Having had almost a day to reflect and a very very long journey home yesterday I have come to the conclusion we were shite. Mac failed in gee-ing up the players prior to the game, we knew Newcastle wanted our blood for the manner in which they got sent down and we took the piss. They wanted revenge and revenge is what they got. They do say it's a dish best served cold, and I'm sure it tasted very sweet for Newcastle yesterday.
We didn't help our cause by starting a midfield 2 of Petrov and Ireland against the animals that are Nolan, Smith, and Barton, had disaster written all over it, Young was playing as a striker and too far up leaving us exposed in the middle, but he was the only one to shhow any desire so credit to him for that. Ireland did well for me, covered a lot of ground, and did too much of Petrovs work for him, and he was also way way too deep for me, and that again is Mac's doing, but we can't expect miracles from Ireland when Petrov was such a passenger. Ireland put some good tackles in, some nice passes, and a lot of hard work was put in by him, so I saw enough to make me believe he will be a great addition based on yesterday.
The defence was shambolic. Carroll bullied us, and for me got into Dunnes head, and Dunne seemed suprisingly overawed by the task of handling Carroll, and when your defensive leader is all at sea the rest of your defence knows this and is adversely affected as we saw yesterday. Clarke didn't have his stalwart next to him and in turn it ruined his game, and both of the full backs games. Dunne is an awesome defender, but yesterday he seemed scared of Carroll and his presence, which is the first time I have ever seen Dunney intimidated by a forward.
Going forward our wingers and Carew were abysmal. That penalty summed up his game. Mainly Carew who was given the task of holding the ball up to build our attacks, and he did not do this once. He lacked mobility, drive, and the quality yesterday. Therefore all our attacks had broken down before they started. Downing did nothing for me, not helped by the lack of forward play by Carew, but he did little when he had the ball. Albrighton was full of running and drive, and showed a lot of effort also, but a tired young kid against an experienced Jose Enrique led to him providing nothing for us, not his fault.
And as for Friedal, diabolical. Should have done better for Barton's 'wonder' strike, and was atrocious when he pushed Nolan's soft header right back into.... that's right, Nolan's path, and it was uphill from there.
Well it's done now. We have a game Thursday to take this out of our minds, hopefully yesterday was a one off, and we are at the races next week against Everton or we could be embarressed again.