This defeat was all down to the Manager. Wrong team selection. I understand the wish to beat Spammers Sunday but whilst I do not know Spammers first 11 many first teamers played yesterday. We will look stupid if we do not win Sunday and should not have put that pressure on the first 11.
The team that played Rennes and got a draw was
- 22Gollini
- 2Doherty
- 25Tanganga
- 14Rodon
- 33Davies
- 28NdombeleSubstituted forAlliat 79'minutes
- 29Skipp
- 27Lucas MouraSubstituted forScarlettat 54'minutes
- 11GilBooked at 82mins
- 23BergwijnSubstituted forHøjbjerg at 30'minutes
- 10KaneSubstituted forLeite de Souza Juniorat 54'minutes
4 of the first teamers from Newcastle started and 2 more came on as sub but only Skipp played 90 mins.
Even though we got thrashed the following Sunday by Chelsea I cannot see the efforts against Rennes was the problem.
Collectively the 11 that started are not good enough. Some have played in the first 11 and with support of better colleagues play better including Lo Celso. Changing 11 players does not work and never has and there have been numerous times in the past even at our peak a few years ago with similar toothless performances in cup matches. The difference then was we had subs that came on to rectify it but yesterday we did not.
I said at half time that we could have played all night and not score and apart from 2 mins at the start of the 2nd half nothing changed. Having a striker with even Vinny's skills would have made all the difference.
Now to qualify we will need to put out stronger sides in the remaining matches. We must qualify as we need the Co efficient scores and with our trophy record cannot afford to snub a genuine opportunity to win something and if not as top of the group have to play more matches which is worse.
Nuno hopefully has learned that he has to mix some first teamers into the starting 11 and others on the bench. If the Spammers can afford to play first teamers in Europe so can we.