Game thrown away? Newcastle 2-2 Wolves.
Posted on February 25th, 2012 | 14 Comments |
According to one of the commentators on my feed, this match was taking place at the ‘First Direct Arena’, which made me giggle.
Wolves kicked off and had their first chance in under a minute when Doyle went past Williamson but failed to to guide it into the far corner. Two minutes later Wolves had a free kick after a Williamson foul but all they could do with that was smash it into the wall. A lively first 5 or 6 minutes from Wolves but they hadn’t made it count, which was a mistake we weren’t about to make in the following 10 minutes or so.
The fun started in the sixth minute when Cabaye caught Berra in possession and passed to Ba who tried swiping the ball into the net with his right foot going behind his left. It was on target and produced a great save by Hennessey. However the ball eventually found its way out to Tiote who hammered it broadly in the direction of goal and Cisse managed to toe punt it past Hennessey. 1-0.
On 11 minutes Cabaye managed a lovely cross, width ways across the Wolves defence and it landed right at the feet of Jonas. Unfortunately he was a few yards offside.
We seemed to be getting into our stride a bit now, although Zubar had a half-chance on 12 minutes when he almost got past Colo. But the flow was with us and on 16 minutes Simpson had a great shot saved by Hennessey who just managed to turn the ball past his post with his left hand.
And on 17 minutes we doubled our lead when Jonas planted the ball into the top corner after a terrific, powerful strike from outside the box on the left. 2-0.
Although the possession at this stage was 50-50, we looked the more assured team an Wolves had rarely troubled us. Zubar got into our box a few times but was easily dealt with and Wolves’ attempts at passing through our defence to play a striker in were pretty awful.
On 26 minutes, Ba had a shot deflected for a corner and a few minutes later, at the other end, Doyle got on the end of a cross from Jarvis and beat Krul with the shot only to see the ball go a yard wide of the post.
Doyle and Jarvis were making most of the running for Wolves and Jarvis got himself into a good position on 35 minutes but Krul hurled himself at that ball, which was enough to to put Jarvis off and give Colo a chance to clear.
On 41 minutes Colo passed to Cisse who laid it up nicely for Taylor but he couldn’t get the shot past the defender and thus was the first half. Wolves had had one or two chances but the half was ours. We looked as if we hadn’t got out of second gear, which was an attitude that would cost us dearly in the second half.
SECOND HALF
The talking to by Terry Connor at half time had done Wolves good and they came out in the second half looking much livelier. This attitude paid off for them in the 49th minute when Jarvis took a long shot from outside the box on the left and it clipped Simpson on either the knee or ankle and looped over Krul into the goal. 2-1
Three minutes later Cabaye played a nice one-two with Taylor but Cabaye’s shot was dragged wide. But the goal had fired up Wolves and a cross from O’Hara very nearly found Edwards when Williamson was dragged out of position by Doyle’s forward run. And on 59 minutes Krul had to make a decent save after some good build-up play led to a shot from Ward.
A few minutes later, following a Wolves corner, we caught them on the break and Cabaye crossed to Cisse but unfortunately his rather hopeful long shot went wide.
On 64 minutes we made a double substitution with Cisse going off for Benny and Taylor going off for Guthrie. I’m not sure whether making this substitution right before a Wolves free-kick had led to players being confused about what they should be doing but the free-kick led to Wolves’ second goal. O’Hara took the free kick and got the ball into the box; there was a bit of scramble as we tried to clear the ball but Kevin Doyle eventually managed to swipe it into the goal from a few yards out. 2-2.
We now tried to push our way back into the game again and Santon made a good run into the box and passed to Cabaye. Unfortunately Cabaye’s shot went wide.
On 70 minutes Wolves substituted O’Hara for Kightly and things were getting a bit frantic as we tried to regain the lead. We made plenty moves forward but the quality of the final ball into the box was poor. Benny wasted a couple of prime opportunities by trying to beat one player too many or putting too much on a ball to get past a defender.
On 79 minutes we took off Tiote and brought on Shola and within 20 seconds he’d won us a corner, although we couldn’t capitalise on it.
On 85 minutes Wolves brought on Hunt for Jarvis and a minute later Benny started to perform and tried to curl a shot in across the keeper and the ball only just went past the far post. A few minutes later Shola saw yellow as he attacked a 50-50 ball with Hennessey. Unfortunately his studs were showing and he caught Hennessey, which had the ref reaching for his card.
They announced 5 minutes of stoppage time, which I wasn’t sure I wanted. We were trying to get a winner but we were giving the ball away so frequently that I feared the winner might just go the other way. As it was we managed to hang on and Benny had time for another half-decent – although wide again – shot in the 95th minute of the game.
Result: 2-2
We looked the more assured side, particularly in the first half, but Wolves’ second-half attitude and some laid-back, sloppy play from us earned them the draw.
Guthrie had a shocker and Williamson wasn’t too clever either. Benny’s touch was poor too when he came on, despite having two decent shots that were only just wide. It was good to have Tiote and Cabaye back but that was pretty close to a full strength team we put out today and a draw at home to Wolves simply isn’t good enough if we have serious European ambitions. Chelsea won today and we’re now behind Arsenal on goal difference and Arsenal have yet to play (although they have a tough tie against Spurs tomorrow).
Newcastle United (4-4-2): Tim Krul, Fabricio Coloccini, Davide Santon, Danny Simpson, Mike Williamson, Ryan Taylor (Danny Guthrie – 65), Yohan Cabaye, Jonas Gutierrez, Cheick Tiote (Shola Ameobi – 80), Papiss Cisse (Hatem Ben Arfa – 65), Demba Ba.
Subs: Rob Elliot (G), Shane Ferguson, James Perch, Danny Guthrie, Gabriel Obertan, Hatem Ben Arfa, Shola Ameobi.
Wolves (4-5-1): Wayne Hennessey; Ronald Zubar, Christophe Berra, Richard Stearman, Stephen Ward (C); Kevin Foley (Nenad Milijas – 90), Karl Henry, David Edwards, Jamie O’Hara (Michael Kightly – 70), Matt Jarvis (Hunt – 85), Kevin Doyle.
Subs: Dorus De Vries, Jody Craddock, Roger Johnson, Nenad Milijas, Stephen Hunt, Michael Kightly, Sylvan Ebanks-Blake.
Yellow cards: Shola, Berra.
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.
Wow! You got that report up quick Hugh! Well done!
It’s always disappointing when we start like that and then get pegged back. To be honest, when they pulled back to 2-2 I feared the worst, so personally I’m pleased we got a point in the end as the longer the game went on Wolves were gaining in strength at the same speed that we were losing it.
Haven’t a clue how Pardew thought his substitutions would improve things – HBA (Heed-doon Ben Arfa) did his usual one man band stuff, and as Hugh pointed out above Guthrie was poo poo. And Stroller? aye right. Still, that’s probably why Pardew is a silver haired England candidate, and I’m a slightly balding couch potato!