Just a normal week on the #NUFC hashtag, that’s all we ask, right? No chance. SCOTT ROBSON issues a call for calm, on all sides…
Newcastle lost to Ardwick in 1893 in our very first encounter against the side that we now call Manchester City and it feels like as long as that since we’ve got anything other than a good old hammering against them. Losing by the tight margin of 46 goals to five on aggregate (going by my poor maths) since 2010.
While that record is hardly anything to be celebrated, it didn’t, for many years, even register a ripple in the consciousness of our support who, along with the owners and management saw the fixture as damage limitation. The damage meant nothing in the annual relegation scrap, the modern football equivalent of going to war with a stick against an AK47.
This time we had at least hope after the previous Saturday when we were the ones dishing out the Kalashnikov’s and Villa were left holding their ‘pooh sticks’. The thing is, it’s the hope that kills you and evidently, looking at the last couple of days, it also turns you just a bit, well, weird. The fallout from Saturday’s defeat saw moaning which has been brewing for a while for Bruno Guimaraes and MIguel Almiron. That much so that many media outlets were reporting that our Brazil hero bit back on a now deleted social media post about comments made by a fellow fan site.
When I say it’s been brewing for a while, I mean it. Bruno ended last season struggling with various injuries and for glaringly obvious reasons his level of performance suffered. The situation was put up as an example of how thin our squad was, the fact that Guimaraes was having to play while injured when in an ideal world, he would have been left out. He hadn’t exactly set the world alight in pre pre-season but who cares one iota? The Villa game wasn’t his best either but he had a big improvement in the second half but almost everyone I spoke to post match, jumped on the fact he wasn’t at his swashbuckling best and this was because “he’s jealous of Tonali” or its because “he’s signing for Real Madrid” or even because “his high demands mean he’s turning down a new deal”.
All this because of that shit shot he had at Man City? Where does this start and how does it snowball?
I suppose this is a classic take on making a rod for your own back.
The guy has been sensational since he was drip-fed into the team the few weeks after he signed. A totem pole of a signing along with Trippier that made us believe we could do anything. In at least 80 percent of the games he’s played, he has been our best player. I said, six months in, that he’s one of the best players I’ve ever seen in black and white.
His rivals for that crown: Beardsley, Ferdinand, Lee and Hendrick (spot the odd one out) had bad games as well. Class is permanent, he will be back to his best soon. I guarantee it.
Almiron is another one in the firing line: again it’s nothing new and again he’s made a rod for his own back. This time last year he was one of the form players on the planet. For all the will in the world, that form was never going to stick. It was a joyous aberration when the good guy shone through. He’s playing now at his normal levels and for me they are more than good enough for this version of Newcastle United. Similar to when Willock scored 300 goals in six games that year, that level was never going to be kept up, but folks don’t lynch him for that.
In the future Almiron might not be good enough, but we are getting ahead of ourselves, are we not?
The same goes for Burn or any other.
We’ve always loved a scapegoat at NUFC. We are weird like that. Sometimes it’s partly justified by ineptitude but at the minute just enjoy a group of players who will run through walls for us. As time goes on that will certainly not be the case.
The flip argument of this is that the actual article was very tame in terms of criticism and a valid question was asked.
That’s not my beef here, it’s the comments online that I thought were way over the top. It shouldn’t bother me but it did. We must not get into a situation when we can’t criticise any player or the team if they haven’t played well. That’s not how football works, it’s full of opinion and that’s why we are up to our necks in it. We love it. Bruno bit quickly and while in my book he may have had a point, is it good to have players doing that? Or should everyone involved in this take a step back and look at the facts: we are a very good side who didn’t play as well as we could against the current European Cup holders, who didn’t play that well either in an overrated game which if you look back was actually quite boring, but Bruno, Almiron and Burn are still mint?
Can we all just stop this silliness now please? Right, thank you. Move on.
SCOTT ROBSON
I think that nobody seems to have taken any notice of the fact that Bruno jetted off to join up with Brazil just days after the end of the season and was with them for 4 or 5 weeks.
He came back to preseason a week after everyone else who didn’t have international commitments, so in effect, had approximately 4 weeks break over the summer to rest and recouperate
I don’t think this is really about one game. In Bruno’s case there has been a perception for a while, rightly or wrongly, that his levels have dipped this year.
Kev Lawson wrote a brilliant newsletter about this (everyone should subscribe to his substack) disproving it on a statistical level. But the perception still exists.
I did a (wonderfully scientific) Twitter poll asking fans if they thought his levels had dipped this year, and 74% said Yes!
The same is probably true of Burn, Almiron etc where some discontent has rumbled for a while. The hope going into the Man City game and the frustration we didn’t give them a “typical Newcastle game” is likely what triggered it.
Of course, this is all just a sign of rising standards and the expectations that come with it as we move from plucky underdogs to a genuinely class side.
I just hope we all just remember to enjoy the journey and not become obsessed with the destination.
As Iain Sinclair says, “‘Event’ is a negligible consequence. What happens, and goes on happening, is the ride.”