No Alan, it was Jol who changed the game, not the penalty.
Posted on January 23rd, 2012 | 67 Comments |
“I can’t really explain what happened to our back four,” he said continuing:
“It wasn’t a case of us not trying second half, we just lacked mental discipline in that second half and it cost us. Hopefully it won’t happen again.
“The strength of our team (the defence) became a problem and that unit didn’t play well in the second half. They were nowhere near good enough in terms of the standards they’ve set themselves.
“They’re probably more disappointed than me.”
Well it’s true that that both Captain Colo and “Iron” Mike Williamson did indeed have stinkers in that half, Colo especially pulled about all over the place by a rejigged Fulham. But anyway, Pardew continued:
“We couldn’t have been in a better place at half-time in terms of the way we controlled the game.
“The first half we couldn’t have played much better and it is a difficult place to come. They have got some quality players and we completely nullified them.
“We got the goal, perhaps should have had two by then, but the Premier League is such that you can’t switch off.
“The first goal for them changed the game, I thought. Whether we felt an injustice at the penalty or an injustice that they happened to be level with us I don’t know.
“We kind of just switched off in that period and it cost us three goals. Then we were in trouble.”
Well, yes, it was certainly true that we dominated the first half, though it could be said that this was due to Fulham’s awfulness as much as Newcastle’s greatness. Jol himself said of his team’s first half performance:
“We didn’t play well, it was probably the worst 45 minutes of this season, for me probably ever.”
Pardew was also right in suggesting that we should indeed have scored another goal at least. If “we couldn’t have played much better,” well, one goal wasn’t much of a return against a team who were playing so poorly. Martin Jol’s Fulham are something of a “Curate’s egg” at the moment, as their recently appointed Dutch master experiments and works out which way he wants to take the team in the long term.
Jol’s initial 4-3-3 formation (a formation mirrored by Pardew) didn’t work at all. It lasted for the first 37 minutes until Jol brought Andy Johnson. Even after he switched to a more direct 4-4-2, the moving of Bryan Ruiz into the centre made him something of a liabilty, and it was within minutes after that change that a Ruiz blunder led to Danny Guthrie’s finely taken goal. After the first adjustment didn’t work, Jol held back the hapless Costa Rican at the break, replacing him with Chris Baird, who went on to have a very good game and unlike Ruiz, kept the ball well. It was this half time substitution which finally changed the game. Penalty or not, when Fulham came out they were a different kettle of fish entirely and had far more coherence.
Pardew whined about the “unjust” penalty conceeded by Santon, yet he said nothing about how the same player should have been sent off before that for bringing down Andy Johnson in what was a clear goalscoring opportunity. He also didn’t mention that Krul could well have been sent off too when he conceeded Fulham’s second penalty by bringing down the flying slap-head when he was in on goal for a second time. If Fulham felt a sense of injustice about those two incidents, then they certainly didn’t show it or “switch off”, and neither should we.
One final observation before I go. Whilst I have no doubt that our Silver Supremo has pulled off some fine results this season, and I realise that despite some recent wobbles, we still find ourselves in a very creditable sixth positon in the Premiership table, I still feel that Pardew could learn a lesson from Jol’s adaptabilty in this game instead fof whining about “injustice”. It was not once but twice that Jol mixed things up in an offensive way until they worked. Whilst our players have undoubtedly shown good resilience and patience in a few games where things haven’t just fallen into our laps, in the rare situations where we have required similar changes in our tactics, Pardew has been somewhat more reticent and less brave in making similar switches in the middle of a game. It’s true that he has shoved on Ben Arfa in the hole for a few minutes sometimes in the past, but apart from that they have been mostly defensive ones in some kind of damage limitation exercise and / or to close a game down (enter James Perch). I have yet to see the kind of decisive action showed by Jol in Saturday’s game, and to such effect.
It’s food for thought anyway.
Newcastle United vs Fulham long highlights and post match interviews.
NUFCBlog Author: workyticket
workyticket has written 1091 articles on this blog.
Our much-vaunted defence is much more vulnerable with out Tiote sitting in front of it saying “you have to get past me first”…
Yes we missed Ba, but I think it would have been a different game if Tiote had been playing. Think this game taught us who our truly “big” players really are.