The latest gem, sees John Carver coming out with the revelation that Fabricio Coloccini isn’t a very good captain. Well I never, the Newcastle fans have only been saying this ever since he was handed the job almost six years ago.
On Saturday, despite the Chelsea 5 Newcastle 1 scoreline, Shelvey impressed me. He was always wanting the ball, even under pressure, and still trying to produce positive play despite the increasingly disastrous nature of the scoreline.
Rating the players after Chelsea 5 Newcastle 1: Gini Wijnaldum – 2…..When he plays you are either playing with 10 or 12 men, he is that bad and that good.
He needed to decide on whether to make a change on Wijnaldum and away match tactics before he named his starting eleven, not after the horse had bolted (or before he had the chance to attach a cart or something, according to Mike Ashley…).
Talking to one of their fans after Chelsea 5 Newcastle 1: “You are probably the worst team we have seen at Stamford Bridge this season… but the best fans by a mile.”
Aleksandar Mitrovic: “This is the most special place for strikers to play. All strikers who score here are big players and they come after legends. It is an honour to be a striker here. I hope I have a lot of goals here to celebrate.”
Both centre-backs were shocking against Chelsea and amongst other things, the lack of pace of the pair of them was frightening, with even Diego Costa giving Coloccini five yards head start and beating him to the ball in the lead up to Willian’s goal (Chelsea’s third).
For sure I took some stick, some justified some not, but I am big enough to come back and admit I may have jumped the gun with some of the content of the article about Sunderland’s then lack of action on Adam Johnson.