Fulham v Newcastle United match report
Posted on February 3rd, 2011 | 83 Comments |
If there’s one thing you don’t want to see happen after you’ve just sold your number one striker and not lined up a replacement, it’s to see your number two striker get injured. Unfortunately that’s exactly what happened to Newcastle as a 14th minute collision with Steve Sidwell saw Shola Ameobi leave the pitch with a fractured cheekbone.
There were few other notable events in the first half, although Williamson was lucky not to concede a penalty after some of his wrestling matches with Fulham players in the area.
Clint Dempsey smashed a shot over the bar and Nile Ranger, coming on for the injured Ameobi, made himself busy enough in the penalty area on the end of a Barton free kick to force a corner, but that was the sum total of first half excitement. It’s halves like that where they should really release a leopard onto the pitch from time to time to liven things up.
Fortunately things improved in the second half when Steve Harper was called into action early on to make a great save against Dempsey and Leon Best had an early chance at the other end, heading over the bar from a few yards out.
If truth be told though, Fulham looked favourites to score and that indeed turned out to be the case when Damien Duff got on the end of a long ball from Danny Murphy, slipped away from the usually reliable Enrique and managed to put one past Harper. It was a tidy finish from the man whose (own) goal relegated us two seasons ago and it proved to be the difference between the two sides.
Dempsey and Dembele could have made it more for Fulham but for a solid display in goal from Steve Harper.
Replacing Leon Best with Peter Lovenkrands on 72 minutes did little to change things for us as way too many passes went astray and poor communication dominated.
It really was a lacklustre display by Newcastle. Our defence didn’t look as reliable as usual, the midfield gave the ball away too much and the forward line looked impotent.
Alan Pardew had this to say after the game:
“It was always going to be about the first goal.
“Once they got that they sat on it a little bit and then caught us on the break a couple of times. But up until then we weren’t really troubled – we were solid.
“It was a game that was tight on a really difficult pitch.
“We could have passed it better in the first half than we did, but I thought we started the second half better and had a good little spell when we could have scored.
“It didn’t come unfortunately, and then the goal was poor on our part. That was very, very unusual for us as we have defended very well since I’ve arrived.”
Speaking about Ameobi’s injury, Pardew added:
“It’s a massive blow.
“We’re going to have to hope Shola’s injury isn’t as bad as we fear, but losing him early on was significant in the result.
“We’ve got to work with our strikers now. There’s no Shola, no Carroll and we’ve got to work to make sure we get the best out of the strikers we’ve got.”
Pardew has some work to do before the Arse visit on Saturday.
I think a few of us, myself included, have wanted rid of Ameobi for a while if only to give the other strikers a chance to get 90 mins under their belt.
Now that was when they were playing with Andy but I for one look forward to seeing if Ranger, best and Mcloven can score some goals this year. At least at the end of the season we will have a very clear picture of what we need upfront and who is good enough to stay on because between the three of them they should get plenty of game time to prove themselves.
I thought Bartons link up play today was poor and it seemed we went out with no game plan what so ever. Jonas played like crap although he got one or two crosses in after they scored but we were sleepy all over the pitch.Lets hope with Tiote back in midfield and us playing the Arse at home, that the players will be fired up.
It was interesting too See Willi and Enrique off their game but I think Fulham had been encouraged to charge forward after their Tottenham win and we never got the goal or the time in their half to pressure them back.
………………..Harps
Simps….Will…Collo…..Jose
Barton..Nolan..Tiote…Jonas
……….Loven and Ranger