Slav: “We’re not real Madrid”

Slaven Bilic has made it clear he is pretty happy with the way things have gone this season and sent a timely reminder to fans upset over Saturday’s defeat at Newcastle.

The manager declared: “Nothing has changed. The season so far is very positive. You have to win as many games as possible, but you can also lose games – we are not Real Madrid.”

Our problems were clear from the start of a game where once again we allowed the opposition to charge at us from the start and allow Newcastle’s confidence to sky rocket.

Indeed it was so obvious that even the usually non-critical official site came close to having a moan-up when saying in the Manager on Monday column: ‘Nevertheless, the message from the manager to his players is clear: they will not finish this season the way they deserve to if they start games as slowly as they did on Saturday. He will expect them to start putting that right from the kick-off when Manchester City visit the Boleyn Ground on Saturday.’