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Another disappointing home defeat for the Magpies as they were sunk by two goals, with Swansea’s leading goalscorer Michu getting his seventh of the season in the 58th minute. A disastrous sliced clearence from Tim Krul in the Newcastle goal fell to the Swans’ Spanish international winger Pablo Hernandez, who then proceeded to bang in an excellent cross straight on to the head of his fellow Spaniard, who headed powerfully past the hapless flying Dutchman. (more…)
Benny’s 3rd round FA Cup goal against Blackburn Rovers from January 2012.
You may have heard already that Newcastle United’s Hatem Ben Arfa is one of ten candidates for the FIFA “Puskás Award” for the best goal of the year.
However, this competition is also up for a public vote on FIFA’s official website, and I wouldn’t be doing my duty if I didn’t encourage all you Toon fans out there to get on the site and vote!
To crib unashamedly from the Wikipedia, it is described thusly:(more…)
Highlights of the game between Newcastle United and West Ham United at St James’ Park, though I use the words “highlights” in the loosest possible sense!
Of course, it was also in the script that either be Kevin Nolan or Andy Carroll would score a winning goal, and it turned out to be the former. Not a good day at the office at all for the Grey Gaffer in a game which was excruciating to watch at times. Actually, forget the “at times,” it was just excruciating to watch full stop!
Big Sam's tactics board, or Alan Pardew's?Venue: St James’ Park, Newcastle. Date: Sunday, 11th November. Kick off: 3:00pm Referee: Mike Dean (the Wirral). UK TV: None.
In case you are one of those who have successfully deceived yourselves that our manager’s real name is Alan Pardiola, and today’s fixture will be a match between a cultured, elegant passing side of fancy foreigners against big, “long ball” Sam, well think again!
As we go into this game Newcastle and West Ham are currently the two biggest “route one” sides in the Premiership. Looking at my OPTA stats, which defines long balls as passes of over 25 yards, Newcastle United and West Ham are the two biggest long ball merchants, with 17.5% of Newcastle’s total passes being long balls, and 17.9% of West Ham’s.
To put this into some kind of perspective, the percentage for Swansea City (our next opponents incidentally) is 9.7%, which is even bigger gulf than it sounds. Of course, this is not to say that the lower the percentage, the better it is or any nonsense like that. As the great Mackem Buddha of football, Bob Paisley, once said (and also Michael Laudrup more recently), “it’s not about the short pass or the long pass. It’s about the RIGHT pass.” Though the great Dane could say that as he could pass a ball 30 yards on to a team mates foot (and from a tight space too) effortlessly! (more…)
