Newcastle 2-0 Bolton

To be fair to Coyle, it was 0-0 after 70 minutes, a scoreline we'd all have taken. It's a brave man who changes things when we're 20 minutes from a surprise point.

Natasha Whittam wrote:It's a brave man who changes things when we're 20 minutes from a surprise point.

It is but that's what he is paid to do, we seemed to be on the front foot after the 2nd half for about 20minutes, which is when I feel it should have been changed to give newcaslte more to think about.

But the thing is when we are a goal down and a sub comes on, the rest of the teams heads have dropped so the guy coming on can't have much of an impact because the others have give up trying.

Sluffy wrote:

largehat wrote:

Sluffy wrote:Goal difference -29
Much worse than everyone else's

Bolton -29
QPR -21
Blackburn -24
Wigan -27
Wolves -36

I'm struggling to see how it is much worse than everyone else's.

Well it's simple enough - if goal difference decides who stays up and who goes down - then we being currently a point in front of everybody else - will have to lose another game more - so the others can catch up and thus we will have an even worse GD than we have now.

It's unlikely that we are going to win too many more games this season and thus it is highly likely that the final standings will show us with a poorer GD than those teams on the same points as us.

With just six games to go (five if you assume we have to lose a game so the others can catch up) - then I strongly believe that if our fate is going to be determined by GD - that we will be relegated.

Well yeah, I see what you're saying, though I would only say QPR's goal difference, out of those teams, gives them a clear advantage over us.

Wigan host Man United tomorrow. That could quite conceivably be a bloody good hiding for Wigan, who are only 2 goal difference ahead of us. It's only going to take Wigan or Blackburn to get a hiding in one or two of their remaining games before GD works in our favour in the final mix.

As bad as this season has been, I'm happy to stick my neck out and say I don't expect us to lose by 3+ goals again in any of our remaining fixtures.

We're far more likely to go down because we don't pick up any draws. When you consider this little table:

Bolton 21
QPR 18
Blackburn 18
Wigan 16
Wolves 20

... which is the number of games each team has lost, it's actually surprising our GD isn't worse than it is. I just don't think we will go down on GD when looking at the remaining fixtures.

bookies rarely get it wrong or they'd be out of business

we are 1/2
blackburn 8/13

qpr evens
wigan 13/8

most likely down to the run in fixtures

keep smiling

and we threw a stone wall draw away today
we deserved a point
but our clueless one doesn't know how to do it

brain dead

think we will survive
feel a song comin on

Well said trotter1948 but you have got the odds the wrong way round I think. We are 13/8, Blackburn are even money, and the other three are odds-on to go down.

I'm right
go to paddy power or any of the big betters
we are 1/2 0.5 however you want to put it
favorites to stay up
balckburn 8/13 not going to work the decimals
qpr are evens

the others have odds on them

these are odds to stay up

Ahh, I was looking at odds to go down, not stay up - hence the confusion.

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FTIW I thought that going for older players and shutting the back door for 70 minutes was a good thing and surprised me as it's totally unlike OC. We missed 3 good chances to take the lead, notably Mavies's fluff with goal gaping.
It showed we can defend if we set our stall out to do it and still create decent chances, but the old problem came back to haunt us - our players just aren't good enough to push more forward and stay solid at the back at the same time.
The goal? It was well taken, but the defence parted like the Red Sea and it was clear that Ream decided to go with the runner rather than stand in Ben Arfa's way because he thought Mavies would catch him - which he clearly couldn't.
Second goal offside.
All in all a much better performance than Fulham.

It was the same old problem though, as good as we played we simply couldn't get anything from a game when we concede the first goal.

Well I thought we played ok.
Before the game I had things to say about the selection of the team but I couldn't complain during the game and thought we played well and were the better team in large parts.

That first goal was the sucker punch. Newcastle got lucky that Ricketts slipped on a routine tackle. And it threw us off from there.

Granted, the subs were not what I wanted but then they also scored the killer - which was offside!

Our passing was good. We made a couple of good chances. We don't look enough of athreat up top.

Davies had an ok game (lets not get carried away about how good), Eagles did well. NRC was decent. We looked better at the back by a mile.

Newcastle have signed Anthony Gordon for £45m.

I find this incredible. I've seen him many times and all he does is fall over.

The football world has gone mad.

Natasha Whittam wrote:Newcastle have signed Anthony Gordon for £45m.

I find this incredible. I've seen him many times and all he does is fall over.

The football world has gone mad.

Just think how much he'd be worth if he could keep on his feet!

This is the team for this game some 10 years ago...

Hipster_Nebula wrote:BWFC: Bogdan, Steinsson, Wheater, Ream, Ricketts, Eagles, M Davies, Pratley, Reo-Coker, Petrov, K Davies

This was yesterday's team (if you pretend that John started) Trafford - Jones, Santos, Toal, - Bradley, John, - Morley, Dempsey, Lee, - Shoretire and Charles.

If you had to make a side up between the two teams, what would it be?

I mean Bogdan, Wheater, Eagles, sicknote, Pratley, Petrov - how crap where we back then???

(Oh almost forgot to ask - who would be the manager - Coyle or Evans?).