Another Tie for Fathers' Day?

 A distressingly familiar scene at Subaru Park.  Lots of talk but no signings Tyneside

Jim Curtin Has Enough Ties Already

Well, it was entertaining - good end to end action.  The 1-1 result with Cincinnati is certainly fair, matching up with what we saw on the field and in the stats.  But there's no way the Union should be getting a home draw with Cincinnati.  Two glaring and consistent issues mark the season to date:

1) Poor pass completion percentage consisting of:

    a) Passes directly to the opposition

    b) Passes made with no recognition that a defender is ready to step into the passing lane

    c) Passes made on the wrong side of the run

2) Lack of a dynamic attack

They only gave up one goal but Blake had his hands full 
with Cincinnati getting 17 shots off

Not a great day for Uhre; he had an unbelievably low 11 touches the whole game.  He did have one decent header chance but fitting for the day, it went wide.  Trying to remember that it took a while for Gazdag to settle in last year.  Uhre has somewhat a similar situation in that he didn't get to the club until after the season began.  

This was the league leading 8th draw for the Union.  On the positive side they remain undefeated at home.  The negative? Just three wins in eight tries in the friendly confines of Subaru Park.  That's too many dropped points at home.

Side note: Ray Gaddis and Haris Medjunanin were in the starting XI for Cincinnati.  Very nice that the usual chant of "Sucks" when their names were announced was quite muted.  Still both respected here.  Relieved that Gaddis did not break his scoreless streak with a goal against us.

No One Wants To See How the Sausage (Sandwich) Is Made

We are big fans of the sausage sandwich at Subaru Park.  A Premio sausage on a fresh roll garnished with fried peppers and onions.  A top five stadium offering.  Conveniently located in the upper concourse right behind our seats.  And the line is never longer than five and is usually just 2-3.

Yet somehow, it takes 15 minutes to get served.  Even if there is sufficient inventory (which rarely happens), it takes 5 minutes from order to delivery.  This is partly because the cashier takes the order and lets the cook do the assembly, even as she's cooking.  The bigger problem though is that they never have enough cooked sausages and garnishes.  Seems like there's never more than 10 or so sausages on the grill, so it doesn't take too many orders to deplete the supply.  Best example came this Saturday when Dennis and I were lucky to get the last of the peppers and onions and we watched as the cook put enough raw items on the grill for about 3 more orders despite there being 4 people behind us.

Yes, it's a slow week when I have to complain about the food prep at Subaru Park.  Maybe it's better the process is slow.  Keeps demand down.  Like Yogi Berra said, it's so crowded nobody goes there anymore.

Names, Names, Names

Still mostly a cavalcade of names being paraded through the media without much real action in the transfer window for Newcastle.  Thursday they did land their second signing of the summer, completing a deal for Burnley keeper Nick Pope.  We do have a decent keeper and Pope is not exactly a youngster at 30.  Also, I've been supportive of Karl Darlow.  Yet, I am okay with this, as Dubravka has missed significant time the last two seasons with injuries and Darlow hasn't been the keeper I thought we had back in 2016.   This feels like an improvement.

Unfortunately, the rest of the news is about supposed negotiations or possibly outright rumors and speculation.  Botman and Ekitike remain the most frequently mentioned.  Hearing Moussa Diaby's name more often.  Still see links to Jesse Lingard and new ones to Gareth Bale.  Also, Richarlison mentioned as alternative to Ekitike - please, please, no.  

Lucy In With the Sky Diamonds (apologies to The Beatles)

I just finished "Manifesto," the autobiography of Dale Vince, who owns the Forest Green Rovers.  A fascinating story of a man who went from a new age traveler to building a windmill on a hill to founding Ecotricity, a green energy company.  Here's a decent synopsis and review of the book.  There's only one chapter on Forest Green, how he brought his principles on energy, food and transport to a football team.  Like the review says, the book is a cross between telling his story and pitching his philosophy.  

The Epilog references a project he was working on at the time of publication - Sky Diamonds, that is making diamonds from the carbon in the sky. I am not making this up.  Since publication, the production of Sky Diamonds has become a reality.  Details on the process are here. 

Side note: Forest Green was promoted to League One and Vince's goal remains getting the club to the Championship Division.

Back to Subaru Park

Sunday evening it's back to Chester for me and Jeff H as we'll watch the Union take on NYCFC.  At 538 they see the match as a dead even - 36% chance for either to win with a 28% chance of a draw.  That feels optimistic to me, although I forget we did beat them 2-0 up in NYC in March.  NYCFC are in first, one point up with a game in hand.  The Union are perched precariously in third, with first definitely in sight but seventh only a bad weekend away.  Hard to imagine they sort out their offensive issues against this team but a 1-1 draw does seem possible. 

Yeah, short post but you got a food review and a book review so there's that.