Alan Pardew was delighted with the Newcastle performance yesterday, if just a little disappointed that Newcastle couldn’t get the win.
Cheick Tiote – excellent performance yesterday
After Newcastle equalized through Leon Best on 57 minutes, the game became very open, but Newcastle looked more like the team that would win the game and Cabaye, who has a great game, went close twice at the end of the game.
To be fair, it would have been cruel to Villa, who had their own chances of winning the game, especially in that first half, when Darren Bent had missed an absolute sitter, after Gabriel Agbonlahor had expertly opened the scoring.
But Pardew was just delighted, and rightly so, from the contribution from Best, Cabaye and Cheick Tiote, who was seemingly back to his old self:
“I was really buoyed by our performance,” “When you come to Aston Villa you don’t expect to control the game for as long as we did.
“So I was really pleased by that. We got a grip of the central area of the pitch – Demba Ba helped our two midfield players get on the pitch, and they were outstanding today, Cabaye and Tiote.”
“Although you could be slightly disappointed not winning the game, I’ve got to be pleased to get a draw here with a performance that deserved a win.”
After the QPR game, we couldn’t make up our minds up about whether Newcastle were a good team this season, or just very lucky.
But yesterday Newcastle looked a very good side, who knew exactly what they were doing, especially in that second half, and they may even do better than we had expected this season.
That would be something!
Comments welcome.
15 comments so far
Dannyo
Sep 18, 2011 at 10:03 AM
Comment #1@Stuart
It’s in the Sun today, Pardews quoted on it.
Dannyo
Sep 18, 2011 at 10:06 AM
Comment #2Here’s what it’s saying from the article on the matter:
And on left-back Santon, Pardew delivered further good news with a positive prognosis on his knee problem.
“He’s had fluid taken from his knee and we think, fingers crossed, that will be OK.
“Maybe he’ll be available for next weekend,” he said.
“If that doesn’t cure the problem we think he’ll probably have an operation in there where we just go in and tidy it up. It’s not a cartilage, just a little bit of scar tissue.”
Stuart
Sep 18, 2011 at 10:10 AM
Comment #3Nice one! Hopefully we’ll get to see Santoon sooner than expected then!
Dannyo
Sep 18, 2011 at 10:13 AM
Comment #4I’ll try to restrict myself, but could things be better at this point? Ofc we could be nr. 1m but realistically… What a START to the season.
It’s immense, im buzzing!
Looking forward to the Nottingham match and even more so to see Ben Arfa feature.
StevieGee
Sep 18, 2011 at 10:22 AM
Comment #5I was at the match yesterday and agree with people that it was a good performance and that we definitely should have won the game.
Although I’m just catching up with the comments on this blog this morning and see a lot of people saying Tiote had an excellent game. Sadly you must have only seen the highlights because what I saw was Tiote constantly give away the ball, get caught in possession and put us under pressure. on a couple of occasions his giving the ball away at the back gave Villa decent opportunities to score and it was only because of Taylor, Collo & Krul clearing up and making good tackles that we didn’t concede from it.
He made up for it by providing the cross for Best’s goal but on several occasions he looked up and passed the ball across the middle of the park with no Toon player in sight and a Villa player would pic the ball up and break fast.
he broke up play in the middle of the park but he’s still sloppy in possession and also keeps turning back on himself rather than make an easy pass which concerns me and infuriated a lot of the fans at the game yesterday.
I realise this has turned in to a negative comment but from my point of view Tiote till hasn’t improved from last week and I felt he should have been dropped after the QPR match.
I hope we see more of Marveaux next match as he showed enough in the last ten or fifteen minutes to show he can create opportunities for us.
Best is definitely our best striker but Ba also showed some promise today.
Toon666
Sep 18, 2011 at 11:22 AM
Comment #6@5 – Couldn’t agree with you more regarding Tiote.
I don’t understand, after ever match there has been a mention on this site in each post match article about how well Tiote played.
I’ve watched the full 90 minutes of every match so far this season and for me Tiote has been the most consistantly bad performer across all the games.
