Scunthorpe 2 Newcastle 1 – Iron Men too tough for timid Toon!
Posted on October 20th, 2009 | 12 Comments |
Despite having plenty of possession and creating a number of decent chances, Newcastle spurned several of them and were unable to prevent Scunthorpe scoring twice and that was all it took to swing this game the Iron’s way.
Due to work commitments, I was left to listen to the game on Radio Newcastle and the commentary of Mick Lowes and former assistant to Sir Bobby, John Carver. It didn’t sound great. Scunthorpe were backed by their biggest crowd in 21 years, and as with many teams this season, were obviously pumped up for this as they’re playing a relegated ‘big boy’ who are second in the league. But Newcastle appeared to have the better of the first quarter, although they couldn’t convert possession into goals.
Scunthorpe began to have the better of the play towards the end of the first half but the teams went into the break all square. Having missed a chance before the break, Woolford made no mistake after Khizanishvili was outpaced by Hooper, to make it 1-0. Hughton responded by swapping Geremi for Harewood but it was Kevin Nolan who equalised just after the hour, following what sounded like great build up play.
However, when Harewood got in the way of a clearcut chance for Carroll, the impetus we had stolen swung back to Scunthorpe. And it was Woolford who was the hero, grabbing his second and his team’s to make it 2-1. Which is how it stayed as Scunthorpe celebrated a big victory and condemned us to back-to-back defeats and leaving us with 2 points from a possible 12. Not exactly brightening the mood on Tyneside.
Tonight there seemed to be several things wrong, which many of the more informed supporters have recognised –
– The depth of our defensive cover is woefully short and we miss Taylor and Coloccini (say what??) and we seem to struggle to cope physically with attacks.
– We desperately lack pace throughout the team.
– We’re still not creating enough.
– We’re definitely not scoring enough with only 2 goals in 4 games now.
– Hughton will start to be criticised from various quarters for some peculiar decisions (Geremi in? Ranger ignored again from the start? 4-5-1 with Carroll the lone striker?).
With a tough game against another team who will be up for it and bouyed by a good result tonight, we need to give ourselves a shake for the Doncaster game. Smith is sure to be a miss, as he’ll be suspended, but he can only do so much and without the pair largely responsible for our sound defensive displays or the ability to score more than we concede, you start to wonder where the points will come from.
And yet we’re still second in the Championship…………
Us
Harper, Ryan Taylor, Enrique, Simpson, Khizanishvili, Geremi, Guthrie, Smith, Gutierrez, Nolan, Carroll.
Subs – Krul, Tozer, Kadar, Lovenkrands, Ranger, Harewood, Donaldson.
Scunthorpe United
Murphy, Bryne, Williams, Mirfin, Jones, Togwell, McCann, Wright, Woolford, Hayes, Hooper.
Subs – Slocombe, Wright, Spence, Canavan, Sparrow, Thompson, Forte.
Att – 8,900 – (2,000 Mags) approx
NUFCBlog Author: bowburnmag
bowburnmag has written 234 articles on this blog.
Aye, depressing stuff. Let’s hope we can turn things around for the match against Doncaster.