10 letters that best explain Newcastle’s dropped points vs. Wolves

Newcastle United stole a point from Wolverhampton yesterday, but the performance was far from impressive.

Newcastle United and Wolverhampton provided their supporters and neutral fans with a good snoozefest at the Molineux Stadium. Raul Jimenez opened the scoring in the 80th minute, but Jacob Murphy made David Beckham proud with a stellar free-kick around the wall to make it 1-1 nine minutes later.

Newcastle United fans were excited when they saw Callum Wilson, Miguel Almiron, Allan Saint-Maximin, and Ryan Fraser were starting together for the first time this season.

The dynamic attacking quartet have the combined talent and football acumen to guide the Magpies to a top ten finish if they stay healthy, but they were held on a leash yesterday. Who would do such a thing?

Ah, you guessed it… his name has ten letters, and he is known as Steve Bruce. Yesterday’s game was supposed to be an open game in midfield with both teams trading possession and creating several chances.

Well, Wolves certainly did that from the opening whistle, but Newcastle United sat back and chased the ball from left to right. Last weekend, Nuno Espirito Santo’s men were held to 32% possession against Leeds United, but his team enjoyed 64% possession against the Toon, and created 16 chances.

Newcastle United had all that firepower in the final third, but only created five chances over the course of 90 minutes. It took Allan Saint-Maximin eleven minutes to get his first touch on the ball, Miguel Almiron was forced to try and orchestrate counter-attacks from deep in midfield, and Callum Wilson was left isolated up top.

It is clear that Bruce has no idea how to utilize his key players. With the talent he has at his disposal, his tactics were simply embarrassing. Wolves were not at their best, but the Magpies’ defensive setup enabled them to dictate the flow of the game.

Three points were there for the taking, and all Bruce had to do was unleash his star players in midfield.

What’s worse is that Bruce might use this game as an excuse to say this lineup does not work, yet Newcastle United need the aforementioned quartet in the lineup if they want to stand a chance against Everton next weekend.