Newcastle United's dugout last Saturday.After a gutsy win over Everton this weekend I picked myself up from the floor after a nervous last 20 minutes or so and began to wonder, “Did the performance display Newcastle United’s squad depth and quality, or did it highlight our lack of it?”
Let me explain. Most so called “pundits” have attributed the main factor of our success to the ability to put out the same team each week without injuries, now with Gabriel Obertan, Yohan Cabaye and Sylvain Marveaux picking up little injury niggles as highlighted in a previous blog, I think a few fans are beginning to wonder how this will affect the team in the coming weeks against the big boys of the Premier League.
In the first 35 minutes or so at St James Park we dominated Everton in my opinion. They had a couple of chances with Seamus Coleman and Louis Saha but no real sustained pressure. Then the injuries began to appear. Cheik Tiote, having already been sidelined previously, was then joined by our midfield maestro, Cabaye. For me that turned the game on its head, something that Pardew agreed with. The lads that were brought on to plug the gaps so to speak (Dan Gosling, Hatem Ben Arfa etc) did the job and brought the 3 points home. However I can’t decide if it was a quality defensive display, or just Newcastle struggling with our 2nd string. (more…)
Newcastle United: Taking on the "big guns" next.The testing never stops ’round here! As we go into the lull that is international football and worse still, friendly internationals, we see our first major flood of injuries hobble into the Saint James’ Park sickbay.
At least we’ll have a couple of weeks to try and get over some of them. All the while attempting to ready ourselves for the next round of tests. Next up will be the Manchester’s of City and United. With City returning to the place where Hatem Ben Arfa was so cruelly hacked down and the Lads were cheated out of a result with ref decisions, what with a dodgy penalty for them, and a clear one for us turned down. Citeh have spent even bigger since then and it’ll be one tough game. Of course the ‘pundits’ will at least be satisfied that we’re being tested properly for once. If we get an better ref, who knows what can happen?
I saw enough of Man City’s game at QPR to suggest that if you have a go at them, goals are available as their back line looks a little suspect at times. It’ll be interesting to see if Hatem Ben Arfa gets to play this game, and it would be even better if he did and made them pay for last seasons debacle. (more…)
Moyes and Pardew: Mutual appreciation society.Welcome to our usual round up of what the managers have been saying in the run up to this afternoon’s home game against Everton.
For a detailed preview of the match with stats, team news, match details, thoughts on the upcoming game etc, please check out our comprehensive match preview. We will also be posting our regular “match banter” thread, where you can make comments, share streams for the game etc while the match is in progress. This should be going up around and hour before the kick off. Also, we shall be posting our usual report of the game some time after along with highlights when they become available.
Getting back to what the managers have been saying though, we start as usual in the black and white corner with Alan Pardew, who had much to say as always. Speaking in a fairly long interview on Talk Sport’s “Matchday Live”, he began by talking about the club’s excellent start to the season, starting on how both the squad and we fans are not getting too “carried away”.
Watching Tony Pubis ‘kick off’ because of our defenders using their (Stoke’s) tricks, er, tactics at throw ins. Namely, taking time to dry the ball with the towels provided for Rory Delap’s thunderbolts. He must have thought double drat when Ryan Taylor actually produced some howitzers of his own; nice one Ryan.
He (Pubis) also looked ‘put on the spot’ and decidedly uncomfortable when asked by the reporter about Stoke’s reticence to buy Demba “ticking time bomb” Ba when they had the chance recently.
All in all, Stoke were ‘out Stoked’ in a game that made them look perticularly ordinary and belied their terrific and enviable home record. Newcastle took the game to them, put them under constant early pressure and were rewarded for their endeavour with a 2 goal half time lead.
Most of Stoke’s lads were rendered anonymous for large tracts of the game. The ref seemed to ‘help’ Stoke back into the game in the second half with what looked a very innocuous penalty, but to his credit, he seemed to ‘even it up’ just 6 minutes later, handing Demba Ba the opportunity to complete a ‘perfect’ hat-trick from the spot. (more…)
The man in the mask salutes hat-trick hero, Demba Ba.Venue: Britannia Stadium, Sir Stanley Matthews Way, Stoke-upon-Trent. Date: Monday, October 26th, 2011. Kick-off: 8:00pm. Referee: Mike Dean.
Demba Ba’s second hat-trick of the season powered Newcastle United to a 3-1 victory at the Britannia Stadium and up to 3rd place in the Premier League.
Stoke usually start apace at home but it was us who made the running from the off today and Stoke’s defence of a strange flick from Obertan to nobody in particular gave us our first corner within 2 minutes. Our first attempt came to nothing but Stoke only managed to clear for another corner and from this one Ryan Taylor fashioned himself a chance with a long shot that was wide and high, although not by all that much.
Most of our play was up the right and Best and Obertan looked busy in that area but the deadlock was broken with a move started by Tim Krul. A Stoke attack led to a goal kick, with which Krul found Guthrie. Guthrie put the ball into space on the right of the box and Obertan caught Stoke sleeping, chipped a lovely ball across the box right onto the head of Demba Ba who made no mistake finding the net after only 12 minutes. 0-1 to us. (more…)
