defenders as what he used to do with Chelsea, Johnson was doing really fine on the right flank but no one complimented his efforts from midfield.
To me, BR got a few things wrong today, why try out somethig alien and sexy to players, just play to the players strength. He was naive to say the least, Newcastle threw players forward pounding our defence non-stop from the first whistle to mask their weakened defence and we allowed them to do just that for a big part of the first half and it was truly embarassing. We should have bombed their defence while Collicini is out and their defence will be at sixes and sevens and we saw that towards the end of the game but it was too late. If BR had perfected the art of counter attack, Newscastle would have been buried in the first 45 mins.
In fact, the 2 goals were created by Suarez himself, nothing coming from midfield and this is very very scary. We truly needed a total revamp of our midfield, we were dominated in midfield, we needed a Schneider, as someone has mentioned to torment opposition defence and a speedy and burly DM ala Masch comes Jan.
With our strange tactics and an average midfield I’m happy with the draw.
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