The Good, The Bad, and The Average #6: NUFC player ratings vs. Fulham (a) [PL5]

Something is rotten in the state of Northumbria. The cracks are no longer being papered over. Newcastle United are just not a good football team in 2024/25—so far, at least—and have finally lost. Fulham were deserved 3-1 winners at Craven Cottage this afternoon.

After a hugely unsettling summer off the pitch, performances have continued to build a negative narrative around the club, with something just feeling 'off' about our season despite the 10 points we have on the board in the league and our progression in the Carabao Cup.

Injuries can no longer be used as an excuse, as we only had Jamaal Lascelles, Sven Botman, Lewis Miley, and Callum Wilson missing again today. Instead, fingers need to be pointed at everyone from the boardroom level down, with only Harvey Barnes immune from criticism.

Pretty much everyone else who's been on the pitch or in the dugout has been disappointing since we kicked off against Southampton a little over a month ago. And, sadly, many of them plumbed new depths with their showing in West London. Here's how we rated them...

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The Good

Harvey Barnes is the only Newcastle United player with an average rating above a seven from our opening six matches and he scored again today. He wasn't brilliant otherwise, mind, with a lazy piece of 'defending' partly to blame for Fulham's opening goal. There's no doubt he should be our first choice on the left wing, though, no matter how much it causes Anthony Gordon to sulk.

The only other bright spark on a grim afternoon for Newcastle fans was Jacob Murphy, who made an instant impact from the bench when replacing Joe Willock at half-time. His involvement in our goal was tremendous and he looked our most threatening player otherwise, too, despite his influence fading as we ran out of ideas following Fabian Schär's awful miss at 2-1.

While we're never too thrilled to be giving our opponents praise, Fulham deserve credit for their approach and they ultimately deserved all three points. They played us off the park in the first half, with Raúl Jiménez leading the line superbly, Emile Smith Rowe a constant threat in behind, and the pace/power of Adama Traoré and Alex Iwobi a nightmare to deal with for our full-backs.

While we're even less thrilled to be giving referees praise, Peter Bankes had a pretty faultless game. He was sitting on an '8' until he failed to show a second yellow card to Harrison Reed, who deserved to walk for a trip on Harvey Barnes. The contest was already over at that point, which was probably in the official's mind, but we'd still like to have seen the letter of the law upheld.

Serena Taylor/Newcastle United

The Bad

Anthony Gordon reached Robert Kenedy Nunes do Nascimento levels with his showing today. He was a disgrace, to put it bluntly. Whether he's sulking because his move to Liverpool didn't come off, or because he keeps having to play on the right due to the form of Barnes, he needs to get over it. He lost possession 16 times and his passing was laughable in the first half in particular.

Our captain didn't quite stoop so low, but Bruno Guimarães' braindead 92nd-minute pass across our box straight to Reiss Nelson effectively ended any slim chance we had of stealing an unlikely point. He was largely insignificant in the match until that point, unusually, with plenty of touches of the ball but disappointingly little to speak of in terms of creativity.

Dan Burn is beginning to show his left-back form at centre-back, unfortunately, with the big man putting in his worst display of a lacklustre season to date. He lost Jiménez for a big chance in the first half, failed to make a block on Smith Rowe for Fulham's second, and was otherwise poor in one-on-one situations and sloppy when defending high balls. Will he ever be dropped, though?

We raised our first-ever concerns about Eddie Howe in last week's ratings piece and today has sadly only deepened those. The 4-3-3 has been well and truly found out. The gaps between our players are huge, Alexander Isak is constantly isolated without support, there's always a chasm between our defence and midfield, and we're conceding shots at an alarming rate. He needs to sort it, urgently.

It could have been oh so different for Fabian Schär, who almost made amends for his woeful defending in the first half when he robbed Smith Rowe from Bernd Leno's short pass out and had a simple chance to shoot or square it to Isak. He missed, though, condemning himself to his second 4/10 rating in three appearances so far this season. Mr. Dependable has lost his way.

