From High Noon To Low Doom

The unthinkable turned into the reality as Sunderland completed the double and created history at SJP with the longest unbeaten run since the derby's began.

A season crushed in 5 days

Before the away tie to Barcelona there was hope that an inconsistent season could be inspired with a win in the Nou Camp followed by beating the owld enemy Sunderland.

The first installment of that hope was shattered by a 7-2 defeat and the second by a Sunderland side that - this is hard to write - showed superior technical ability and fight and deservedly won the game.

It has left the Geordie nation in a whirlwind of emotions; from anger and fury to doom and despair. Even Eddie Howe seemed on the verge of tears in his post match presser.

Eddie looked shellshocked, as did the Newcastle players and fans at the final whistle.

Losing to Sunderland is bad enough, but this was no fortunate win from an own goal.

After a nervous start during which Anthony Gordon opened the scoring, Sunderland settled down and always looked the team more likely to score.

In Brobbbey they had a CF who epitomised all of the qualities that our ST's lack.

Physical strength, aggression, superb hold up play and a goal threat.

Sunderland were able to constantly play passes through our lines to Brobbey, even when he had he had Burn or Botman on his back, knowing that they could rely on him to keep possession and get his team mates up the pitch.

In comparison Newcastle repetitively played the ball out wide, back, wide again, and rarely played the threatening through balls that were a feature of Sunderland's game.

To say it wasn't a good watch is a massive understatement.

Defensive errors continue to pile up

Both goals were yet again avoidable and down to slap dash defending.

The second, and killer goal, started when an awful pass went straight to Sunderland who quickly worked the ball out wide.

As Rigg worked his way into the box to the goal line a gap as wide as the Tyne was left for him to slot the ball through to Brobbey who scored at the second attempt.

All three goals Sunderland have scored in the two wins have been gifted wrapped in black and white.

Boo's ring out at SJP

As I suspected in one of my pre-match posts, a defeat unleashed some of the ire and frustration that has been building up due to a season where high expectations have been repeatedly crushed.

I don't go on social media but I suspect that it is overflowing with vociferous criticism of the team and Eddie Howe. Even Eddie acknowledged that it would be understandable.

To think that just a year ago we were parading the Carabou Cup around Wembley and then Newcastle with 10's of 1000's of fans cheering the team to the rafters.

12 months later we suffer a double defeat from Sunderland. Unthinkable.

We have regressed, simple as

Our good runs in the the Carabou Cup and CL have thrown a blanket over what many fans know; our summer transfer window that promised so much has not delivered.

Consider this; Brian Brobbey cost Sunderland £18M, Woltemade cost £69M and Wissa £55M. Brobbey may not be a world beater, but he didn't cost world beating money.

Losing Isak and our failure to sign our top ST targets - and Woltemade and Wissa being used to warm the bench - is not the only reason for our demise, but it is a big one.

Anthony Gordon for all his efforts is no CF, and the simple fact is Eddie Howe is playing him there because he has no confidence in his new strikers.

I sound like parrot for repeating this again; this summer's window is massive.

And decisions have to start with the two W's.

Keeping them just to avoid making a loss is absolutely the wrong decision if Eddie has decided they aren't the players to take us forward.

All that will do is consign us to another season of Gordon at CF.

If we have to sell some of our top players to give us the spending power take transfer losses and reshape the squad then so be it.

I'd rather take a step back to go two forward than stagnate and regress further.

You can bet there are some big, and possibly heated, discussions taking place right now in all corners of SJP. The project is not on track and is in danger of coming off.

I'll say it yet again... BIG decisions need to be made.

Get it wrong again this summer and next season could be worse.

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