Hoof the ******!“Alan Pardew will tell you that he tries to play good football – That’s rubbish, he plays long ball football. It’s very direct, there is no creativity in midfield, he just wants to play route one football. Every time I’ve seen his teams play, they play that way but he’ll say in the Press ‘we play good football.’ At times he can be a conman.”– ex player and pundit Stewart Robson when Pardew was appointed as Newcastle United’s manager.
In my previous story on Alan Pardew’s long balls, “Pardew’s long balls – An in depth probe,” I revealed that thanks to our Silver Supremo’s love of “route one” football, Newcastle United are now the biggest long ball team in the Premiership. Indeed, they are eclipsing even the high priests of long balls, Tony Pulis and Sam Allardyce, as well as Pardew’s own long ball protege, Brian “long balls” McDermott at Reading, who Pardew beat into second place by some distance. This piece is intended as some kind of follow up to that.
But first however, here’s a truncated version of the table I presented in that piece, which covered our first eleven Premiership games (up to and including West Ham).(more…)
Stoke City - Big lads and long balls.Venue: Britannia Stadium, Stoke. Date: 28 November 2012. Kick off: 7:45pm. Referee: Howard Webb. UK TV: None.
This evening’s game will see Newcastle United seek to avoid their fourth defeat in a row against the Premiership’s tallest side, Stoke City, who are unbeaten in their last 13 games at the Britannia Stadium.
None of their recent games could be described as emphatic victories, with their biggest being a 2-0 defeat of Swansea at the end of last month. However, Alan Pardew needs a win more than at any time since he took over as manager in December 2010, and getting one against Stoke in their own back yard could prove to be a difficult propositon. The Magpies current injury situation hardly helps either, with no less than eight players on the treatment table. You can see all the details of the carnage amongst the mangled Magpies on the team news and squad section below.
So, moving on, lets take a more in depth look at recent form, as well as our previous results against the Potters at their home, the Brittania Stadium.
