Shoot. Shoot. Shoot! | OneFootball

The Newcastle v Barcelona game started while I was still at work and so, per usual, I turned the replay on after getting the kids to bed.

Now, you should know, I’m the kind of fan who, in the heat of the game, is convinced yelling “shoot” across space and time will impact the result. Sitting passively by, in the comfort of my couch, is just boring. I don’t want that.

That isn’t supporting NUFC. I want to scream and yell at the laptop. I also don’t want to pause the game to calm a kid I’ve awakened with my enthusiasm. It’s a dilemma. And, sure enough, a few minutes into the game I feel the excitement of our press and have to do everything I can to yell “shoot” quietly, as I hear a kid toss and turn a room away.

Clearly, I over-prioritised my sleeping children, as my instructions once again failed to travel back in time and across the Atlantic.

Jokes aside, I watched the first half excited about Elanga’s ability to win on the counter and disappointed with Gordon’s inability to be a centre forward. The perfectly slotted pass that Gordon whiffed was the perfect example of this.

The fact is, Gordon just isn’t going to be a good centre forward. Eddie Howe knows this. That’s why he moved Gordon to the left. Clearly the formation we’re seeing is Howe picking what he has to pick, not what he wants to pick.

But there are teams who don’t overly depend on their centre forward for goals. Teams where the midfield makes the magic and it was Tonali and Guimaraes in the second half who frustrated me.

Now, hear me out. They did a great job. The number of steals in midfield, especially in the first half, was great. But multiple times they were in the box with the ball and a bit of space and, rather than heeding my words to shoot, they passed. The only time Tonali did heed my words was in the fleeting seconds of the game, and while the save was simple, a deflection could have changed everything. Everything!

In a world where Isak is up front (or maybe Woltemade), our midfielders looking for a better finisher than themselves might make sense. But when there isn’t a better finisher, we need to shoot so much more. Deflections score goals.

This morning, after getting the kids off to school, I decided to look at our shot rates this season to see if there was something to my theory, or if these ramblings are just the standard barkings of a foolish fan.

Against Wolves and Villa we shot 16 times in each, giving us a draw and a win. Both felt like games we should have won. Sixteen shots seems like a good target. Against Liverpool and Barca we shot 10. Both losses, though the results felt very different. Liverpool: a crazy game that broke my heart as we came back, a man down, only to lose. The big thing here is that the first NUFC goal vs Liverpool came from Guimaraes. Maybe proving my point? Either way, 10 seems OK, but also not enough.

Then, there’s Leeds. Eight shots. I think we can all agree that it could have been better, and that eight shots just isn’t enough.

So, with data in hand, this weekend I plan to resume my role as Newcastle’s “coach during the replay” and yell “shoot, shoot, shoot!” loudly enough for it to cross space and time (and the Atlantic) and, fingers crossed, the lads will listen and the goals will follow!