Watching the match yesterday, I believe Hall is clearly the better LB, despite being 1 year younger.
Recall that Newcastle successfully pulled off several long passes to bypass our midfield and put our defense into immense pressure several times.
It was once our trademark move, but it ceased to be so after Slot’s first season.
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Are the good old lets forget about the blatant untruth about him running 30 yards and deflect to something else.
https://x.com/Watch_LFC/status/2091886314454929800
This is just damning of Szobo playing as part of a midfield pivot…
This particular fan was furious at Szobo not taking direct vertical pass forward…
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This is the equivalent of that shouty bloke who sat next to you at the match coming round the next day and continuing his rant in your kitchen.
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That should go in the post of shame category, I could show you clips of players like De Bruyne doing the same.
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I think you and I were within our rights to berate him. I have always tried to be balanced and I think that has been reflected across the Fan base in general.
In the end we were all frustrated last season and having two wide players, which included one of the best players in our Clubs history, doing the same thing game in game out was rightly (maybe at times unfairly) highlighted.
Don’t get me wrong, if you offered my Diaz I would trade straight away. However, the suggested replacement is Barcola for a stupidly high fee. I don’t see the value in this, if we were to sell Gapko then I would want a RW allowing Rio to play off the left and also accommodating Wirtz in games where we need more bodies in CM.
Who knows, I have already accepted that we are in for a frustrating Season. Infact, I have purchased a screen protector for my TV to preempt any potential damage from flying objects 
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To note, I haven’t read through all the responses and my post is definitely not aimed at anyone in general.
It was definitely one of his least effective games and maybe we, myself included are already expecting too much from him. Hall is a very good LB and was supported well by Barnes/left sided CM. Even at his young age people are aware of the danger he possesses.
I felt our Right Side was a bit weak. Two fast, short in stature players, both lacking in physicality and short of understanding was in hindsight maybe a bad decision from the Management team.
I was from an early stage of the game calling for a back 3. With Araujo playing RCB, I think this is something we should look at considering we really don’t have a decent RB.
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Your joking, right?
If Dom holds up the magpies player there I’d be better off with a length of string rather than a walking stick. 
Frimpong tucking in doesn’t inspire confidence, does it? 
On the Magpies first goal VVD was a mess. You could see Jaquet didn’t know what to do as Virg didn’t make a play to force an issue. It was awful defending.
I know the major error came from Szoboszlai but that’s going to happen all season an Virg needs to help his partner out when it comes to decision making.
It is just one clip but I think what he does with the ball at his feet (or doesnt do) is a fairly common problem.
From this Leeds game, a moment stood out at the time to me which highlighted his limitations.
At 1:08 Nyoni pivots (exactly what midfielders should do) and passes to him.
For me, a good passing player hits that first time into Wirtz or opens his body even and knocks it into Isak. He does neither and we end up going wide to Frimpong and the move kinda dies.
Again, just one example but I think he does it a lot. His passing game isn´t very good.
I don’t think I have ever seen Szobo pulled a pass like Nyoni did at 3:46.
Maybe one or two but I think the big difference was in the way Nyoni always wanted to go forward and pass through Leeds.
He made the odd mistake but he constantly pivoted and took the responsibility to try work it forward instead of just passing the buck to the CBS. A few times you see him zip it into Wirtz or isak where they wouldn’t normally get a pass
Honestly think he deserves a chance in one of our first games and could be really useful for us.
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His starting position wasctoo deep, I feel he should have followed Osula, I think that is what Iraola wants?
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Only decent midfield passer we have among the seniors of the squad is Macca. Grav and Szobo are runners with the ball. Passing isn’t in their locker.
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That’s what I think as well. The tactical breakdowns I’ve seen after he got hired, and what we’ve seen in pre-season; everything suggests he wants either the CBs to push up or wide players to tuck in behind the midfielders when they go high, depending on the situation.
I usually don’t criticise players this much but I went to watch the 2nd Newcastle goal again (yea self inflicted pain), Dom did the first thing correctly, he tries to hold Wissa up, then for some reason Wissa managed to wriggle away from him and Wirtz, but that is still not the worse because the next 5-10 seconds pissed me off so much, he and Wirtz practically stopped running, stopped trying to reach anywhere of worth, just jogging like there is no urgency. That is the mentality that pissed me off, alot more than letting Wissa go past him.
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Yeah I was happy for Mac to be sold but as we aren’t signing a proper passing midfielder I think he might have an important role this season.
He has played a role where he sits a bit too so could provide that base for us a bit.
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