Posher than us: Peterborough 2-0 Newcastle.
Posted on September 23rd, 2009 | 3 Comments |
I wasn’t at the game, didn’t see it on TV and didn’t listen to it on the radio – I simply followed it on the BBC web site – so I’m not really in a position to write much of a match report. The Telegraph has a reasonable report and I’ll just make a few comments and leave it at that.
One of the things I did notice while following it on the BBC was a very telling statistic: Peterborough had 28 attempts on goal (21 on target) to our 7 attempts on goal (2 on target).
When I prepared that match preview yesterday I mentioned their potent, 3-pronged strike force and they certainly seem to have taught us a thing or two about attacking the goal. With those stats I’m surprised they only got 2 goals and at least Tim Krul must have had a reasonable game to keep more out.
Hughton made a load of changes with Steven Taylor and Peter Lovenkrands being the only remnants of the team that started against Plymouth on Saturday. Nile Ranger played up front on his own with, theoretically, Lovenkrands and Vuckic able to provide attacking support from the 5-man midfield.
Peterborough’s first goal came on 20 minutes when Craig Mackail-Smith headed past Krul, then Peterborough defender Tom Williams scored his first goal in 5 years to make it 2-0 after 31 minutes.
Danny Guthrie was sent off after 54 minutes for a second yellow card and shortly afterwards Hughton made a triple substitution bringing on Smith for LuaLua, Nolan for Vuckic and Geremi for Donaldson but even the addition of experience made little difference to our attacking potency.
By all accounts we were lucky to only concede 2 goals. Hughton had this to say about the game:
“I can have no complaints with the result on the balance of the 90 minutes.
“Peterborough had three good forwards and had an awful lot of chances and we rode our luck at times.
“We came here to win the game but maybe played too many youngsters against what was an experienced side.
“But we finished the game strongly and that was encouraging.”
Apparently we should have had a penalty at 1-0 when LuaLua was sent tumbling in the box, about which Hughton said:
“We could see the incident clearly and it was a definite penalty.
“But that was against the run of play and who knows how it would have affected the game.”
I can see why we’re looking for strikers when all we managed was 2 on-target attempts at goal in 90 minutes but I’m not sure why Hughton keeps playing with just 1 out-and-out striker anyway.
4-5-1 isn’t the way forward with the type of midfielders we have. They don’t get beyond the striker and they don’t counter attack quickly enough as a unit. We’ve picked up results in the league due to dogged determination and poor opposition but we’ll start to get found out. Last night was more about ‘too many kids’ playing but the formation won’t have helped them either. Mind, I’m not sure we have the players for an alternative formation either. Even with two upfront, I worry that we haven’t got creativity to get them chances. I see the benefit of not having the cup as a distraction but I’m still disappointed.