Replacing Mitrovic with Jimenez…was never a good fit
OP, I know youre deadset on stopping anyone pushing the “Mitrovic Left” narrative, but its spot on. We have major other problems, that Mitrovic leaving has exposed.
We offer nothing going forward, and no creativity in the attacking midfield. Pereira has fallen off, Willian got his contract so hes fallen off (exactly what an mate of mine whos an Arsenal fan said would happen), and Bobby Reid is being his same consistent self (not crap, not amazing). Then our full backs, Castagne is great, but Robinson cant cross. What are we supposed to do.
We also have defensive errors to the nine. Weve ALWAYS had defensive errors, even in the Champ, but having a striker that scores for fun just deletes them. Our shit defence never mattered in the Champ, because we’d just score more and be done. In the Prem it did matter, and last season we’d still just score more. (Sidenote the only season we did have a good defence was the season where the “next england manager” refused to play Mitro, and we went down cause of it).
Were having the same problem Man United had with Fergie, he was so dominant for the club that him leaving has shined a light on every issue we had. People were talking about our “underlying numbers” last year as well, this year its all caught up to us…
Don’t think Marco Silva is what he’s cracked up to be to he honest. He made an initial difference positively at Hull (who i support) where he initially made his name, but lost final games as follows: Hull 0-2 Sunderland, Palace 4-0 Hull, and Hull 1-7 Spurs. He has a pattern of making a positive initial impact and then it all starts to go wrong.
Mitrovic left, and his replacement wasn’t the right one.
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The team overperformed last season, they were never that good
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They’re shit
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No Mitro
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🙏Please don’t let us gift them a W on Monday 🙏
They lost their best striker and didn’t replace him. End of topic.
Offensively speaking you’re right but not defensively. They’ve leaked goals quite badly and when I’ve watched a few Fulham matches, I’ve felt like their midfield becomes too open at times. Like the article rightly points out more specifically - opponents find space between the midfield and defensive lines.
Every team hangs together as a whole. Having a worse or better striker does not only impact your attack. That’s three-year-old analysis. If you striker is shit your midfield might not have anyone to play the ball too, making them lose the ball often and in dangerous zones. This is just one way having a bad striker makes your forwards, midfield, and defense look shit.
Think about the recent Liverpool seasons without decent CBs and without good midfielders. Everything looked worse. (Except Alisson cause he is the goat)
Also the midfield may be over exposing them trying to compensate by attacking more for the lack of ruthless striker.
That and it has an impact on how teams play against you. If they don’t fear your attack they’re less likely to sit off and give extra space in midfield.
They based their team around mitrovic and he left
He didn’t just leave, he was poached by Saudi Arabia after Fulham’s owner spoke out against Saudi Arabia and Saudi ownership. Not that Newcastle are direct rivals to Fulham, but the Saudis very specifically had an axe to grind with Fulham and that has indirectly helped Newcastle. It’s all bullshit.
Last season wasn’t as good for them as their position suggested.
They were 16th on XP, scored 7 more than their XG and conceded a whopping 18 less then XGA which was the worst in the league.
Agreed. They severely overperformed. I was actually quite surprised by looking at the xg vs xga graph in the article. I didn’t think it was that bad.