Pochettino playing for Argentina in the 2002 World Cup.In our game against Southampton this afternoon, along with our next one against Swansea City, we will be facing the teams of the two most talented and admired young coaches in the Premiership, Mauricio Pochettino and Michael Laudrup.
Of course, English fans including those of Newcastle United are very familiar with Laudrup the coach now, who has guided the Premiership minnows of Swansea to their first ever major trophy final later today in only his first season at the club. However, some of you might be less familiar with Pochettino, and may well (with good reason) have been somewhat bemused by the sacking of his Southampton predecessor, Nigel Adkins. This is especially so as it came just when things seemed to be starting to go fairly well for the Saints under a very decent manager. However, despite a record with his previous club Espanyol which hardly seems earth shattering on a cursory inspection until you understand the context, there is an excitement being generated about the young coach at the very highest levels of the game. Guardiola is a fan, as is Rafa Benitez, and despite beating them 2-1, Alex Ferguson thought his Southampton side was the best he’d faced at Old Trafford all season. (more…)
Newcastle United – A long ball dinosaur?Since I wrote a few pieces on how Alan Pardew’s Newcastle United had become the biggest “long ball” side in the Premiership this season some time ago, It piqued my curiosity to look beyond and see how the “route one” style favoured by Pardew this term compared with that of his predecessors, and possibly, what we might be able to learn from what comes out in the wash so to speak.
The stats contained in the table below go back to the start of the 2008-9 relegation season. Hence, the managers I have included are Kevin Keegan, Joe Kinnear, Alan Shearer, Chris Hughton (x3) and Alan Pardew.
Admittedly, some of the managerial spells are ridiculously short, and one would prefer at least a whole season for each manager, where every other team in the division was played with their varying tactics pitted against Newcastle United’s would have been the ideal. However, in the crazy world of Newcastle United since the blundering Mike Ashley took over, the longest continuous run of Premiership matches for any manager apart from the current one has been Joe Kinnear’s nineteen. Although Chris Hughton at least had a full season in the Championship, his spells as caretaker apart, he only had sixteen games in the Premiership before being sacked. Anyway, the point of this is more to take a look at Newcastle United’s long ball style as a whole in recent years, rather than just focusing on one particular manager. This brings me to my final point in this section, why I haven’t included that Championship season. This was for two reasons: Firstly, because I do not have the same stats for that season (I only have Premiership stats from “OPTA”). Secondly, it is also (literally) a different league, a different paradigm where different standards apply. (more…)
“♫ Metal is tough, metal will sheen ♫”Venue: St James’ Park, Newcastle. Date: Thurs 14th February, 2013. Kick off: 8.05pm. Referee: Harald Hagen (Norway). UK TV: ESPN.
Hello, good evening and welcome to our “match banter” feature for this evening’s Europa League game against Ukraine’s Metalist Karkiv.
As you may know already Metalist are a pretty strong team who are genarally regarded as the being the “best of the rest” behind the two Ukrainian giants, Dynamo Kyiv and Shaktar Donetsk. Hence, they won’t be any pushover. One piece of good news for the Toon however is that Metalist have recently sold their own Brazilian Benny, Taison (an excellent driblling winger / forward), to their rivals at Donetsk. Chelsea made a move for him priginally, however the club was then taken over by someone who disliked Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich so much, he preferred to sell him to one of his biggest rivals instead! (more…)
“Match of the day” highlights from this afternoon’s game between Tottenham Hotspur and Newcastle United at White Hart Lane (with appropriate French commentary).
Pardew: Pumping his little fist once again.Many thanks to “ToonBano” from the Toon blog www.toonbano.com for his sixth guest blog here – wt.
As I get over the shock of actually winning a game from behind for the first time in over two years and trying to get my head around winning back to back victories for the first time this season, something amongst our latest turn in fortune has jumped out at me (apart from the new signings) and that is the system. A formation of 4-2-3-1 has been paramount throughout recent weeks and it’s about bloody time. Maybe it’s because Demba Ba is no longer in a black ‘n’ white shirt as he gets his head kicked in by Coloccini but the ‘Hoofball 4-4-2’ days seem to be over. Are they over for good?
If this is the case and we are no longer subjected to the nonsense of lumping it up to the strikers, even when we are losing, then Pardew deserves some credit for finally seeing the light. After all it’s in my opinion that it was this factor of a pre-historic style of football that was holding this club back over anything else. Not the injuries or the Europa League, but the totally cowardly non-attempt at even trying to play to our strengths and actually play some football. Our long ball stats are dropping like a stone with every game that goes by. Thank the Lord. (more…)
