Now the dust has settled on the Sunderland derby debacle, I feel it’s time to take stock with a level (and sober) head, it’s never dull with Newcastle United is it.
Questioning the manager’s position is farcical, but to say everything is fine and dandy, is akin to holding a telescope to a blind eye and declaring “I see no ships.”
Our form before Sunday was decent.
Newcastle United had been going well in all competitions, but this papered over many cracks, conceding late goals AND our away form has been a major issue all season, despite our relatively good position overall.
Looking at the Premier League table might not be a great read, but we aren’t a major stone’s throw from European places, an achievement at the end of the season if successful.
The resident pessimist inside me has asked me to give my head a shake and dismiss such an outcome and unrealistic given our current situation. Time will tell but I seem to recall that we weren’t doing so clever at this point LAST season either.
Focusing on the derby as a stand alone game, did Sunderland deserve the win? Not really. It was a 0-0 all day long unless an enormous slice of good luck/misfortune (delete as appropriate) were to intervene. Sadly for us, the latter came to pass. It’s the relative lack of response from our lot that sticks in the throat.
The mackems are plucky. The are deservedly where they are in the table and have been a credit to promoted sides who usually struggle. They’ve certainly proved me wrong with my pre-season prediction.
I can’t (and won’t) speak for other fans but looking at the bigger picture is ALWAYS key for me. Most managers lose derby games at some time or another. It’s not something I’m getting too hung up on to be honest. I personally was calm before the game and I was relatively calm after it. My biggest annoyance WASN’T that we’d just lost to “that lot down the road”, some fans might not like me saying this but I was more bothered about the points than the opposition.
Let me draw a comparison.
As outsiders, can anyone remember Sir Alex Ferguson getting worked up about losing to Manchester City during the red half of Manchester dominance in the 90s and early 2000s?
As far as my knowledge of Manchester United/Alex Ferguson goes, the biggest annoyance was the points lost rather than the opposition. Alex Ferguson had his eyes on the prize. I seem to recall him saying that his mission statement was to target Liverpool’s title tally as his target as Manchester United manager. NOTHING else mattered. The odd derby defeat will have rankled with the fiery Scot simply because it was points dropped against a side they SHOULD have been beating, for the grander scheme to be achieved.
A similar approach should be adopted with our current situation. We are much bigger than Sunderland. Their fans would disagree of course but of that I don’t care.
It would be unrealistic and absurd to suggest we’re going for league titles in our immediate future but once again the bigger picture is what is at the front and centre of my thoughts. Chucking leads away in the dying embers of games numerous times is of far greater concern than losing a derby game to an unlucky own goal.
I hold the mackems around about the same ability and level as Everton and the league table proves this comparison. We smashed one of them away from home with a brilliant performance, we lost to the other with an insipid display with no merit whatsoever. “Intensity Is Our Identity” has been replaced with “Inconsistency Is Our Reality.”
Positivity?
We are in a good position in the Champions League, we are in the quarter-finals of the League Cup and we can still make good progress in the Premier League in the coming months. We have admittedly been poor in general in the league, while our local rivals have had a good season so far and have just beaten us at their place, yet they are only four points ahead of us after such a feat. Bizarrely, I take that as a positive.
We can highlight a muddled pre-season, a mutinous striking striker confusing matters, lack of boardroom appointees, the manager being recalled from holiday to do the jobs of other people, current fixture overload and the inevitable injury list as major factors in our relative “struggles” thus far. None of which are the fault of Eddie Howe.
Do I criticise the manager’s team selections and substitutions? Of course I do. No manager has escaped this in my time supporting this club and Eddie Howe is no different. Personally, I think he got his team selection wrong on Sunday, but isn’t hindsight a wonderful thing. The trouble with that being I (and many others) questioned it BEFORE kick off.
The major negative I see is that we are stuck in mid-table and looking to kick start our season in the third week of December. That is quite frankly ridiculous.
Late goals conceded, lacklustre performances and lost derbies will not matter a jot, if we stay focused on the bigger picture and turn this season around, no matter how belated it may be.
Results can mask poor performances but poor performances catch up with you eventually and the displays we’ve been watching, even when results have been achieved, haven’t been of a good enough standard befitting of Newcastle United.
Management and playing staff BOTH need to look at themselves and admit that they can do so much better than what has been shown so far this season.
Redemption starts on Wednesday night against Fulham.