I like the guy and he had some GREAT matches last season – but so far this season he has reminded me of David Batty a few years back – does nothing but give needless fouls away when we don’t have the ball – and when we do have the ball, all he does is either give it it away with stupid decisions to play it out of danger himself – or slow down any quick break we try by hesitating and passing it backwards/sideways.
I just don’t get all the post match praise he is getting recently. In the bottom 3 performers for me so far this season…..
davo
Sep 18, 2011 at 12:56 PM
Comment #7I watched the match on the telly and it must be said that our supporters were fantastic.You could hear them pretty much the whole game.
cgrizzly87
Sep 18, 2011 at 1:14 PM
Comment #8I’m sorry but Tiote wasn’t excellent yesterday, he was way below par. Why does he always do that stupid 180? It has become so easy to read! Often he will hesitate and miss the opportunity to move the ball forward, then gets himself and the team into trouble when there is no need.
Someone else has said that Tiote kept making poor passes and giving away possession, spot on in my opinion. He needs to pick it up (although his tackling is still very good) time for some Pardew man management!
Toon666
Sep 18, 2011 at 2:16 PM
Comment #9However what a GREAT over all performance!!! That was the best I have seen Newcastle play in quite a while!
Apart from a bit of real penetration up front, we bossed that match COMPLETELY for long periods.
Usually it is us who are under the kosh, defending bravely but always giving it straight back to the opponents – was so refreshing to see that we have that ability too – if just we can play to our potential.
And @ 7 – yeah the away fans were fantastic!! Even when we went 1-0 down – they never stopped singing.
The Villa fans were nowhere to be heard for 90% of the game. I love our fan base for that!!
cupiddstunt
Sep 18, 2011 at 3:25 PM
Comment #10StevieGee @ # 5
Sadly you must have only been looking at the lowlights Tiote had a pass rate of 84% so he lost less than one in five passes so much for your comment of ,
what I saw was Tiote constantly give away the ball, get caught in possession and put us under pressure.
Just shows what you THINK you saw was out and out crap, much the same as a lot of negative posters on this blog, you only see what you want to see and opta shows you are blind.
Toon666 opta say you are blind as well
cgrizzly87 opta says …………….need I say more??????
What game were you lot watching
cupiddstunt
Sep 18, 2011 at 3:26 PM
Comment #11Slitherpool humped big style
cupiddstunt
Sep 18, 2011 at 3:30 PM
Comment #12Soke 3-0 dwn in less than 30 mins so fourth place looking betand better
cupiddstunt
Sep 18, 2011 at 3:32 PM
Comment #13sorry keyboard playing up that should read “better and better”
Toon666
Sep 18, 2011 at 5:31 PM
Comment #14@ Cupiddstunt #10
I notice you didn’t include me in the “negative posters” and rightly so as I am as positive about the good stuff as I am negative about the bad stuff.
You mention the Opta stats for the game claiming they absolve Tiote and “prove” he didn’t have a bad performance because his pass rate was at 84% success for example.
If you read further down my first comment where it mentions most of Tiote’s passes are either backwards or sideways – and mostly short passes after he has hesitated too long and looks for the easy ball – then I would be EXTREMELY worried if he couldn’t hit his man at LEAST 84% of the time when it is a 3 yards sideways pass.
So stats mean very little when looked at by themselves – in fact they mean pretty much nothing.
If a defender makes 1 tackle and succeeds – that is a 100% success rate!! WOW – MUCH better than the defender who makes 20 tackles with only an 80% success rate!!!! Not…….
Your “opta stats” argument is invalid – I watched the whole 90 minutes of this game -as I have with every game this season – and Tiote is NOT playing well…..I don’t care what the “stats” say.
Toon666
Sep 18, 2011 at 5:36 PM
Comment #15@ 10 – It’s funny you should mention the Opta stats actually as that is EXACTLY what used to p1ss me off about David Batty too – his stats looked good if not great – but again – 3 yard backward passes that completely halt any potential break we were trying to make at the time – well he had about 100% success rate in those kind of passes…..