Maybe I spoke too soon
A couple of weeks ago I half-joked that Newcastle might have been able to fight for a top-eight position in the league. Fast-forward two weeks and that is starting to look like a foolish oversight. Last week’s defeat at Turf Moor was followed by an embarrassing home loss to Bournemouth, leaving us in 11th, behind both teams that came up with us last year.
Although our defence is still solid, Rafa continues to persist with Joselu up-front despite his constant lack of goals, or even meaningful contributions. Benitez is a god to most Geordies but I can’t help but feel that we aren’t going anywhere anytime soon with the boring and defensive style of football we are playing, although a lot of that is down to personal issues.
While most Toon fans would have taken 11th place going into the winter period before the season started, we have not capitalised on a run of winnable games and visit Old Trafford after the international break. What, ANOTHER international break I hear you ask? Yep, unfortunately so. It’s not all bad news though, Sunderland are bottom of the Championship, so we can at least spend another week laughing at them.
Wenger not happy with officials (again)
Arsene Wenger had yet another complaint about poor officiating, although this time he was justified. Man City’s third goal was one of the most blatant offside decisions missed in a long time, resulting in Wenger saying the officials ‘killed the game’. While he was correct about the offside, the only thing that killed the game was Arsenal’s poor performance, although at 2-1 anything could have happened so he was right to be aggrieved.
Wenger also came out with the best managerial quote of the season so far regarding Sterling’s Tom Daley impression for the City penalty with, ‘We all know he dives well’. While this is true, it’s probably not best to say on live TV and definitely didn’t do his reputation any good, along with admitting that City are ‘running away’ with the title this year. Not what you want to hear if you’re an Arsenal fan, patiently waiting for his new contract to run down.
This is getting ridiculous
Another top-flight manager has gone this week, with Slaven Bilic getting the chop at West Ham. They haven’t had a great start, but it now seems that any good work by managers gets forgotten as soon as they suffer a couple of bad results. David Moyes is the new Messiah who they believe is going to come in and save them. Judging on his past few jobs that doesn’t look likely, although he was at Sunderland last year so that doesn’t count. Even Mourinho couldn’t go there and get them winning games.
With rumours also surrounding Tony Pulis and Paul Clement, the pressure on managers is rising out of control. Fans and owners expect too much which results in the revolving door of managers, usually ending up with progress stagnating and teams going nowhere other than downwards. I know I keep kicking them when they are down but Sunderland over the past few years is a classic example. Sacked countless managers, usually ended up surviving by the skin of their teeth, but eventually, it caught up with them. Look where they are now. Owners and fans, you have been warned.