West Brom caretaker manager Gary Megson gave an interview after the game last night, and he seemed annoyed.
Annoyed that his team couldn’t hold on to a two goal lead and probably annoyed as he realized Alan Pardew will be announced as the new manager today.
Gary says he has a 10:00am meeting this morning with the West Brom Chairman, so we are expecting the Alan Pardew announcement soon.
Gary didn’t want to give Newcastle any credit last night and thought the two goals were simply mistakes by his defense.
Gary Megson – on the touchline last night
This is what Megson said after the game as reported in the Shields Gazette:
“In terms of the points we’ve lost, not what the opposition have won, they’ve come from deal-able problems,”
“It’s a right kick in the whatsits. It was our own fault, we’ve scored two really good goals, passed the ball about fine.”
“They’ve swung a corner in and scored from six yards and spanked a free-kick in which is an own goal.” P
“The players are off tomorrow, they’ve not been off for eight days. I’m in at 10:00am to see the Chairman. I’m not aware of what it’s about.”
Not sure if Gary will keep his job at West Brom with Alan Pardew coming in – so maybe that’s what’s also upset him – as well as giving away a two goal lead.
Maybe we are too hard on Megson – we all have our own problems to solve we suppose.
It was a valuable point for Newcastle last night, and a defeat would have seen West Brom level with Newcastle on 15 points.
We are currently in 12th place but could drop after today’s games.
Huddersfield, Bournemouth, and Stock could also be above us tonight, but they also have some tough games today.
Comments welcome.
20 comments so far
Tsunki
Nov 29, 2017 at 10:11 AM
Comment #1The FACT! is that we started the season with a tiny transfer budget imposed by Ashley, Rafa took a shot at filling the problem areas as he saw it and now he’s getting stitched up because he’s not rotating and selecting a bunch of championship players the right way for the social media intelligentsia – possessing the impeccable accreditation of Championship Manager – to win games against all but the top six clubs.
It was always going to be a long season.
bettyswallocks
Nov 29, 2017 at 10:11 AM
Comment #2Tsunki from previous………. That’s fair enough but the point I was making that when signing players if he had have taken time to study the stats in more detail, instead of just assuming he can see talent with his naked eye then we wouldn’t keep signing duds. Joselu being a good example.
Tsunki
Nov 29, 2017 at 10:13 AM
Comment #3Didn’t we sign cabella and Thauvin on stats?
Tsunki
Nov 29, 2017 at 10:14 AM
Comment #4He probably signed Sels on stats. I guess it’s more an art than a s irnce then 😉
Tsunki
Nov 29, 2017 at 10:14 AM
Comment #5Science
hibbit
Nov 29, 2017 at 10:17 AM
Comment #6was it not a case of that’s what was available within the budget he had ???
clinath@ed
Nov 29, 2017 at 10:17 AM
Comment #7Had us down for 26 points at this stage, suppose I come under the disillusioned tag..?
Tsunki
Nov 29, 2017 at 10:17 AM
Comment #8Top and bottom it’s a pretty rubbish PL this year with a high percentage of rubbish teams.we are one of them. But we do have Benitez. So when the season draws to a close, we will see which managers squeezed the most juice out of their lacklustre squads, won’t we?
Little h
Nov 29, 2017 at 10:21 AM
Comment #9Any body else think megson and brolly wally had the same milk man?
hibbit
Nov 29, 2017 at 10:22 AM
Comment #10clinath@ed
i had us down for 20 points does that make me semi delusional LOL
Tsunki
Nov 29, 2017 at 10:23 AM
Comment #11When you look at the table we are about as high as you can expect to be, roughly on a par with our promoted neighbours. Have we got a better squad than Everton? Crystal Palace? West Ham? Are we as good as Leicester who we are a win away from leapfrogging?
