‘Iron’ Mike: A defensive colossus?Despite the heroics of Tim Krul on Saturday, as well as those of other more ‘glamorous’ Newcastle United players such as Loic Remy, Yohan Cabaye etc throughout the season, if we look at the results both before and after he came into the team, it could be argued that Newcastle United’s most important player this season so far has been Mike Williamson.
After a couple of outings in the League Cup against Morecambe and Leeds, ‘Iron’ Mike was finally introduced to the club’s Premier League campaign as a half time substitute (for Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa) against Everton. This was after another disastrous first half display by the Magpie defence against Everton, with the club already 3-0 down. That was 5 1/2 games into the season and as Newcastle United have now played 11, with Williamson on the pitch for exactly the same time as he has been off it in Premier League games, I thought it would be a good time to look at the staistics for Newcastle United with and without Williamson.
The difference has been obvious watching the games with a transformed back four. Even in that Everton game alone, the bleeding was staunched immediately with Newcastle keeping a clean sheet in the second half, giving them a platform to go on and stage a comeback with two goals, though, alas, it wasn’t quite enough on that occasion. (more…)
Yohan Cabaye: A man of the match performance.My latest blog on metro.co.uk was published yesterday.
Usually I would just write a few words about it and post a link. However, I am getting so sick of them being hacked to pieces by trainee Metro sub-eds that I have now decided to publish the original version on here, complete with the original title.
If you like, you can see the butchered version on the metro here.
Key performance #1: Yohan Cabaye.
The fleet-footed Frenchman was the fulcrum of Newcastle United’s midfield on Saturday, and was at the heart of most things for Newcastle United in attack.
Besides scoring a brilliant goal in the 23rd minute, he also provided the great set piece which led to Paul Dummett’s goal in the 56th. Of course, the Magpies’ set pieces have been the focus of much criticism in recent times and rightly so when you look at the amount of goals scored by this method over the last season or two. Although it could be said that Aly Sissokho made things slightly easier than he could have for the second goal, Cabaye’s free kick was excellent, and the way Dummett exploited this with a true poacher’s instinct was superb, remarkably so for such a young, inexperienced player who is supposed to be a defender rather than a striker. But I digress… (more…)
Confused Cardiff fans (thanks to Mike at Urban75.com).Venue: Cardiff City Stadium, Cardiff. Date: Sat 5th Oct, 2013. Kick off: 3.00pm. Referee: Kevin Friend (Leics). UK TV: None.
No matter what Alan Pardew or the club say, the sharks have started to circle around Alan Pardew now, and if the Magpies lose this one we could well be be seeing a Sky Sports sacking special live from St James’ Park before long. If he wins, it will be a case of Pardew on probation, but the club will then face a nightmare series of games against four of the Premier League’s top clubs, ie Liverpool, Sunderland (ok, maybe not them!), Man City, Chelsea and Tottenham. Poor Pardew, it might be a good idea for him to have Noda Cabs on speed dial?
If it does happen, it can’t be said that it is a huge overreaction to a handful of disappointing result as it was with his predecessor, Chris Hughton. As site reader ‘tunyc’ rightly pointed out on these pages yesterday (I checked), if we look at Pardew’s Premier League record over the last twelve months it has been P38, W11, D6, L21. That’s a shocking total of only 39 points from a season’s worth of games, with a Goal Difference of -27 and a win percentage of only 28.95%.(more…)
Sports Direct: Only using ‘unused’ advertising space.Inspired by members of the NUFC board saying Sports Direct only takes up unused advertising space at SJP, as well as Newcastle United’s lousy commercial revenue figures, I decided to do a little number crunching and research.
Referring to figures from other clubs using Deloitte’s “Annual Review of Football Finance” and all the other sources I could find, as well as looking at other revenue streams for the club using the club’s last published accounts. I estimate that as per Newcastle United’s last published accounts (for the 2011-12 season), the club is only getting just over half the commercial revenue it should be.
According to my research, if Newcastle United were an average Premier League club with around 27% of the club’s revenue coming from commercial sources such as shirt sales and sponsorship, we should be getting around £25 million per season in total when we are actually only getting only a paltry £13.8 million. Having written that, with the third highest average attendances in the Premier League, some might say that these figures could be skewed somewhat as Newcastle United might be expected to get a higher percentage than normal from matchday revenue. However, they were exactly the same as the average for the whole Premier League, around £21.5 million of £93.3 million, or 23% of total turnover. (more…)
Mike Williamson: You're simply the best!He is according to football stats site “whoscored.com” anyway, where he is Newcastle United’s only representative in their Premiership team of the season so far.
In this he joins players such as Robin van Persie, Juan Mata, Gareth Bale and other top players, just nudging out Tottenham’s Jan Vertonghen as best centre back, and tying with Everton’s Leighton Baines as best defender in the league full stop, with an overall rating of 7.6 out of 10.
Like Danny Simpson last season, Williamson is a vastly underrated player who may confound some of his armchair critics within the Newcastle United fanbase with his excellent defending statistics. It won’t confound Newcastle United’s Silver Supremo, Alan Pardew though, who recently said of the big lad:
“Willo’s been brilliant. People forget I’ve never favoured anybody over anybody else, and Willo put in one of his great performances (against the Mackems -wt). He was brilliant for us.”(more…)
