NOTE FROM IAIN: Don’t forget to enter the Predictor League for tomorrow evening’s match against Charlton HERE. I’ve extended the normal deadline until midday tomorrow. Remember, you need to have a new profile on the new sight to enter. You can sign up HERE.
I hope everyone is safe and well.
I’m missing the match days and having the opportunity to record the game and the atmosphere with my camera. We are currently in different times with the uncertainty that surrounds when fans will be allowed back into stadiums to watch live football given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
But, I would like to share some photographic highlights of previous matches as we play each team this season and hopefully you will find these posts interesting. Also I’ll be restarting the In Focus and Through the Lens series, which I hope you will all enjoy as well.
Our opening season defeat to Newcastle continues the poor form we have against the Magpies that was all too evident last season in the 2-3 defeat at London Stadium that continued a five game stretch without a Premier League win at that time.
A very poor first half handed Newcastle the game as the team went into the dressing room 2-0 down and despite a late rally in the second half with Balbuena and Snodgrass both scoring we never looked like scraping even a draw and were lucky not to have lost by a greater margin.
As is typical teams who have struggled to score seem to find the back of the net with ease when they come to London Stadium and Clark, Fernandez and Shelvey all got onto the score sheet that helped Newcastle climb away from the relegation zone to within a point of the Hammers. There were opportunities in the first half but we lacked ideas in the final third of the pitch as the Magpies dominated the first half.
Snodgrass made a rallying call in his post match interview stating it was a reality check that the players needed to end their poor form and get back to where the team had started the season. Pellegrini was perplexed by the poor performance saying we had been pressing high in previous matches.
But we were by that time without Fabianski and Jimenez’s form in goal was a growing cause for concern, especially when he should have stopped Shelvey’s free kick from creeping in the net. By then fans had been streaming out of the stadium. The poor form started away against League One side Oxford United and we now play Charlton Athletic in the second round of the Carabao Cup. Lets hope we are not going to repeat a similar run of form this season.
