Newcastle United make it three in three on their pre-season travels as they fall to a 1-0 defeat to Team K-League
Newcastle United's pre-season woes continue as the Magpies make it three games in a row without a win against a lively Team K-League side.
First of all, let's get the excuses and reality checks out of the way before I go ranting:
- Newcastle's starting XI didn't resemble anything like a first-team Newcastle United side
- The playing surface was far from what Premier League players are used to
- K-League are mid-season so all of their players are at peak fitness
- The K-League side are used to playing in those humid conditions
- It is just a friendly!
Now that's out of the way, cue the moaning.
Newcastle look like a side who have never even met each other before
One of the two sides today was a team cobbled together from several other teams and had hardly, if ever, played together before. The other just looked like that was the case.
The number of wayward passes and misunderstandings between our players was absolutely shocking. Again, it's not what anyone would call our usual XI, but they have at least trained together before, right?
Heavy touches were the order of the day, especially from Anthony Gordon, who was absolutely honking all game, as was Joe Willock, who then capped off his poor performance by picking up what looks to be a pretty serious injury. So we can add a central midfielder to our shopping list.
There were a few players who can hold their head up high after today
It wasn't all bad, though, aside from when taking corners, Anthony Elanga looked very sharp, as did Tino Livramento. Sandro Tonali and Lewis Miley were decent, too.
We were very impressed with the new signing, Park Seung-soo, who showed some fancy footwork a couple of times to turn the K-League defence inside out, but nothing came of it. He only had 9 minutes to impress, and he certainly did that.
Newcastle's desperation for a striker was wholly evident as, as much as I love Will Osula, he is not the answer, and when he came off we reverted to Anthony Gordon through the middl,e which irks me no end.
The first-half goal from Kim Jin-gyu was all that separated the sides as Newcastle never really looked like scoring.
Still, we'll always have half-time, eh, gentlemen?
