Frustration! Blackburn v Newcastle United match report (with video highlights and interviews).
Posted on February 13th, 2011 | 26 Comments |
Perhaps he shouldn’t though. Besides being far more exciting than the 0-0 scoreline suggests, there were lessons to be learned.
On with the game itself though. Pardew decided to revert to a 4-4-2 formation with Lovenkrands joining Best upfront. They certainly made a much better start in this game than the last one, with a first chance coming to Newcastle. Captain, Kevin Nolan almost try to get on to a very decent pullback from Joey Barton, but was unable to connect.
The next chance was one of the few that fell to Blackburn though. Around five minutes after the Nolan chance, a clearance from Blackburn’s goalkeeper, Paul Robinson, was headed on by captain, Chris Samba. This in turn found the head of Manchester City misfit, Roque Santa Cruz, who also made a rasping header which hit the post.
Shortly after that it was Newcastle’s turn for some ball on post action at the other end. Despite being a left back, Jose Enrique acted as a potent attacking force in this game, and I think it would be pretty safe to say that after the ninety minutes were over, he was the man of the match. He sent in one of many excelent long passes, this time to Lovenkrands, who sent the ball looping over the head of the Blackburn goalkeeper with a tricky lob. Sadly though, it just hit the top of the post. It would have been a great goal if it had gone in though.
Shortly before the half time interval, striker, Leon Best, volleyed the ball wide in the last chance in what was a fairly uneventful first half.
Newcastle really started to come to the fore after the break. However though they dominated possession, making many attacking thrusts along the way, there didn’t seem to be many more genuine chances for the Magpies than there were in the previous half. One of the best was when questionably permed Argentinian centre back, Fabricio Coloccini, chested down the ball then cracked off a fierce shot. He forced the save of the game in the 54th minute from Paul Robinson, who managed to tip the effort over.
Despite the second half dominance though, it just did not seem to be Newcastle’s day in front of goal. Blackburn were frequently poor down their defensive flanks, letting the Magpies in, with veteran ex Real Madrid right back, Salgado having a particularly poor game. However the Blackburn centre backs seemed to hold the fort somewhat better when the balls came into the middle.
Other chances were Barton and Gutierrez shooting over the crossbar, Leon Best driving a shot straight at Robinson and that was about it really.
To close with Alan Pardew once again, he summed it up thus:
“We stood up to the Blackburn physical presence and dictated the game but the only disquieting factor was around the final third,” said Pardew.
“Considering the amount of possession we had we didn’t work their goalkeeper hard enough.”
Match highights.
Post match interviews.
Newcastle United manager, Alan Pardew expresses his disappointment that the Magpies didn’t manage to win the game despite having Blackburn on the back foot for long periods of the game.
Blackburn Rovers manager, Steve Kean expresses that his first priority was to keep a clean sheet, and admits that his team has seen more opportunities in front of goal on previous occaisions.
Poll.
NUFCBlog Author: workyticket
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Kuqi: Sir Bobby wanted to sign me for United! :shock: