Newcastle United lost the second derby of the season 2-1 to Sunderland on Sunday, as the wait for a home win in this fixture stretched to 16 years+.
Anthony Gordon aside, nobody comes out with any credit, but it was an all too predictable result as Newcastle have stunk up St James’ Park recently, losing four out of the last five in the league.
An all too familiar second half collapse saw United surrender the points to a Sunderland side missing four of its key players and that’s now 22 points dropped from winning positions this season which just screams that this sides mentality is in the toilet.
Here’s my four frankly terrible takeaways from the game:
**Bad: Seen it all before**
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Whilst the result hurts because it was against our nearest rivals, it became wholly predictable as we watched United wilt in the second half, something we have seen time and time again this season, as the team continued its abysmal form at home.
Four out of the last five home league games have resulted in poor defeats, so file this one alongside Everton, Brentford, and Villa, with the sole reprieve being the win over Man Utd. Quite what the manager is saying to the lads at half time is getting to the beyond parody stage as I don’t think I can quite recall a side becoming as noticeably bad after the break as this Newcastle side does.
This was a Mackem side that hadn’t won in it’s last six league games and had also been dumped out of the FA Cup by League One Port Vale in that time, was missing four key players, yet they controlled the second half, probably could’ve scored more, and made an absolute mockery of a side with the stated purpose of being “one of the best in the world” by 2030.
Try 2130 Hopkinson, that looks more attainable at this moment in time, it was garbage, amateurish, and half that side looked like they aren’t good enough or either want away this summer.
**Bad: Not sending a player out to speak to the written press**
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United couldn’t even muster one player to come and front up to the written press after such a dismal defeat in a move that stinks of cowardice. No matter what you think of the written press or journalists in general these days, for no one to have the balls to come out and explain themselves post-match is the perfect encapsulation of this team’s weak mentality.
Yes, the manager fronted up, as he is required to do, but his worthless platitudes would’ve been best muted, such was the lack of insight gleaned from them. That not one of the squad thought it appropriate to speak to the written media to get a message to the fans speaks volumes for where this squad is at, and, frankly, the disrespect shown by them to the fans shows that there is a leadership dearth in the squad without Bruno.
Talk about cowardly. The clear out we expect this summer cannot come quick enough for some of them, in my opinion.
**Bad: Ban the racist fans for life**
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After the game it was confirmed that Lutsharel Geertruida brought racist abuse to the referee’s attention that resulted in the game being stopped for five minutes. Whether it was one or many, any fan who engages in such behaviour should be banned for life. Simple as that.
It’s a stain on our game and our society that this continues to happen. Identify them, ban them, and good riddance to them.
**Bad: Weakest mentality in the league (bar Spurs)**
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Bar Spurs, this side has the worst mentality in the league, one iota of adversity and they fold like the cheapest of suit. At this point in the season, it’s not something that can be fixed and is something that will require wholesale changes/new signings in the summer to address.
We’ll just have to try and muddle through to the end of the season and hope not too many more things go against us, as this side is just so, so weak mentally. It lacks heart, it lacks fight, it lacks (most of the time) any sort of indication that it is even trying on occasions as big as this.
I appreciate that a lot of this is raw, writing it in the immediate aftermath of the match, and maybe in the coming days I will calm down, but Sunderland deserved that win, they had more shots, more touches in our area, and our lads just looked like they didn’t care.
There’s nothing redeemable about that performance and the squad, the manager, the coaches and the executive team should hang their heads in shame.