You know when you’ve been Tango’d! Newcastle 0-2 Blackpool.
Posted on September 11th, 2010 | 108 Comments |
An abject first-half performance followed by some abject finishing by Newcastle in the second-half sprinkled sporadically with some fantastic saves from Man of the Match Matt Gilks in the Blackpool goal all combined to leave the Toon Army empty-handed.
A crowd of nearly 50,000 turned up at St James’ Park, and most of them will have been wanting to catch a glimpse of our new signings, particularly Hatem Ben Arfa, in action. As things go, the crowd did get to see a bit of Ben Arfa action, and he looked rather good and showed some good touches during his time on the pitch although I am sure most will have wanted the lad to have a more memorable debut than he ended up having.
Newcastle named an unchanged side for the fourth game in a row, and considering the performances we have witnessed in the previous three games I would say there is a bit of justification in that decision, although I, along with many others, would probably have preferred to see a more adventurous line-up against a team that is likely to be somewhere near the relegation dogfight come the end of the season.
Blackpool could have taken the lead on 12 minutes had it not been for a fine double save from Steve Harper in the Newcastle goal. Charlie Adam fed a defence splitting pass to DJ Campbell who had his attempt at goal saved only for Brett Ormerod to fluff his lines and have his attempt at goal saved aswell.
Then it was Newcastle’s turn to go close to breaking the deadlock on 24 minutes. Joey Barton drifted a cross into the box which Mike Williamson got his head to only for the ball to hit the bottom of the post and bounce clear. Kevin Nolan then spurned a gilt edged chance on the half hour as he fired straight at the Blackpool ‘keeper.
Then, on the stroke of half-time, the home team recieved a hammer blow. Alan Smith brought down Luke Varney in the box and referee Lee Mason awarded the away side a penalty. Harsh or not, Smith should know that by putting his foot into the mix there is always a possibility of conceding a penalty. Charlie Adam took the spot kick and sent Harper the wrong way to put the visitors 1-0 up at the interval.
Newcastle started the second-half looking for an equaliser although Blackpool remained resilient and didn’t concede a chance until the hour mark when Joey Barton broke through the tangerines defence only to be thwarted by Gilks.
The home side contiued to press for the equaliser but some poor finishing and good goalkeeping combined to make the search even more frustrating as time wore on. Peter Lovenkrands, Kevin Nolan, Wayne Rouledge and Andy Carroll all had chances to grab a goal but ultimately it wasn’t going to happen. Call it ‘one of those days’ if you will. They happen from time to time, although it doesn’t make them any easier to take when they do crop up.
Further salt was added to the home sides wounds in the final minute as they got caught on the break whilst searching for that elusive equaliser. DJ Campbell applied the finish from the edge of the box to seal all three points for the away side.
Questions will no doubt be raised over the validity of having just one striker on the pitch. In fact I predict that questions will be asked about everything ranging from the team selection, tactics, ownership of the club etc etc. All I’ll say is that we won’t get relegated by losing one game. Sure it isn’t ideal, but neither was the over-hyping that ensued after the Aston Villa game. Swings and roundabouts.
Newcastle head to Everton next weekend currently sitting in 13th place in the table, not too bad four games in, better than many predicted in fact. However, the lads will need to pick themselves up and try to earn a point to counteract the points we dropped today.
Howay the lads!
Newcastle – Steve Harper, James Perch, Mike Williamson, Fabricio Coloccini, Jose Enrique, Wayne Routledge, Alan Smith, Joey Barton, Jonas Gutierrez, Kevin Nolan, Andy Carroll.
Subs – Tim Krul, Sol Campbell, Ryan Taylor, Cheick Tiote, Peter Lovenkrands, Shola Ameobi, Hatem Ben Arfa
Attendance – 49,597.
Post match interviews with Chris Hughton and Blackpool manager, Ian Holloway, are available here.
NUFCBlog Author: toonsy
toonsy has written 643 articles on this blog.
:(