I got back from Percy Main’s 3-1 win over Heddon United in the Northumberland FA Minor Cup in time for the second half at Craven Cottage. To be honest, it wasn’t a bad performance. Hornicek, after looking like Steve Hardwick’s grandson in the last few weeks, made some excellent saves to ensure we didn’t leave SW6 empty handed. Steur continued to show he is a prodigiously gifted talent and most of the rest put in a canny shift. I mean Murphy did nowt apart from the goal, but when you score a raker like that, you’re entitled to be cut some slack and to celebrate in the manner he did. Yet, it still felt like two points dropped, despite Hornicek’s heroics, because we’d scored so late, missed more chances, especially Hall’s late one, and had a goal chalked off because of Wissa’s unnecessary foul.
The absolute bottom line is that this underwhelming and perplexing result stopped the murmurs of discontent regarding Jaissle from becoming a deafening crescendo, for the moment at least. Let’s face it, going into this one, another pitiful non-performance could have proved fatal for his relationship with the support, if not the clowns above him. By that I mean Hopkinson and Wilson, both of whom are doing nothing to justify their continued employment by Newcastle United. Fairly soon, this may include the newly appointed head of first team recruitment, the fittingly named employee of PIF, Tomas Amoral.
So how did we get here? The Hull City game, which left us all on Cloud 7, was followed by more than 3 weeks of enforced inertia. Naively I’d hoped that we’d use this time to get most of the injured back in the squad and work upon tactical tweaks that would allow us to play Jaissle’s “Vertical Football,” which I’m no nearer to getting a handle on than when I first heard the phrase back in July. In the lead up to the Coventry game, Newcastle signed a massive sponsorship deal with Coca Cola. I don’t drink the stuff, being a lifetime devotee of Barrs’ carbonated mineral products, so I’m happy to see another huge tranche of corporate cash being poured into the coffers, to presumably finance new deals for Jacob Murphy and Mark Gillespie. There was also Ireland’s shame in playing Israel twice, which disgusted me as much as the vermin who thankfully failed to march down the Garvaghy Road. Debrecen and Drumcree became moral flashpoints in the early autumn. I was also disgusted by news that Granit Xhaka had committed crimes against humanity by playing when not vaccinated against COVID. Here’s hoping a life ban is incoming.
The wider football world learned of Manchester City’s guilt. I don’t presume to understand this case in the slightest but, while I dislike City, I despise the clubs who would stand to benefit from their demotion (which I doubt will happen), in the shape of Arsenal and Liverpool. After the Coventry game, I thought it might be best if Newcastle volunteered to accept City’s punishment, as there was no way our club could justify remaining in the top flight after that disgraceful humbling. We’d lost 4-1 at Coventry before, back in 1999, when the away support let themselves down with some despicable racist chanting, but this was probably an even worse performance, with only Barnes and the returning Joelinton, who I’d thought may have played his last game for us, doing anything to deserve being called footballers. Though, the Brazilian was culpable in the concession of their third goal. Strangely enough, even at 2-1 down I thought Newcastle would win, as we carved them open repeatedly, missing a galaxy of chances. Perhaps this is what vertical football is. You play dangerously open attacking football; fail to take any opportunities you create (bar Botman’s insane strike) and allow the opposition to waltz through you unchecked. I don’t believe this to be a viable style of play, in all honesty. I’m not sure if Pardo is ever likely to miss 2 easier chances than the ones he passed up. Let’s hope this wasn’t his Jon Dahl Tomasson versus Sheffield Wednesday moment, but I have my fears.
There’s a bloke I know who used to drink in my (still closed) local, who does every away game. He’s 40, single, got no kids and works every hour he can to fund his football obsession. It’s the likes of him I feel sorry for. Driving down there on a Monday night, getting back at yon time after a crushing loss, then having to be up at the crack of dawn for graft, mainly to fund his next away trip. I’ve done it in the past, but those days are gone. My sympathies still lie with all those who choose to make Newcastle United the epicentre of their life. Personally, I watched this in the pub and came across the bizarre phenomenon of people abandoning half drunk pints and heading home when the third went in. Not a good look. Not a good sign.
