Host of the Pod On The Tyne, Taylor Payne has been critical of Newcastle United’s performance during their recent defeat at the hands of Chelsea in the Premier League.
An own goal from Federico Fernandez and Tammy Abraham’s strike condemned the Magpies to their fourth league defeat of the season (as per BBC Sport). During the game, despite being at home, Steve Bruce’s side were limited to just 29% of the possession and managed just a single shot on target.
In their previous fixture, the Toon suffered a defeat at Southampton and it’s clear from what Payne had to say, he hoped to see a better display against the Blues. Here is what he had to say in full:
“I’m sick of hearing ‘work in progress’, I’m absolutely sick of hearing it. How long does that take? It’s 18 months now that we’ve had – how long can you be a work in progress for before you need to start asking some serious questions?
“That performance was more passive than the Southampton game, I thought. I was watching the Southampton game thinking, ‘we can’t get any worse than this’ and then the Chelsea game kicked off and I thought ‘we’re actually worse’.
“At Southampton at least, there were some redeeming features, there was occasions where they tried things out. But that Chelsea game was awful, it was just shocking, I didn’t think we could get any more passive.”
Is Steve Bruce to blame for the team's poor form?
Yes
No
TIF Thoughts on Taylor Payne’s comments regarding the team’s progress under Steve Bruce…
The 59-year-old took charge of the club back in July 2019 and since his arrival at St. James’ Park, he has taken charge of 57 matches. During that time, he has won 20, drawn 15 and lost 22 (as per Transfermarkt). The club have won just one of their last five Premier League fixtures and subsequently sit in 15th position currently, therefore you can understand why Payne has been left frustrated by what he has seen of late.
During the podcast, Payne described the team as ‘passive’ and given so far this season, they have averaged just 38.7% of possession (as per Transfermarkt), you could argue the comment is a fair one. In our view, the fans may be more tolerant of the ‘passive’ playing style if it meant, as a result, the team were more defensively sound, however, currently, only five teams in the division have conceded more goals.