Lloyd Kelly must have spent the build-up to this game watching highlight reels of Danny Simpson and Paul Dummett. We haven't seen as much backing off from a full-back for years. He wasn't tight enough to Traoré for their opening goal and failed to stop the cross. Indeed, in his 46 minutes of action, he didn't make a tackle, an interception, or a cross. Surely he'd be better at centre-half?

Joelinton and Joe Willock hardly covered themselves in glory, either. The Brazilian started the season like a house on fire against Southampton but has been absolutely crap since then, with ratings of 2, 5, 6, 5, and 5. He isn't breaking play up as he should, is sloppy in possession, and seems more interested in fighting than playing at times. Willock, meanwhile, took on the Sean Longstaff role of contributing nowt.

It must be frustrating to be Alexander Isak at times, but the Swede doesn't help himself in games like these. He's weak in duels, seems to always just want to run in behind rather than get involved in the play, and dwells on the ball when he does get a rare touch. Still, he played a part in Barnes' goal and was probably playing at something less than 100% given his lack of training time this week.

Lewis Hall might be a canny technician, but we worry about his 'football brain' at times. He makes some incredibly odd decisions when on the ball and he almost beat Bruno to gifting Fulham their third goal because of that here. We can't ignore the fact that it was his honking throw-in to Sandro Tonali that set the wheels in motion for Bruno's late error, either...

Sandro Tonali only makes it into this part of our write-up because of that shocking pass back to Bruno to put him in trouble in the first place. He was pretty lively aside from that and surely has to start from here on out.

Will Osula, on the other hand, got caught offside with his first action of the game and then made a bizarre choice to try a through ball to nobody when Hall was open to his left and screaming for it.

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The Average

What a weird game this was for Nick Pope. He made some genuinely world-class saves, but we haven't seen crisp packet hands like those on show for Fulham's second since Martin Dúbravka was last in goal for us. That was a low point in an otherwise decent season for the stopper to date. (His kicking wasn't too much of a problem today, thankfully.)

Kieran Trippier was restored to the lineup and wasn't to blame for any of our major failings. Now if that's not damning praise, we don't know what is. He did lose Jiménez for a big chance in the first half that could have made it 3-0 and game over, but we're struggling to recall too many other poor moments from our former on-field captain.

The man Trippier replaced from the start, Tino Livramento, can also be one of—checks notes—four of the 16 Newcastle players on show today who can be somewhat satisfied with their contributions. He only played the final 22 minutes but didn't do anything particularly poorly or brilliantly. If only a few more in hoops had played as averagely as Wor Tino, eh?

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The Breakdown

We're six games in and, while Barnes currently has an average rating of 7.0 for the season after today, Hall (4.8), Schär (5.0), Murphy (5.2), Joelinton (5.3), Gordon (5.3), Burn (5.3), and Howe (5.3) have gotten off to shocking starts in 2024/25. Gordon came incredibly close to the dreaded 1/10 today. He was rancid.

Here's our full list of scores:

The XI

Nick Pope – 6

Kieran Trippier – 6 (off 74')

Fabian Schär – 4

Dan Burn – 3

Lloyd Kelly – 4 (off 46')

Joelinton – 5 (off 74')

Bruno Guimarães (c) – 3

Joe Willock – 5 (off 46')

Anthony Gordon – 2 (off 83')

Alexander Isak – 5

Harvey Barnes – 7 ⭐️

The Subs

Jacob Murphy – 7 (on 46')

Lewis Hall – 4 (on 46')

Tino Livramento – 6 (on 74')

Sandro Tonali – 5 (on 74')

Will Osula – 5 (on 83')

The Gaffer

Eddie Howe – 3

The Opposition

Fulham – 7

The Ref

Peter Bankes – 7

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The Next

It's to Plough Lane for a date with AFC Wimbledon in the third round of the Carabao Cup on Tuesday evening. The game is a 7.45 p.m. kick-off and will be live on Sky. Let's hope for no injuries and comfortable progression, eh? Howay the lads!