The Newcastle defense on Monday night was lax a few times, and on two of those occasions Fulham took advantage of the opportunities that Newcastle offered them and scored – and that was enough to beat a severely slumping Newcastle side 2-1.
Alan Pardew – training in the snow last week
And in truth Newcastle could have been two or three goals down by the break, and although we came back well in the second half and got level through a great goal from Ben Arfa, another bout of poor defending on a Damien Duff free kick cost Newcastle all three points.
And it’s poor planning by the Newcastle Board for the position we are in, plus a number of severe injuries we’ve sustained this season.
But we have known for the last two seasons that the defense has been our Achilles heel, and so it has proved again this season, and yet we haven’t brought in any new players to strengthen the defense.
We have a tough five games through January 2nd, when we face Manchester City (h), QPR(h), Manchester United (a), Arsenal (a) and Everton (h), and we cannot see us getting many more than 6 points out of those five games – at best.
So that would put Newcastle on 20 points from 21 games, and we could see ourselves in the relegation zone when the January transfer window opens.
How many points do you think we’ll get out of those five games?
And it’s not like the new players will make an immediate change, although that’s what Papiss Cisse did last year, but Papiss has been a pale shadow of the player he was last season for Newcastle – so far.
So unless we start improving and cutting out the daft goals we keep conceding to lose games, we could see ourselves in the bottom three by years end.
There’s always one positive thing though – we’ve been wrong before. 😀
What do you think?
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14 comments so far
Nufc-83
Dec 12, 2012 at 8:48 AM
Comment #1Getting played on the wing or up top alongside ba is severely impacting cisse’s performances. Play him through the middle with two creative players out wide and we will have the same player as last season taking to the pitch.
Marty-Toon
Dec 12, 2012 at 8:48 AM
Comment #24 points if we can beat Qpr and draw with Everton.
We gift opportunities to teams that can’t score goals so hopefully they’ll wait to play someone else before scoring.
Indian Magpie
Dec 12, 2012 at 8:48 AM
Comment #3according to a survey by Sun Newspaper 62% of arsenal fans think wenger should go.
Wonder how many NUFC fans would wait in favour of pardew going
jesperfuglsang - captain of the lemon crew
Dec 12, 2012 at 8:48 AM
Comment #4Repost
…I didn’t say MA was cheap merely that both him and Pardew had been naive or even arrogant about where we were.
Money spend rightly would have been a sound investment when you look at how much tv money he’ll get next season…if we are still in the PL that is.
By the way buying a football have never been a good investent for anybody (you do it for the love of the game our you don’t do it at all) There was an article not long ago in the Mag I think about this being the first time in 40 years that Newcastle was owned by someone who wasn’t a Newcastle fan/supporter – we have a Tottenham fan as an owner.
Santon, MA just bought the wrong club and when he bought our club it was just before the finansial meltdown (I think he has an naive nature non the less)
Transfer Sage
Dec 12, 2012 at 8:50 AM
Comment #5http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/transfers/demba-ba-buyers-scared-off-by-his-30m-price-package-8393692.html
just a little insight into Ba
Marty-Toon
Dec 12, 2012 at 8:52 AM
Comment #6Creative players?
We have them but they haven’t been creative this season at all.
Anita looks the part but Tiote,Cabaye(injured now of course) and Jonas are just a shadow of themselves.
Benny has done well but we are underperforming all over the shop.
Cisse is constantly offside this season but it’ll come good.
Just hope it won’t be too late
In regards to Tiote ,do you think he’s poor because AP told him to cool down on his tackles?
His passing has been poor this season too and he’s losing the ball way too easily.
Geordie in Africa
Dec 12, 2012 at 8:54 AM
Comment #7Fulham v Newcastle Analysis
I still think the failing is the nonsense system which we reverted to again after 10 mins Monday night.
He played Cisse as a winger to start with, where we was clueless. He then moved him back inside and funneled everything through the middle with no width, having decided that Cisse would be best positioned in the middle. He is right that Cisse is better in the middle, but that was not the problem. He should have played a proper wide player; even Obertan, who can stretch the game and regularly distracts two defenders when he is on. On the left there was nobody except Santon, who was expected to cover 80 yards of the pitch at all times, without cover, which made him look lazy for not recovering his position. Ben Arfa had little space in the middle or was held out to the right, and Gutierez looked totally confused.
Passes into the strikers were received with their back to goal, which means controlling before striking, which is neither Ba nor Cisse. Passes into space meant Ba or Cisse running towards the corner flag to receive them. Cisse is far from crap, but he now looks crap.
