Alan Pardew and Newcastle United: Learning Lessons the Hard Way
Posted on February 13th, 2012 | 58 Comments |
Recent quotes attributed to Mr.Pardew happen to mention the use of formation in recent weeks, which is something I am interested in venting my thoughts on. But before I begin, in case you haven’t had the pleasure of reading his recent reflections on all things Newcastle I shall include the most important snippet for you below. Enjoy…
“We have two good strikers but they didn’t have a chance at Spurs. Papiss isn’t going to win you the game when you’re 2-0 down after five minutes.
“We need to be able to cope with having two strikers. The Press and the fans have criticised us when we have played 4-5-1 at times this year. Now they understand why.”
The formation debate is something that I see / hear on a regular basis, right through all the Newcastle blogs it’s a topic discussed between fans. The main issue I see however has never been in regards to United utilising a 4-5-1, rather, it has been more notably about United using a 4-4-2. It seems, certainly in my case anyway, that most are against Newcastle using 4-4-2 and more pro towards using a 4-5-1. So where Pardew has got this information from seems lost on me. Moreover, Newcastle haven’t used a 4-5-1 all season, but have dabbled with a 4-3-3 and a 4-4-1-1. The latter formation has only been used when Hatem Ben Arfa has been included in the starting eleven (hardly ever), and the former was recently used at Fulham and Brighton.
The point being Pardew’s “we need to cope with two strikers” is not true and not related to our capitulation at Spurs on Saturday evening. Yes, missing players such as Tioté and Cabaye will never help matters when you come up against a team on fire, but had they been available anyway Newcastle would have almost certainly still used the 4-4-2 anyhow. In our 25 Premier League games so far, Newcastle have started the match in a 4-4-2 formation on 19 occasions, including our visit to Old Trafford. Needing to cope with two strikers has not been the problem in recent weeks, and something that Pardew cannot use as an excuse to those of us who study the game, and have an inkling on how football works.
Newcastle have had two matches in recent weeks where they have conceded five goals, resulting in a heavy defeat being inflicted. One major tactical problem recently has been our defensive high line being ruthlessly exposed by opposition attackers with pace, and teams playing a more direct style against us. The game at Blackburn recently, which United won, was in fact another example, as I think it is fair to say Blackburn totally played us off the park that night, and in fairness should have won the match. The recent home game against Aston Villa could very well have been a different story, with Pardew admitting his side were lucky not to be a couple of goals down at half-time. Individual performances of certain members of our back line haven’t helped things either, but I’ll refrain from naming names as to avoid the inevitable ‘witch hunt’ accusations.
So the easy option is to just give Spurs the plaudits for Saturday, and to be fair they do deserve all the credit they have been given this season. But from my point of view, this defeat has been on the cards when you look at our more recent games and performances. I can take defeat, but it’s the manner in which you take it that’s important. I think Pardew should have picked up on recent performances and certainly altered the high line, but it just doesn’t seem to be his style to change much. I respect Pardew, and think he has done a great job with us so far, but I don’t like it when he fails to realise an issue tactically, or in the example of the case above, vent an issue publicly that doesn’t have anything to do with the bad result. The inclusion of Papiss and the 4-4-2 was not the problem, had we not even signed Papiss, we would have just used Ameobi instead in a 4-4-2. It’s more a case of Pardew realising that he should of played a 4-5-1 and he’s trying to justify it by claiming the press and fans have been critical of the use of it.
It’s certainly a difficult and touchy subject to debate, on one hand we have to look at the big picture and see that United are only one point off fourth place in the Premier League, something in which not even the most optimistic of fan could possibly of hoped for at the seasons start. But it is also relevant to analyse our performances, especially after we haven’t played well and decipher what / why we didn’t play to our best. This is also what Pardew as manager does, he will look into the why and how we can be better in the next game, and learn from it. My opinion is however that we haven’t rectified the faults in our tactical play recently, most apparent being our defensive line.
Wolves are up in Toon in two weeks time, minus Mick McMackem so the perfect match to get back to winning ways just got harder as no doubt they will have a new manager in place for the match and will be eager to impress. But more importantly though, I’m sure our lads will want to give the fans a good solid performance, and carry on our assault on the top six.
The question remains though, will Pardew and the players have learned, especially defensively, from last weekend?
NUFCBlog Author: Jimbob
Backpacker extraordinaire and current resident of sunny Sheffield. Loves Marmite, hates peanut butter. Sleeps twice a day, wrestles Polar Bears because he can and regards himself as cool as a cucumber in a bowl of hot sauce.
Jimbob has written 40 articles on this blog.
Excellent article totally agree with this. I thought Pardew was bang out of order with his comments in the paper it stinks of him trying to deflect the negative result away from himself and instead put the blame on the fans and press. The thing is about 4-5-1 we played that against Fulham except using Leon Best as a winger and we got stuffed, if we are going to play that formation why not start playing Ben Arfa I hope he stays at the club because he could be a cracking player for us.