Is Newcastle right to be prioritise strengthening defence over attack?
Posted on January 6th, 2012 | 25 Comments |
Much was rumoured recently about us not being in for a striker this January after the Maiga deal fell through but, with Demba Ba due to leave for the African Cup of Nations very soon, how will we cope?
When Pardew was asked recently if we can cope without Ba and Tiote, he said:
“Obviously, I am hoping so, but they are two massive players. You take a huge figure out of one of the other teams and it’s significant. If you took Rooney out of Manchester United, probably they wouldn’t look the same for seven games, so you have to accept that.
“Having said that, we have got players who are champing at the bit. Hatem Ben Arfa wants a chance, Leon Best wants to show what he showed last year, Peter Lovenkrands will be eager to throw his hat in the ring, so we have still got great players in the club and we hope that we can keep the momentum and the form going.
“We have just approached one game at a time, but we have got to the halfway stage in seventh place and that’s significant. It can only arm us with confidence to go forward.“
So how will Pardew line things up at the front?
One possibility is to use Shola and Best, with Ben Arfa being a sort of ‘super sub’ like he’s been all season. The other option is to play either Best or Shola with Ben Arfa just behind, although for some reason Alan Pardew seems reluctant to start Ben Arfa at the moment.
We may of course still get a new striker in January and may merely be feigning a lack of interest, although some previous comments by Pardew did seem to indicate that the club has turned it’s interests towards defenders instead. Indeed, the current press rumours seem to back that up too.
If truth be told, we need depth in all areas, but I’m of the opinion that the striking deficiency is of greater urgency than the defensive one at the moment. Not just because of Ba’s absence specifically for the ACoN but also because we seem to be relying on him for such a large percentage of our goals anyway. An injury to Ba could potentially be more damaging to the team’s attacking options than the injury to Steve Taylor was to its defensive options.
I suppose there’s always the argument that someone could ‘step up’ and score the goals in Ba’s absence; that our current set-up is such that Ba is intended to have the greater opportunity to score and that Best/Ameobi/Whoever have the job of providing for him and that someone else will get Ba’s opportunities in his absence. Whoever that is will need to be skillful enough to take those opportunities of course, but are the likes of Best and Ameobi up to anything approaching Ba’s goal rate?
Ideally we’d strengthen in all areas of course but that seems improbable this January.
So what do you think? Is our need to strengthen defensively more urgent than our need to strengthen the attack?
NUFCBlog Author: Hugh de Payen
I'm a baby-boomer of the punk rock persuasion, currently exiled in Somerset for crimes committed in a previous life where locals keep trying to poison me with something called 'scrumpy'. Hates sprouts, coat-hangers, Cilla Black, ornaments, Steven Seagull movies and 50 Cent (he's not worth 10).
Hugh de Payen has written 634 articles on this blog.
Hmmm…Lovenkrands and Best may be champing at the bit, but they’re not going to do a job covering for the absence of Ba by any stretch of the imagination. Lovenkrands was poor at Rangers and hasn’t got any better since. Best is an honest working journeyman who scores from time to time but generally misses chances or wants too many touches.
Ben Arfa has yet to show the kind of consistency that would persuade Pardew that he should be in the team from the start.
Then there’s Strolla…..
Think my answer is – yep, I’d love to see us sign a decent forward in the January window.