It’s Crystal clear tepid Toon must target victories
IT’S long been a bone of contention with disgruntled Toon fans that Steve Bruce receives loud and long vocal backing from many pals within the game.
The belief is they rush to his support in numbers without witnessing what Geordies see game after game and, to heighten frustration, have a right pop at punters for being too critical in their demands.
However, that defence of Bruce appears to have significantly weakened of late with United timidly tip-toeing through games almost apologising for being alive.
Ant and Dec, those Geordie knights and fanatical United backers, highlighted what the watching world is thinking on I’m A Celebrity – “there is no Plan B” – while the more serious pundits weighed in with heavier artillery.
Stan Collymore of Liverpool fame hammered Bruce after a weak performance against Chelsea for being “a defence-minded coach” but much more significantly for Toon followers Alan Shearer, United’s great captain and greatest ever goalscorer, also took up the cudgel.
He even departed from his usual party line of excusing Bruce himself by saying that the manager must share blame because he sends out the team adding: “Lascelles as a captain and a leader has to stop demanding protection from midfielders in front of him and Allan Saint-Maximin hasn’t broken sweat since signing his new six-year contract.”
Significantly, another former United star from a different era had, before Shearer’s attack and the Chelsea lie-down, expressed his fears to me in a long private outpouring.
Still a fan, he fingered United’s chief coach and like Big Al took a long, critical look at their current captain.
He told me: “Bruce isn’t putting out a team to win but not to get beaten. We are boring.
“The captain is quickly becoming a liability because he is scared to push up, frightened that players will get in behind him and expose his lack of pace. Playing three central defenders shows we are terrified of teams with pace.”
Talk about belt and braces. Lascelles certainly likes to be surrounded by bodies... three centrehalves plus two sitting midfielders are needed to make him feel comfortable. Talk of him as a potential England international is long gone.
Saint-Maximin is also a growing problem. His temperament when things are not to his liking has always been a concern despite being a hugely gifted player dating way back in his days under Patrick Vieira.
Get his head right and he is the one piece of real quality United possess. Our answer to Wilfried Zaha. On their day, wow, but on another day...
A visit to the Palace is often to receive a tap on the shoulder with a sword. Arise, sir. However, on this occasion it’s not a knighthood in the offing but the constant worry of a right royal duffing.
Because it’s crystal clear that right now United’s tepid approach to any game of football is inviting defeat.
Maybe Crystal Palace are not football royalty but they will provide a challenge if given the ball for long periods.
At times the rising tide of criticism seems so all-consuming that it feels uncomfortable to be part of a collective dissenting voice, but facts support genuine mass concern.
United are bottom for total shots, touches in the opposition box, and passes in the final third. Their possession stats are shocking, always way below 50%, and Bruce has mustered only six wins in 27 games with two of those victories against sides down to 10 men.
Those damning figures are indisputable not a matter of opinion.
It’s reduced folk to the farcical situation whereby all week they have been speculating that United’s best chance of coming away with something from Palace is if Zaha doesn’t play. Not because of his undoubted quality but because he’s a lucky omen!
The Eagles have lost 14 of their last 16 games they have played without Zaha, the last being 1-0 at Burnley earlier in the week when he was selfisolating after testing positive for coronavirus.
Of course the same argument of being effectively a one-man team can be applied to Newcastle. In the 47 PL games Bruce has bossed since his arrival he has won only once when Saint-Maximin has not started.
However, Zaha or not, this is the sort of match United ought to target for three points if they are to be survivors. No question about that.
The Palace trip is key, coming as it does at the start of a run of PL games (and a League Cup quarter-final) in December that are winnable, including home fixtures against down-and-outs West Bromwich Albion and Fulham.
Thank God for them and last season’s over-achievers, Burnley and Sheffield United. They are our cushion. Jamal Lewis has told us that United can “definitely” finish in the top 10. Right now that seems like the exuberance of youth.
I still think that despite all Newcastle will survive but, my, they are dreadful to watch.
Is it now or never for NUFC? Probably.