Flirting with Jaissle (ball): Vertical Newcastle, expectation and reality

Premier League Phase 1.

An early 2-0 lead was just enough to give Newcastle a win against Hull at St James' Park.

We head into that first international break of the season in the top half of the table and feeling mostly, mostly quite good about things, Chris.

Would you agree?

I think you have to, given that if you'd said on the eve of the season, particularly after the performance up at Murrayfield against Everton at a pre-season friendly, where at that stage Newcastle hadn't really signed the players that they needed to sign, Yeister was saying publicly that he needed a midfielder, he wanted experience, and Newcastle were really outperformed in every capacity there.

And then even bringing in the couple of signs they did late on, the early fixtures Newcastle had, all the upheaval over the summer, I'll be honest, I would have said somewhere between five and six points up to this international break would have been out of guest where Newcastle would have got to, and I'd have said that would have been an okay return.

So for them to be on eight points, and we're going to come on to, we can debate the whys and wherefores of how they've actually got to that stage and on the field, do they deserve that many points? But they have that on the board, and to be able to build from a position of strength, I think is huge.

And for this three-week break, it just gives everyone that little chance at reset, and there isn't the pressure on that there would have been if Newcastle only had like three or four points at this stage.

So yes, I think we have to be relatively upbeat generally about where Newcastle are right now.

And they're sitting above Chelsea, above Man U, Sunderland, Villain, obviously Tottenham Hotspur.

You'd have taken that, wouldn't you, Luke, at the start of the year? Yet there are still some big questions that need to be asked.

There are some big questions.

I think I would echo what Chris has said, really.

I was worried about the start of the season.

I don't think I've made any secret of the fact that I've predicted this will be a tough year.

That fixture list was pretty unkind as well.

You know, home to Liverpool... first up second away game rebuilt rejuvenated turns out they're still crap Tottenham but and then you got Bournemouth who they never beat and then you got those tricky that tricky away game at Hull at Leeds sorry and then Hull so I wouldn't have I wasn't expecting them to have this many points and I think that makes me feel a little bit calmer I think what I will say is I have no idea how good Newcastle are yet I just I don't know I don't know whether they're going to finish bottom seven or top eight I've got I just don't know I mean we're going to talk a lot about the underlying statistics today which I think are concerning but they're getting the job done there's obviously Geisel has come in and I think he's made he's obviously made a very positive impact on the dressing room And I think there's no question that the players have bought into what he's trying to achieve.

That is vertical football.

I have my doubts about vertical football, which just seems like another fancy name for direct football.

But they are trying to implement it.

And we saw in flashes, we have seen what that looks like when it's played well.

The Liverpool game, it was played well.

Second half against Tottenham, it was played well.

First half against Hull, it was played well.

So...