Incredible feeling around St James Park now - My thoughts on the Palace game

Whatever happens now, at least we have shown some fight. That is all we ever asked for.

The next game is no walk over, and a huge potential banana skin. There is no love lost between us and Villa, and I am sure they would love to torpedo our hopes of staying up. If we don't get three points in that game too then it's all but over. They will be desperate to give their fans something to cheer before the season ends, and the home game against us is almost certainly their last chance to do that. We absolutely need to beat Villa or all talk of the last day is pointless (probably literally).

 

I was dreading Darlow being in the first team after the West Brom debacle, but I'm glad to be proved wrong, he's growing in confidence every game and another clean sheet will do wonders for him.

Would definitely give Lascelles MOTM though, so commanding and determined, and that tackle was the best I've seen by any of our lads all season. As Danny Murphy said on MOTD, why hasn't he played more? Obviously McClaren being crap and not having the balls to drop a senior squad member who's got clout in the dressing room.

Mackems getting a goal at the death was a bit of a pisser, but if offered a win for us and a draw for them at the start of have taken it, it's all about points on the board now.

 

Villa are an abysmal club this season. If we can't beat them - and I agree it's far from guaranteed - then relegation will be well-deserved.

Who knows what will happen, it's just one game at a time. There's almost certainly going to be another twist somewhere, maybe still two or three. On paper, Sunderland have the easiest fixtures, but what I'm clinging to is that Sunderland need clean sheets to guarantee any points and are up against three teams whose strength is attack. Everton have just halted their slide, Chelsea are always capable and Watford had a fantastic turnaround yesterday. It's whether they're playing without restrictions and are dangerous, or with one eye on the beach. Norwich seem to have it toughest, I must say, but nobody's going to be surprised if SJP is full of bairns with tears in two weeks time.

Win for NUFC, draw for Sunderland and loss for Norwich would be my hopeful and optimistic guess for the next round of matches which would see it 36, 33 and 31 points. Both may win on the following Wednesday, putting us in the bottom 3 (36/36/34) on the final day. We'd need to better everyone's result to stay up. Fascinating! With any luck Sunderland only get a point from both Chelsea and Everton meaning a draw keeps us up. Better yet, Defoe gets injured and they simply lose both.

 

The sweetest bromance since dier and alli surely

 

We were not very good in terms of quality. Townsends free kick aside. I thought Tiote had terrific game again. He would be my MOTM. Obviously Lascelles and Mbemba have done very well again. The makeshift full backs are doing a solid job. I thought Gini was very poor first half. He kept falling over the ball. Very frustrating as clearly has quality. He may be feeling the pace of our season now. He'll learn from it for next year (probably somewhere else as we are likely to go down). He improved 2nd half but just because he gave everything and battled. Quality still poor. Sissoko put a shift in which was nice to see despite his misuse of the ball. Colback had a solid 7/10 game, for whatever reason Rafa seems to be getting a lot more out of him. Townsend had some head banging moments where he just runs down blind alleys. His effort, pressing, tracking is excellent though. The lad is trying his nuts off for the club. His goal was a pearler. He was always the one trying to make something happen.

I don't care what anyone says but the English factor under Rafa is clear to see. He has gone for players who will fight for the cause. Dummett, Lascelles, Colback, Townsend, Tiote - players who know the league are dragging us into this because they are doing what you must do in England. Fight to win the battle and right to play. Don't do that then you are relegated or under achieving. If we stayed up he would ensure we have that English spine to our team, but probably just buy a better class of player with English football knowledge. I don't know how much more evidence the "nationality or PL knowledge doesn't matter" camp need. Its so obvious.

I wasn't sure about Rafa, but I like him. He has a bit of grit and street fighter about him. He has forced them to play for him. He is tactically astute. he gets the club and city. It will be such a shame if we lost him as looks likely because the connection is there, and when it is our club is different animal.

Cisse is just ****ing awful. Regardless of supply he is just useless. I assume its the temperamental nature of Mitro which Rafa is worrying about. Cisse is just not a footballer. He is trying I'll give him that. However I was looking at the pics of Shearer and Ferdinand on the way out and I was thinking "WTF are we watching now?" Honestly there is zero culture to his game. He toe pokes passes like a Sunday player or kid at school who got picked last. FFS its painful to watch.

 

MG - absolutely bang on about Cisse, but I think the concerns are about both temperament and fitness with Mitrovic; he chases pointless things too hard and runs out of steam too quickly, plus if he's on a first half booking he's too volatile to rely on for the rest of the game. Cisse is utter, utter garbage, no question. Personally I'd swap Cisse for Perez and go with that; I said as much before Palace and will say it again. Perez is a CF at the end of the day, Gini's got ability so play them both, then you have a range of versatility already on the field with both Mitrovic and SDJ as options depending how the game progresses. But Cisse's a passenger, at best.

Darlow/Anita-Mbemba-Lascelles-Dummett/Colback-Tiote/Townsend-Sissoko-Wijnaldum/Perez

It's easily our best XI, I am desperate to see it because we've got 8 from 12 with a complete passenger. Imagine what we could do with eleven men on the pitch at the same time.

 

I get the " God help the Premier" feeling if Rafa and the players survive .
It's a terrific match and said so from the beginning .
Holy Townsend Batman ....." Wow " ....." Smash " , and that's not just for the goal , the guy was a one man Army .
This could be one of the biggest " Sunderland vs Newcastle " events for quite a while .
Popcorn is at the ready .

 

I blame Cabaye he should have made it look difficult and maybe Darlow could have hesitated a little before going down

 

I think Perez is overrated personally. He has potential but just doesn't convince me. I'd play Mitro but I'm happy to tryst Rafa.

I'd see no harm in bringing in Aarons for Gini who I think is struggling physically.

 

So have you gone cold on the Silver Fox then? It's going to be a blow to his ego when he hears you are forsaking him for Rafa. Shame on you.

 

TRYST

tryst
trɪst/
literary
noun

1. 1.
   a private romantic rendezvous between lovers.
   "a moonlight tryst"

verb

1. 1.
   keep a private, romantic rendezvous with a lover.
   "a trysting place"
   
   

Marcelo and Rafa, Rafa and Marcelo
Marcelo and Rafa, Rafa and Marcelo

 

Ref - he is editing his posts to ruin my puns. Is it within my moderating powers to ban him for this? Or can I just change his user name to HIAG.

 

Easy fella

 

I think Gini isn't giving what he looked capable of, so a swap to someone else might be considered.
Shelvey or Aarons maybe?

 

Yeah been saying for a while we should give Aarons a run on the left. I think Gini will be all the better for this first season but he is running on empty now. Not surprising. He can missing a bit but I honestly think once he gets his confidence back, and adapts, he'll be a top player in England. Probably not here though as I expect to go down.

 

Nows not the time to be messing around too much

Id sell gini in thr summer if we spent on a decent cm player