So brittle, so fragile. That is not what this club is about…

What a pile of dog. Again, Newcastle United 1-0 up and lose. Again, terrible on the transition. Again, individual mistakes punished.

We look so easy to play against. So brittle, so fragile. That is not what this club is about. We’re supposed to be tough.

As immensely grateful as I am for what he has contributed to the club, Kieran Trippier is done at this level. Jacob Murphy was thrown in the deep end – so few minutes then a start. He was shockingly bad.

Joe Willock was decent…but he is Willock. Newcastle United just don’t have the depth to compete on four fronts. There was obvious fatigue, but I’m sick of finding excuses for us just not being good enough.

After an opening which saw Brentford slightly the better team, but not obviously so, we took the lead with a simple corner routine. Sven leaping highest in a morass of bodies to flick it past Kelleher. I honestly hate scoring first this season.

I’m not going to dwell on the Trippier penalty appeal because I think it clearly wasn’t a pen. He shouldn’t have been caught on that side of Lewis-Potter though.

Cue the inevitable mess we make of these things. Murphy presses extremely high and central. Wissa is too far behind to effect the press, but still goes instead of tucking in and covering Murph. He gets played around too easily leaving Tripps one on one with Dango. Somehow Ouattara gets a good five yards of space without doing anything other than running down the line and puts in a superb cross. Botman isn’t close enough to Janelt and finds himself under and behind the ball, not even able to challenge, and Janelt buries it. So sloppy.

Then we get a stroke of bad luck with the penalty decision. It was one of those where, if the ref doesn’t give it, VAR doesn’t intervene. The VAR seems to have been told to just go with the ref’s decision on those ‘subjective’ ones, and I have to say, I think it was ridiculous. Look at where the ball actually hits Murphy’s arm – it’s just about as close to his side as it is possible to be. But again, we were absolutely terrible in the transition, and deserved to concede after being left three on three at the back again. In my opinion it was a bad decision, but a fair result.

Thank god Eddie Howe reacted by bringing on Elanga and Woltemade. I’m sure he is kicking himself for starting Murph and not Elanga, who has been one of the few bright spots in our pretty dismal recent run. Not to flog a dead horse, but I suggested this formation a couple of weeks ago (after Villa I think), and it really does work. The double pivot with Tonali and Bruno, Woltemade knitting things together in that attacking midfield role and Wissa (or someone else) up top. I reckon that’s the only way to fit Woltemade in this team. He doesn’t have a striker’s instincts. He doesn’t want to get into the box on the end of crosses. He was very effective in the spaces between attack and midfield yesterday. Let him do what he does best.

We piled on the pressure and looked good. In control, creating some reasonable openings without having that confidence in the final third to really make Brentford suffer. That will come with time but scoring two at home should be enough to get something from any game. Although we weren’t at our best up front, that wasn’t the reason we lost this game.

The penalty we got was a pen and Bruno duly dispatched it. I was fairly confident that we would get another and win the game.

Momentum was on our side. These days, that counts for little though. One issue with the formation as I described it is that both Tonali and Bruno have a propensity to push a little too far forward. If one goes, another really needs to sit in order to tidy up on those transitions.

No one was in that space for Brentford’s third, which as Eddie Howe said at the end of the game, was a horrible goal to concede. Second ball bounces to Jensen, he plays an easy ball over to Ouattara, who has peeled away from Thiaw who is seemingly completely unaware of where he is. Tripps is too high and can’t put any pressure on. Dango hits it well and it goes through Pope, who was unfortunate.

Just so typical. Too often we get caught out of position. There seems to be so little situational intelligence in this side. We are consistently vulnerable at times that we really shouldn’t be.

It’s just so frustrating to watch us these days.

Of course we are missing Joelinton, Schar, Tino, Gordon and Miley, but we still shouldn’t be losing the way we are. Those lads being out shouldn’t turn our defensive solidity into spider’s webs.