Minute-by-minute updates from the 2pm GMT kick-offLive scores: all the goals as they go in around EuropeBruce reveals he twice came close to taking charge at WolvesEmail Daniel here. Tweet @DanielHarris 1.53pm GMT Steve Bruce reckons good results are helpful and that Wolves are good. He says his team have had a difficult start, but it’s games like today’s that can define the season. Nuno, meanwhile, says being without Boly is a “big blow” and he’s waiting for the assessment and hoping for the best. He thinks Newcastle are a good team, and his players need to be focused and stick with their plans. I feel extremely revelated. 1.49pm GMT “In addition to listing the head referee these days,” emails JR in Illinois, “you should probably also list the VAR referee. As we’ve seen already this weekend the use of VAR is still extremely VARiable. The VAR ref is capable of all sorts and could eff up a game as easily as not. Anyway, today’s man behind the screen is Graham Scott.On a separate note, do you ever worry about Jimenez? I do. I think he’s a great player but I’m worried Nuno is going to break him. It seems like Jimenez plays every single game, and with Europa League participation that seems pretty brutal. Has he even had any rest this season?” 1.44pm GMT In other black and white news, I enjoyed this.Amazing choreos are practically the norm at Eintracht Frnakfurt’s European home games, and the game vs. Liege was no different.This choreo, though, deserves some proper explaining.On ultras, pop culture, the city of Frankfurt and anti racism.Buckle up. #SGE (Thread, 1/15) pic.twitter.com/7IEfCy7bGn 1.39pm GMT Question: is there a difference in pronunciation between “howay” and “haway”, or just in stripe-colour? 1.36pm GMT I cannot enjoy enough of these. 1.32pm GMT Things to which I’m looking forward (2): Adama Traore. We can’t know quite how Nuno has transformed him. It might be lots of detailed direction, with charts, diagrams, videos and such; it might be a pointed comment here and a kind word there; it might be the player reaching maturity; or it might be a combination of all three. Whatever the answer, he is now a serious threat in every game, and is only going to get better. Well done him. 1.29pm GMT Things to which I’m looking forward (1): the brothers Longstaff. Neves and Moutinho are as clever a pair as any, and playing them must be extremely frustrating. Running power is definitely an advantage when it comes to negating them, but nous and chill are necessary too. I wonder if we’ll see Sean try and take them out of the game by hitting long passes into the channels for Joelinton, Almiron and Saint-Maximin. 1.24pm GMT Newcastle make one change from their last game – and the one before that: Fabian Schar is injured, so Federioc Fernandez comes in. Andy Carroll is also injured, ctrl C, ctrl V.As for Wolves, Willy Boly hurt himself in training – badly, say the rumours – so his place in that famous back three goes to Matt Doherty. As such, Leander Dendoncker comes into midfield, with Jota for Cutrone the other change from their last league game. 1.15pm GMT Newcastle United (a deliberately stodgy, affirmingly Spangeordie 3-4-3): Dubravka; Fernandez, Lascelles, Clark; Yedlin, Longstaff M, Longstaff S, Willems; Almiron, Joelinton, Saint-Maximin. Subs: Darlow, Krafth, Dummett, Shelvey, Atsu, Gayle, Muto. Wolverhampton Wanderers (an ideologue’s 3-4-3): Rui Patricio; Doherty, Coady, Saiss; Dendoncker, Moutinho, Neves, Jonny; Traore, Jimenez, Jota. Subs: Vallejo, Pedro Neto, Cutrone, Ruddy, Ruben Vinagre, Kilman, Ashley-Seal. 12.58pm GMT In his epochal treatise on modern football, On Liberty, John Stuart Mill popularised the phrase “tyranny of the majority”. Roughly, his point was that most people are wrong about most things most of the time – though of course he made an exception for Mike Ashely – before going on to predict that Steve Bruce would do some decent work in his management career and that a few bad results at the start of a season would not mean that Wolves had “been found out”. Of course, at Newcastle, all Bruce had to do was copy Rafael Benitez – it just took him a while to put his ego away, as it would as us all, and now he has things have improved. Wolves meanwhile, have not “been found out” because there is no “finding out” to be done. How they play should be obvious and why it works should be obvious; they were good last season because, as even Mill knew in 1859, football doesn’t change: decent players, well managed, will make for a decent team. Continue readingreadfullarticle
