Newcastle 0-3 Leicester - The 'Index 6'

I watched the game with a friend today. We play on the same 5-a-side team – so he’s savvy enough about football. But he rarely watches on TV, save for a Champions League final here, and a World Cup there. He’s heard about the Premier League – mainly from what I have told him. He’s heard me dish out the usual tropes: best league in the world etc. He also knows I’m a fan of this team called Newcastle. He’s never heard of them, but they play in the best league in the world. How bad can they be?

Today worked out almost like a social experiment. I didn’t really watch the game. Why would I? No, instead, I watched my friend trying to reconcile all the things I’ve told him about the standard of the Premier League with the utter tripe that was on display. He couldn’t do it. If you want a sense for just how bad Newcastle are, watch a game with a friend whose only real experience of pro football is watching your Messi’s and Ronaldo’s.

Now, keep in mind, my friend wasn’t expecting Newcastle to play like Barcelona or Real Madrid. But he was expecting them to play football. He was utterly flabbergasted at Newcastle’s ineptitude. It was so bad he couldn’t quite conceptualize in his mind that this was a professional football team with players likely to represent their country next summer. “They can’t pass to each other” was a remark frequently uttered. “They just jog around” was another. My friend may have uttered these words with surprise, but they are sentiments all too familiar for Newcastle fans.

Where to start?

This may seem like a cop out, but I genuinely don’t know what individual point can be made that would rightly sum up how pathetic that performance was. I was embarrassed today. Sometimes we are our harshest critics. We think everyone else is better than us, tries harder than us. But in Newcastle’s case, that assessment is wholly correct. I guarantee that every other team in the Premier League this weekend, even Villa, will run, tackle, pass, create chances and, you know, try. It doesn’t matter how low on confidence you are, how much ability you lack, how incompetent the manager might be, there is no legitimate excuse for such a performance.

Living in North America, I brought my European sporting obsessions over but have since added to them. I watch (ice) hockey and American football mainly. In the NHL (National Hockey League), they play 82 games in a season. Usually, that means at least 3 games a week. Quite often it’s four or five, and every so often they’ll play games back-to-back (two in two days). In every game, every player on every team shows up every night and gives their everything. Because North America is so vast, teams will go on road trips, often for extended periods of time, and play a series of away games. These can be physically and mentally gruelling experiences. Yet, you never hear complaints, and the effort on the ice rarely wanes.

Newcastle play, on average, once a week, 38 times (minus a maximum of three cup games). They also have the luxury of international breaks, which further eases the required amount of playing time. This also means that, comparatively speaking, football fans have to wait an age to see their team play. And yet, Newcastle serve up that. Yesterday’s performance smacked of nothing more than a bunch of overpaid, want-a-away brats with zero concept of professional pride. You just don’t get that over here. To be fair, you don’t really get that in other sports full stop. Newcastle, at the moment, appear to be an extreme example of a systemic issue.

McClaren not the man – but who is?

I think it’s becoming clearer that McClaren doesn’t really have what it takes. Yes, the players have not helped a single jot. But nothing about his demeanour, tactics, team selection, substitutions, interviews etc says he’s the man for the job. He looks like a fidgety school boy on the touchline, anxiously prevaricating over every minute detail. If his orders need to be vocalised that frequently, it probably means the players either can’t or won’t do what is asked.

His faux claps of encouragement when a player performs the most basic of tasks also suggests that McClaren is more concerned about a player mutiny than actually sorting them out. No, McClaren doesn’t have the answers, but in all reality, who does? Who would a) want to come work here and b) have the capability of patching up a rapidly sinking ship?

Mitrovic sluggish. Gini disinterested.

OK – to what seems a rather redundant bit of player analysis given how inept everybody was. Both Mitrovic and Wijnaldum were horrendous today. But indicative of Newcastle’s general slumber, of most alarm is their dramatic drop down the effort ladder. Both players have been fairly committed so far, and common sense suggested that get a few more decent players around them and they will flourish. But neither of them looked like decent players. When your better players start to give up, that’s a really bad sign.

Fans

I mention them every time. But 50,000. 50,000 people in today. That’s almost 20% of the city. In other words, 1 in 5 Geordies were at the game today. Man they deserve better.

Where to go?

The most concerning thing about all of this would prospects for change. Namely, there aren’t any. Until January, this is what we’ve got to put our faith in. You almost feel sorry for McClaren. Tactically suspect though he may be, there isn’t a whole lot of change that can be possibly made. It could be an ugly few weeks.

Speaking of January:

If there was any team that needs a big January in the transfer market, it’s Newcastle. They need, well, everything. Centrally at the back and midfield. They need another striker. A winger wouldn’t go a miss either. Or a couple of fullbacks. And a new manager. New owner?