Hughton, we have a problem.
Posted on September 28th, 2010 | 76 Comments |
There were a lot of things that just didn’t work at the weekend, and now the manager has to earn his money and adress those issues that were plain to see for everyone against Stoke.
In true Newcastle style, what started off to be a fantastic week with away wins at Everton and Chelsea was followed by the inevitable kick in the bollocks by losing at home to Stoke. As I said in my match report, I can handle us losing, but what I can’t handle is us not giving it a real go and trying to take the game to the opposition, particularly at home.
The fact is that Stoke did a job on us. They stopped us playing and only let us play where they wanted us to play. For all the first-half possesion we had we created pretty much the sum of nothing and we were lucky to benefit from Robert Huth making an erratic and needless challenge to concede a penalty and hand us the lead.
I’m not even overly concerned about how Stoke managed to batter our defence with their brand of football and throw-ins. In fairness, we aren’t the first-team and won’t be the last team to succumb to Stoke City and their aeriel threat. That is their ‘ace in the hole’, and whilst it may not be to everyones taste, it worked.
My main concern is our attack. We are at risk of becoming a one trick pony in my opinion, and that is something that has to change pretty sharpish, especially at home where we need to get the vast majority of our points. We won’t win away from home every week and could quite easily not pick up another win on the road all season. It’s not unheard of for that to happen.
As I see it, Andy Carroll has become isolated up front. I’m sure that the idea is for Kevin Nolan to support the lad, but if the opposition are putting on the pressure then it is quite understandable that Nolan will need to drop back into midfield and help out. The problem is that Nolan then can’t get up to support Carroll quickly enough, which leads to bigger lad winning most of the headers up front, but with nobody around to support him we end up just gifting the ball back to the opposition.
If Hughton really wants Carroll to play up front on his own then he needs to make sure that we have a player who is capable of supporting the lad. We have that player in the shape of Hatem Ben Arfa and I think he was built for that role, yet Ben Arfa is being played out on the left. To be fair, he does drift inside and help out in the middle, but then that leaves Jose Enrique incredibly exposed down that left-side of the pitch.
The emergence of Cheick Tiote and Ben Arfa as probably two of our better players surely means that they have to play? The link that Jonas and Jose have on the left surely means that Jonas has to play? Seeing what Barton can actually do when he has the players already mentioned around him surely means he has to play? Routledge has to play as his pace can stretch teams, so that leaves one player that is playing now that I think is holding us back on the pitch – Kevin Nolan.
I don’t want to be down on the lad as I don’t think he has done anything wrong as such, and there is no question that he has been one of the players that has helped to drag our club off of the floor, but I just don’t think he can fit into the system that we are trying to play, not at home anyway.
You could say that Hughton knows more about football than me and understands what he is trying to do a lot more than the rest of us. I very much doubt he has learned nothing during his 30 or so years in the game so I am confident he will know what needs changing.
That is the test though, will he change it when needed? Will he drop players like Nolan if it benefits the team? As a manager he is paid to make those kind of decisions…..
But will he?
NUFCBlog Author: toonsy
toonsy has written 643 articles on this blog.
i don’t think chris will have a problem dropping nolan. captain or not (look at butt last season) i think CH has the stones to make the tough decisions for the best of the team. i think a 3 man CM of benny up high, barton in the middle, and tiote as DM is our best combo at the moment. give nolan, smith, and guthrie and gosling when they’re healthy some motivation to play at the top of their level. no ones starting spot should be guaranteed when we have the squad that we do.