Alan Pardew seems convinced that Newcastle have enough strikers despite missing out on a replacement for Andy Carroll over the summer.
Demba Ba – can he get the job done?
Leon Best, Demba Ba, the Ameobi brothers and Peter Lovenkrands are all able to score goals for Newcastle, and soon Ben Arfa will be back from injury too.
So even though we were all disappointed at not getting a new striker in last week, surely Newcastle will be okay through December, in terms of being able to score enough goals?
Alan Pardew seems to think Newcastle will do just fine as he said this to say about his strike force yesterday:
“The guys who we have here last year are all still here.” “We have Hatem Ben Arfa back and training again.”
“The strikers did well for me last year, we will be relying on them again.” “As a squad and as staff we are disappointed that the striker didn’t arrive.”
“But we have enough here.” “My thoughts are the squad has improved in terms of size and quality.” “At times last year I didn’t think we were strong enough especially when looking at the bench.”
“This year it is, we have probably got competition to get on the bench which is really welcome.” “The signing of the striker hasn’t arrived and that is important.”
One of Pardew skills seems to be able to coax the very best out of his strikers, and he has a good coaching record in that department, and we will need the strikers in goal-scoring form if Newcastle are to remain above the relegation zone this season, and do as well as the lads did last season.
Alan talked again about his strikers today, as it’s an important part of the Newcastle side through December:
“The pool of strikers who are still here aren’t complaining.” “It is their chance to establish themselves as Newcastle players.”
“Certainly one or two of those, Leon Best especially, will be striving for that.” “We have some options which should see us through.”
“We are going into the unknown to a certain extreme because a lot of goalscorers that were here last season are not in this team.”
“We have a new set of talent and it is exciting.” “They have shown that in the opening games.” “We will be leaning on them to give us something different and to give us different type of goals.”
The two top goalscorers of the last two seasons, Andy Carroll and Kevin Nolan have left Newcastle this year, and that’s what Alan is talking about.
But in football when one door closes another opens, and this is a huge chance for players like Leon Best and Demba Ba in particular, to show what they can do in terms of putting the ball in the back of the net for Newcastle.
Comments welcome.
4 comments so far
cgrizzly87
Sep 9, 2011 at 1:00 PM
Comment #1it’s ok everyone we’ve still got Alan Smith!
mattnufc
Sep 9, 2011 at 1:02 PM
Comment #2With Best, Ba and Arfa we should be ok until Jan.
Robby Bobson
Sep 9, 2011 at 1:03 PM
Comment #3Best and ba will be an interesting partnership….i havent been convinced with ba as a CF he was more impressive as for west ham as wide of a front free….BA..Best..HBA…..seems strong enough to me (with guti, cabaye, tiote making up midfield.
Robby Bobson
Sep 9, 2011 at 1:05 PM
Comment #4Hope my last post is understandable with a complete lack of spelling or grammar