Jail for Ashley
Nov 29, 2017 at 10:24 AM
Comment #12If he’d gone out and spent a fortune on the players he wanted and Ashley had gone out of his way to provide him with a team ready to compete at the top of the PL then I’m sure Rafa would see any criticism as justified. As it happens he left him self at the mercy of possible four game losing streaks and negative GD’s out of a loyalty to the fans and players he signed. He was punching above his weight a few weeks ago and now his not picking Mitrovich has completely overshadowed the deliberate mess Ashley has left him in. Look at the losing streaks, Pardew, Carver and McLaren had after trying to manage Ashleys transfer policy.
toonrobbybobson
Nov 29, 2017 at 10:27 AM
Comment #13Rafa was stitched up rotten in summer.
Before it he will have been told a story full of lies from Ashley to keep him happy. On that story he made really early plans putting in plenty graft and foundations to hit ground running in window.
A big key piece was Abrahams on loan. The loan fee seemed alot at £5m but he had potential to score goals at a bargain price for one season. He wanted to come. But Ashley and Charnley delayed on purpose stating it was too expensive.
Like usual they didnt know what they were talking about because the market had long moved on the hard to find strikers and easily £40m+ for this level. We were never signing one under Ashley.
Well they eventually realised their mistake too late as usual to see us scraping the bottom of the barrel with the Abrahams loan fee to get Joselu.
But it wasnt just that. The plans for the window were based on the false story from ashley undermining the work put in by the team to see us have a good window.
IF Ashley had been honest he might have lost Rafa BUT if he didnt he could have planned the window realistically (it was pretty realistic to begin with) and spread his money better.
Rafa was never going to be able to build properly for prem on the wobbly foundations Ashley provides. Its like quicksand.
I do agree with Rafa though that it we stick by the lads they’ll get us over the line. This is a young squad and it will inprove under Rafa second half. When they have belief they look OK but it took a knock recently.
There have been games where they were close we lost we could have won easily and they were away. It should have been 3 points against Bournemouth which would have a completely different bearing on where we are but for a wrongly ruled offside goal.
We need to be calm and not stick knife into Rafa or the players. Imploding the media and many others would eat with a spoon. This team CAN stay up albeit should have been supported more from Jabba.
There are going to be some soul searching days in what is a tough season. But lets remember the awful mob we had when we went down to where we are today. If someone had told us we’d have taken their hand off then. This is a build project under this owner or other owners. Rafa can do it. End of season we can see where we are with everything else which is actually becoming a distraction.
manxpie
Nov 29, 2017 at 10:27 AM
Comment #14Tsunki with joselu on the ball didnt stay in their final third it was constantly coming straight back at us when mitro came on he held it up and we moved up the pitch far more in short we were far more effective with mitro on
Tsunki
Nov 29, 2017 at 10:28 AM
Comment #15I still think there’s a tussle between Ashley not wanting mitrovic injured before he can sell him and Rafa saying he’s going to stick him on if he really has to.
Tsunki
Nov 29, 2017 at 10:29 AM
Comment #16That’s right manxpie stick to that mantra, Mitro solved our defensive woes all by himself even though we’d stopped conceding and pulled one back before he’d even dragged his tracky bottoms off 🙂
Tsunki
Nov 29, 2017 at 10:32 AM
Comment #17@13 well said. Better than me for sure 🙂
Tsunki
Nov 29, 2017 at 10:34 AM
Comment #18Joselu is not great, we get it already! But if he’d been sidelined after two games and we had been losing with the Mad Serb leading the line, the booboos would be baying for rafas blood for not giving Joselu a chance. Guaranteed.
Jail for Ashley
Nov 29, 2017 at 10:36 AM
Comment #19I’m not about to start defending Joselu as I don’t like him and would rather see Mitro start. However the two pundits on BBC Newcastle said he played well. Because they said that, they don’t know what they’re talking about. Ando watches us home and away and has criticised Joselu in the past. I hope we don’t see him start again but we no doubt will, hopefully January will see him consigned to the bench for good.
bettyswallocks
Nov 29, 2017 at 10:37 AM
Comment #20Tsunki…….. Obviously managers have to like the look of a player and believe they can work with and improve said player , but to disregard the stats can be a costly and irresponsible policy. Surely there must be statisticians within the club that compile lists of stats for Rafa to analyse before he makes a decision which would then be based on his own personal judgement in conjunction with the stats.