The Villa home game was next. I was very happy to hear the Hector Gannet version of “Blaydon Races” get its debut hearing. Despite the moaning of some, I think it is an excellent update on the club’s anthem. I was even happier to see the players take the knee, in opposition to racism and discrimination, before kick-off; an act that was met by almost universal acclaim by supporters. Mind, if I tried that at Walking Football, I doubt I’d be able to stand up again before full time. Sadly, these were the best bits of the game as we fell to a predictable, lame 1-0 defeat, where we failed to lay a glove on the opposition all night. Frankly, I’m wondering whether Jaissle is the answer to our problems, as from my perspective, he comes across as a one-dimensional Saudi Yes Man, with a line in bullshit he could have picked up from Pardew. If he really believes that throwing on Dan Burn up front to try and get us something from the game, he probably needs to be relieved of his duties sharpish. There was no pattern to our play. No identity to the team. Worst of all, there was no hope once they went ahead. Absolute shit, but at least Cabaret Voltaire were on top form at the Boiler Shop later on.
So we came to the one outlier in this toxic sea of depression; the Palace away game. I had zero confidence before this one, predicting a 3-0 defeat and a Mateta hat trick. Turns out though that the big striker has no interest on shaking a leg for his current team. I wasn’t pleased to see Jaissle had opted for a centre back pairing that were blessed with a combined age of almost 70, feeling that any good coach could have ironed out the deficiencies in Botman and Thiaw’s previous performances, instead of binning them. What do I know eh? We kept a clean sheet and, after a dire first half, turned in some of our best play so far this season. From the restart, intensity levels were raised, the style of football was coherent, and we scored a pair of absolute beauties, to win deservedly. This was a very fine Sunday afternoon.
Come Thursday, we’d heard about the arrival of Thomas Amoral. A person I’d never heard of appointed to a non-existent job, if the line up for the Everton game was anything to go by. Of those who arrived in the summer, Gonzalez has a proper pedigree but hasn’t pulled up any trees. Steur has breathtaking potential but hasn’t had enough game time. Toure looks to be our best option out wide. Hornicek has blown hot and cold. God knows how bad Bamba must be if he can’t get on the pitch ahead of some of this lot. In truth, we started alright, but the roof fell in as soon as we conceded. Sky had hidden this game behind the red button, so I watched a dodgy stream that froze before the second goal. I still haven’t seen it and I don’t want to. By the time it fixed itself for the second half, personnel but not positional or tactical changes had made us look a bit brighter. Of course, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different outcomes. Predictably, it didn’t work as we conceded a third and the 8,000 away following largely voted with their feet. We did get a scruffy consolation late on, which was more memorable for the pagger in the goal net between Burn, Joelinton, Tarkowski and Pickford. In perhaps his most telling contribution of the whole game, Hornicek ran from one end to the other to try and calm Joelinton down. It didn’t work and we went impotently out of the cup, passing up the opportunity of an away quarter final against Fleetwood Town. Well done lads.
If we thought things couldn’t get any worse than this, we were wrong. The opening 35 minutes against Everton at home the following Monday were the most abysmal I’d seen since MacClaren’s last game in charge against Bornemouth in March 2016. We couldn’t control the ball, couldn’t pass, lost every duel in the air and on the ground. It was a shapeless mess, before we woke up in the last 10 minutes prior to the break. Even then we coughed up 2 open goals that they spurned, in injury time. Those who, like me, naively hoped for a turn around after the break were sorely disappointed. A non-existent foul saw a free kick where Elanga lost his man and Hornicek spilled a routine save to allow them an 18-inch tap-in. Absolutely sickening. Only when Steur came on did we try and play football. We had some pressure, made (and missed) a few chances, but never looked like we were going to get anything out the game. Jaissle babbled on afterwards about nothing, showing he’s clearly out of his depth, before we went to Fulham, fearing the worst. As we know, it wasn’t too bad, meaning we’re no further forward in knowing whether to pull the plug after 10 league games or wait until we’re in the bottom 3 at Christmas.
