If you’d have offered me the draw prior to the game, I’d have taken it and to throw in a clean sheet is an added bonus, even though it seems we’re expected to win every game we play in this league, which is totally unfair and piles pressure on everyone.
Let’s keep things in perspective and realise that Newcastle lost at home to Wolves today. Who would have put money on that after their pretty good start?
My point is that an away draw isn’t too bad a result and it’s better than we’ll get at some other places, without a doubt.
And ok, they had two efforts cleared off the line and hit the post, which makes them unlucky.
To which I’d remind us of the seven (?) times we’ve hit the woodwork this season.
As we’ve seen far too often already, if it doesn’t cross the line, it doesn’t count.
Even Mick McCarthy said he’d have been pleased with our defence today.
There’s also another plus point in that Di Matteo changed things up in going for a 3-5-2 (or 5-3-2 depending how you see things) to bolster the midfield and defence, which is interesting considering he said he was willing to listen to the fans and the idea had been promoted by some of us.
That said, it’s been a favoured tactic for the manager previously and he was probably forced to go with it because of our lack of personnel. I’m not even going to talk about Baker.
The other side of the coin is that the game was apparently dire and apart from Ayew having rounded the keeper, only to be very well tackled, we didn’t have a shot on target. That’s pathetic at any level, but not something we’re unfamiliar with over recent years.
Which all in all makes it awkward.
Which way do we want it?
Play well and get poor results? or play not so well and get a decent result?
Winning while playing well is of course the ideal, but I suggested in the previous thread that I’d take us winning dirty. It’s all about the points, after all.
Ok, we didn’t win today, but I don’t think today’s point was a bad one.
