Back in the Premier League: the bigger picture

[Maggie May]

One game down, one defeat. 

We can take a lot of positives out of that performance. Ultimately it was down to an avoidable error.  That was the best we’ve played at St James’s Park for years. They’re a team who believe they will be challenging for the Champions League. If we keep that level up, we should be fine. 

What I think a lot of fans need to realise is just how lucky we are to be back in the Premier League and seeing a performance like that after years of dross. The season before last is surely one of the worst in our history.

Thankfully we have a manager who managed to galvanise a team totally devoid of confidence and a fan base who endured defeat after defeat, woeful performance after woeful performance ever since we were hammered at Villa Park back in 2022.  

The play off final was magic. In fact, we bossed the play offs and deservedly went up after a shaky end to the season. 

I can understand the feelings of some fans who think we need to be doing more to secure good quality players who can keep us up. This isn’t Football Manager. The majority of us don’t really know what it’s like behind the scenes. 

This is going to be a tough season. But there is a lot of heart in this team. Already I’m seeing posts like “Cameron Archer? Jeffrey Archer more like” after today’s performance. Everyone is entitled to their opinion but it’s a shame if we lost some of the positivity post play offs.  We need to be fully behind this team.

We look better than Luton, Sheffield United and Burnley last season. We have a chance. 

If we were playing a Championship fixture today, I would be fearing a downward spiral. But here we are, giving Newcastle a run for their money. 

[Sunglasses Ron]

Just watched the highlights from today…

A few poor misses, and that shocking goal, but we really did look quite good really.

Onwards and upwards (hopefully)!

[danjosaint]

I get what your saying and before the sending off was a positive,  after that we were totally devoid of any ideas of how to break them down, we didn't stretch them, move the ball quick enough in fact we got slower,  the subs were really poor and the tactics regarding pissing around at the back were really infuriating as anyone could see what was going to happen apart from RM, who actually has come out and said we shouldn't be doing that,  what! So the players are ignoring him on several occasions.  RM really needs to be more flexible but he's not and ultimately we will go down whilst gifting goals away in games we're on top. It doesn't help the club hasn't any football nous in the higher levels and made several really poor decisions over the last few seasons and that doesn't appear to be changing, I really don't get who sees what in the goalkeeping department such piss poor management

[Dr Who?]

That’s how we are going to play. Regroup and go again from the back. Repeat, waiting for the opening. We had a few chances and should have won that game. 37 left to go and after that I am feeling positive. Ask me again this time next week and you may get a different answer.