Where on earth do you even start with that?
Another 4-1 drubbing away from home, this time handing newly promoted Coventry City their first home win of the season… just so Newcastle United, isn’t it?
There were some pretty damning similarities to the Leeds game that caused us so much concern before the international break and Matthias Jaissle clearly still has A LOT to work on moving forward.
Toothless in attack, open at the back, and all of the exact same issues we’ve seen so far this season once again rearing their ugly head. What an awful performance.
At 2-1 it looked for all the world like we would either get an equaliser or remain firmly in the ascendency for the rest of the game… couldn’t really have been more wrong with that assessment.
I’d love to say we conceded the last two goals due to throwing loads of bodies forward to try and score again, but it was actually just the exact same pattern that the rest of the game had followed. Long periods of possession for Newcastle, Coventry winning the ball back and almost immediately having a numbers advantage and bearing down on goal.
The home side actually only had six shots on target in the entire game yet somehow came away with four goals. You can either look at that as some excellent finishing, which wouldn’t be incorrect, or you could ask a more pertinent question about how on earth that has been allowed to happen.
But, as was the case with the Leeds game, it was abundantly clear from the first whistle that we were going to be run all over. How nobody thought at any point during the 90 minutes we could maybe do with protecting the defensive line a bit more in transition, I’ll never know.
The midfield once again got absolutely ripped through on too many occasions to count, which is especially frustrating considering I literally wrote an article earlier in the week about how important Nico Gonzalez would be in preventing that from happening… he might as well have not been there.
The result is perhaps more annoying because we actually created a reasonable xG for once with 1.84 and, if it wasn’t for some very poor final third decision making and inadequate finishing, really should have forced Rushworth to pick more out of his net than just the Sven Botman screamer (where did that come from by the way).
Fernandez-Pardo had a good few chances, Wissa had a couple he should have done better with, Willock blazed over the bar from close range and Toure made a couple of poor decisions after he came on.
If you're squandering as many chances as we did while also conceding as many shots and goals as we are, then there isn't exactly a recipe for success being built, is there?
We all know Jaissle told us it would take time, but that’s now back-to-back 4-1 defeats away from home with the same concerns cropping up in both, not a great look.
I don’t want to sit here and start spouting about how it’s panic stations or that we are doomed to be stuck in a relegation scrap this year, because I don’t think that is the case.
But the performances we are currently seeing on the pitch are making it rather difficult to not slip into the mindset that we could be in a little bit of bother this season, especially where our actual ambitions are concerned anyway.
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