Magpies are inviting plenty of criticism...
...BUT CONSPIRACY THEORIES DO NOT HELP MATTERS
IT should be the season where party invitations are in full swing and but a pandemic and lockdown restrictions mean this is going to be a Christmas like no other.
Newcastle United are still handing out invites but doing very little to lift the low mood on Tyneside after a week which has yielded just a solitary point against two of the newlypromoted teams and six goals conceded.
Only Newcastle’s invites aren’t the fun type you would associate with taking a bottle or two round to a friends house to reflect on the year that’s just passed us by.
First, by playing so deep in their own half at Gallowgate you wondered if the Magpies were queuing to get into the Tyneside Irish Centre as they invited intense pressure from a Fulham side that had won just once in six matches before Saturday night and scored only a dozen goals.
And then after those tactics backfired massively, Newcastle and Steve Bruce effectively invited criticism via social media from their frustrated fanbase who haven’t been able to vent their views publicly since March.
There’s no doubt that some of the stuff on social media should be removed instantly with certain users needing to have their phones confiscated rather than being issued with a Twitter ban.
But a big chunk of criticism after the Fulham defeat was fair.
It’s true that Newcastle should be seeing sides like newly-promoted Fulham off with comfort with the Magpies now in their fourth season back in the top-flight after promotion in 2017. And after 18 months in the dugout, Bruce can’t expect questions on tactics, mentality and league position not to come his way after a result like this.
After all, the word “progress” and “moving forward” has been bandied about recently and Bruce himself said last season after finishing 13th: “Now going forward we can’t just accept that. It’s not about finishing above six or seven teams.
“We have to improve and get better. We must improve the squad and improve where we finish.
“We can’t be happy with 13th. It’s my job to make sure we try to be higher.”
As we prepare to check out of 2020 with games against Manchester City and Liverpool it looks like in or around 13th place is exactly where Newcastle are going to be.
During the game against Fulham, the social media argument that Bruce is not being questioned hard enough by the media reappeared after an awful first half.
The theory is well-rehearsed by tweeters, only it’s complete nonsense.
Questions about tactics, awful stats and Newcastle’s league position HAVE all been delivered via Zoom conferences this season and some press conferences have been heated as Bruce defended his corner.
Whether fans like Bruce’s answers or not is another matter entirely.
Bruce has a good relationship with the press, that much is true, but for any Newcastle manager to survive he would be crazy not to.
Alan Pardew found this to his cost when he signed a document that sanctioned a press ban for the local media in autumn 2013 and ran on until Christmas 2014 and we all
know what happened with Joe Kinnear.
It made for an uncomfortable 14 months for Pardew and in the end, it probably left him looking for the Crystal Palace job when he should have been building another squad at Newcastle.
Don’t forget Pardew actually did well in terms of a top-10 finish in 2014 and the Magpies were in a healthy top-half position when he took the job with the Eagles going into 2015. But he wasted so much energy fighting the press, opposition managers and players (remember the David Meyler incident at Hull?) that he looked emotionally drained by the end of it. At one point he could not even emerge from the dugout in a game against Cardiff as the crowd booed his every move.
It wasn’t so much down to his press battles but his defensive approach made him a product of his own environment. At the moment Bruce does not have to contend with the fans at St James’ Park but deep down he will not need to be told Newcastle would have been booed off against the Cottagers.
That said, Bruce could lead Newcastle to their first semi-final of a domestic cup in 15 years and going into Christmas with the Magpies well clear of the drop and still in with a shout of a trophy could put a different complexion on the season. After 2020 has seen Newcastle perform in an abject manner at times but not find themselves under the slightest threat of relegation, finishing what has been a strange old year in general by stumbling into the League Cup semi-final would be in keeping with the last few months.