Midfield Lessons. Newcastle Away.

Image sourced from The Daily Mail

There was one man who stole the show on Saturday afternoon, the good part? He's an English, holding midfield player. The bad? He was on Newcastle's side and not ours.

£12 million when they signed a player who hadn't exactly shone for Swansea when he'd played so far this season was laughable in my opinion, I thought that was such a smart piece of business, but if Shelvey can produce performances like he did on Saturday then Newcastle have seemingly found the man who will kick-start their survival this season. And who knows, the way this season has been so far they may even finish in the top 8 or 9 if they carry on!

We let ourselves down in the first half. It was just like the Bournemouth first half and how many others have started to believe that we may now be a second half side? Early in the season we had scored some important goals in the first half! Maybe that's just a little bit of frustration there, but I really didn't see that spark in the side at any point in the 90 minutes on Saturday! Is Payet still not match fit? He was dragged too deep into our own half far too often for my liking. Antonio looked like he had the drive, but nothing up in front of him, Valencia looked like he kept dodging challenges with the fear of catching another knock, Kouyate was absent for the majority of the game, Noble's passing was poorer than poor & Ogbonna looked nervous from the first minute.

Ogbonna's situation is a funny one, at times, he has looked like the strongest and most comfortable defender on the field & at others, he has seemed like he wouldn't look out of place down the local park on a Sunday morning! I hope his form returns for the visit of Manchester City this weekend as with Aguero and Silva both looking like they are returning to form, I will be worrying if the team play like they did at Newcastle again!

The game at St James' park though was purely a display of which set of players wanted the points more and unfortunately for us supporters, it wasn't the boys in claret and blue. Tactically, I did think that Billic could've selected the team a little better. Jelavic to me seems to be a confidence player, any time he has put a decent scoring run together, he has been playing like he believes he deserves to be on the pitch. Those performances earned him a move to Everton who, at the time, were big contenders for a top 4 or 5 spot in the Premier League. He scored his first goal for the club against Wolves, came on in place of Andy Carroll against Bournemouth and looked hungry to get stuck in! I thought he put in a great shift against Bournemouth. So then Billic, the man who brought him to the club, decides to leave the guy on the bench and play with what was effectively, a front three who didn't push forward enough. Jelavic showed exactly how hungry he was to get stuck in, he scored within 5 minutes of being on the field. I thought Kouyate was a tad unfortunate not to score in either half too, but there we go, some games are just not meant to be and this was one of them. I must also point out a grievance I have from this game. The way Moses fell in the penalty area when it was clear that there was no foul, why did he then continue to roll around on the floor as if he'd just broken his leg? Newcastle went on the counter attack and could've made it 3-1. They didn't, but that's not the point. If he'd stayed on his feet, or at least not been play acting, he could've helped track back and then if and when we win the ball back, he then is there as an outlet to help an attack! Maybe that's the amateur footballer in me thinking that way, anyway, on to the next one!

Image sourced from standard.co.uk

Manchester City at home, I would take a draw in this one. City have found their shooting boots against Crystal Palace & I really hope our performance at Newcastle isn't the start of another poor spell of games and another string of draws! But in this instance, if we're going to perform to a level which is below what we've been used to this season, I think we'll be lucky to snatch a draw!

I did think that we would beat Newcastle on Saturday so I'm not even going to offer my opinion in the build up to the City game this weekend! I'm just hoping that we all have a reason to be walking away from the ground with positive vibes.

Thanks to all reading, COYI!