Pardew - Learning lessons?After Newcastle United’s 5-0 thumping at Tottenham on Saturday, silver supremo Alan Pardew has reflected on his teams defeat and performance at White Hart Lane.
Recent quotes attributed to Mr.Pardew happen to mention the use of formation in recent weeks, which is something I am interested in venting my thoughts on. But before I begin, in case you haven’t had the pleasure of reading his recent reflections on all things Newcastle I shall include the most important snippet for you below. Enjoy…
“We have two good strikers but they didn’t have a chance at Spurs. Papiss isn’t going to win you the game when you’re 2-0 down after five minutes.
“We need to be able to cope with having two strikers. The Press and the fans have criticised us when we have played 4-5-1 at times this year. Now they understand why.”
The formation debate is something that I see / hear on a regular basis, right through all the Newcastle blogs it’s a topic discussed between fans. The main issue I see however has never been in regards to United utilising a 4-5-1, rather, it has been more notably about United using a 4-4-2. It seems, certainly in my case anyway, that most are against Newcastle using 4-4-2 and more pro towards using a 4-5-1. So where Pardew has got this information from seems lost on me. Moreover, Newcastle haven’t used a 4-5-1 all season, but have dabbled with a 4-3-3 and a 4-4-1-1. The latter formation has only been used when Hatem Ben Arfa has been included in the starting eleven (hardly ever), and the former was recently used at Fulham and Brighton. (more…)
919 - The number of the best?Venue: St James’Park, NE1. Date: 5th February 2012 Kick Off: 1.30pm Referee: Mark Halsey.
Well, it was another three points in the bag for the Magpies as they passed the supposedly “magical” 40 point mark, with no less than 14 games of the Premiership season to go. Apart from this though, the most obvious salient point of this game was the debut of our second Senegal sharp shooter, Papiss Cisse, who took a mere 72 minutes to open his account for Newcastle United in spectacular style.
Starting the game on the bench, with Leon Best starting upfront alongside Demba Ba, it was expected that he would be given a run out some time in the second half just to get acclimatised for a probable start in the next game. However, assuming that was the general idea, and I think it’s safe to assume that it was, the plan had to be brought forward significantly when Leon Best was blocked from taking a shot by Villa’s Stephen Warnock. Best’s leg awkwardly struck Warnock’s blocking lower leg instead of the ball, with the striker picking up a Warnock knee knock in the process. Eleven minutes and he was out as Alan Pardew faced a very tough call, whether to select Cisse or Fenham’s very own goal machine, Shola Ameobi, as they both warmed up on the touchline. Of course, the Silver Supremo would have probably been flayed alive if he didn’t stick with the script, albeit with the star of the show taking his call earlier than expected.
Shola Ameobi - A scapegoat for the ill informed?It probably hasn’t escaped your attention that Northumbria bizzies have been investigating what have been described as “sickening” racist comments about Newcastle United forward, Shola Ameobi, on Facebook.
This comes after recent similar comments about his younger brother and teammate Sammy Ameobi on Twitter. However unlike the case of Ameobi jnr which just seemed to come out of the blue, the Shola case has come on the back of an existing campaign of vilification of the striker from some Newcastle United fans for what they perceive as poor performances. Whilst racism is undoubetedly an awful thing, some of the highly personal attacks which preceded this development have at times tried their hardest to stoop to the same level of nastiness without being overtly racist. Many other stories have already concentrated on the alleged verbal racist attacks though, so I will concentrate instead on the anti Ameobi hysteria which has quite possibly led us to this sad state of affairs. Some of them have been so venomous that sadly it was probably inevitable that it would spill over into racism eventually. (more…)
Oh Coloccini....This match saw the welcome return of Captain Coloccini, and also the absence of Yohan Cabaye – a victim of trial by television and the London FA earlier in the day. Chris Samba was missing from the Blackburn Rovers line-up following the club’s failure to release him during the January transfer window – clearly fit but not happy and therefore not risked by Steve Kean. The Referee was Phil “Yellow Card” Dowd.
First Half
The game kicked off with empty seats all over the ground – it was like a blue “Stadium of Light”. The crowd was given as 20,817. The first bit of excitement came after five minutes when Ameobi was put through by Best but strangely, didn’t have the pace to take advantage of the opportunity. A couple of minutes after that, Ryan Taylor put a great ball through for Ameobi who failed to trap it as it bounced past him unchallenged but luckily for him he was adjudged to be offside.
Things got much better a few minutes later however when United took the lead. Following good passing around the box a shot from Ryan Taylor, which was actually going wide, deflected off Scott Dann and into the net with the keeper going the other way. Blackburn Rovers 0 Newcastle United 1(more…)
Seagulls and Magpies battle for cup glory!This afternoon sees Newcastle United cruising down to the UK’s “LGBT” (Lesbian, Gay, Bi and Transgendered) capital, Brighton.
However I shall reftain from indulging in the practically limitless opportunities for cheap, tacky innuendo about Poyet’s men getting Newcastle United “round the back” and giving them a good pounding and so on… Instead I will just rise above all that, behave myself abd concentrate on telling you that for an in depth look forward to this FA Cup clash, you can do far worse than checking out UTD111’s excellent preview of the game, which has all the team news, pre match gossip and lots of other stuff too. I will also be publishing the official teamsheets for the game below when they become available. If I may borrow a little from the preview mentioned above, here’s what Alan Pardew and Gus Poyet have been saying about the forthcoming game: (more…)