The midfield was too thin with only Anita and Tiote, both of whom were under pressure all the time, and it took little to get through them when we were counter-attacked.
Long balls meant no control, which meant no decent attacks; and positioning of players in this way meant no counter attacks. How the arse are we supposed to score? Thankfully, we have a player in Ben Arfa, who can score from 20 yards surrounded by defenders with no space. Even Pardew can’t make this guy look bad.
When we lost possession, we were too thin to be able to press them, which we did very well against Wigan, and the lack of cover for Santon and the disappearance of Tiote meant that it took them just one or two passes to create a 3 v 3 against our defence. They could have scored six.
Ben Arfa had to go off, no issue there. But he was replaced by Ameobi who went and stood next to Ba and Cisse in an already-congested penalty area, forcing us to play even more shitty long passes. On 80 mins, Pardew just started making it up as he went along – he made two substitutions which added nothing but more players who had no idea what they were supposed to be doing.
After they scored one goal, which had a significant element of luck, Pardew gave up and changed back to his ever-useless 4-4-2 English lower league football. I would assume that the Wigan win gave him confidence in a different system, and they had been working on something since then. Instead, one goal, and he shit himself. From that moment, all of the training went out of the window, and players were all moved around and were forced to remember something which they had not worked on for two weeks. It is now played five, lost five with this approach.
Albert Einstein once said “it takes a proper twat to continually carry out the same experiment but expect the result to be different” (That’s the Geordie translation). He also said “Everything must be made as simple as possible. But not simpler.”
Alan Pardew said before the game “We’ve put a new resilience in the team.” “I don’t care if Hatem’s fit or not, he needs to come in and understand there’s a different look to the team.”
“The team’s got a little bit more drive in it, a little bit more energy.” “He needs to bring that in if he comes in against Fulham, or Manchester City on Saturday. We’re not far away from being a good side.”
The issue is why do they all look shit? You can’t explain the difference between this and last year with a lack of spending or depth. If one player looks crap, it’s the player; if they all look crap, it’s the system.
I will end with another Einstein quote “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?” – Hopefully the departure of Pardew!
Never mind, only another seven years and ten months to go.
jesperfuglsang - captain of the lemon crew
Dec 12, 2012 at 8:56 AM
Comment #8Ed, from a personal point of view, regardless of investments or not the team we have should be able to get us a top 8 or worse case senario top 10 finish.
…what we are witnessing is beyond that; injuries has been tough, but every team goes through thst. Is not that I don’t agree we are 2-3 first team players short, but it is not the reason why we are so pourly. This team got us a top 5 possition no matter have we twish and turn it!
The team is not performing and there is absolutely no vision in our tactics. We are back to the idiom ‘kill your darlings’, and the sooner Pardew gets that the sooner we’ll be back on course – signings or no signings!
eaststandgeordie1982
Dec 12, 2012 at 8:58 AM
Comment #9Can just see qpr getting their first win up here
Lew Davies
Dec 12, 2012 at 9:05 AM
Comment #104 points maximum from those 5 games.
1 is even more realistic. A draw at home to QPR. 😯
magpiedan
Dec 12, 2012 at 9:15 AM
Comment #11This is almost confusing how bad we’ve been. Last year we would’ve been expecting maybe 10 points with a bit of luck from these 5. I’m worried it may be 1/3 and that’s if we get a Wigan style game playing against 10. I’m hoping somewhere there’s a manager who has been watching our team and knows who’s good and bad so that after this run pard comes out and the new guy is in. Shearer never got a chance? We need a young guy definitely.
Les Grossman
Dec 12, 2012 at 9:24 AM
Comment #12Previous post
Santon03
Your point re Mike Ashley spending his money is irrelevant!!
He bought a football club. His choice, he didnt have to, he bought a football club with debt, again his choice, he wants to regain dsome of his money…..and why not, but surely when you buy a football club in the hope of making money, you have to invest in the club and the team to make them successful, or you simply wont make any money.
Its a simple business plan, that Mike Ashley follows when he can be arsed, or if he thinks it is a gamble, he admits he enjoys a gamble! If there is no gamble he does not seem interested! I sometimes wonder if he sees NUFC as his personal little Casino!
Situ in point, he gambled to go with the same team as finished the season strongly without building upon the relatively small amount of success we had last season…..the gamble hasnt paid off!! Will he twist or stick….and if he sticks, will you agree that the bloke has no ambition for this football club???
Charlie in the Gallowgate
Dec 12, 2012 at 9:31 AM
Comment #13Fine Margins
Relegation or staying up looking at the season we went down this season and the year we came up – makes interesting reading. The stats for 16 games which we have played now
Season 2008-09 Relegated
Played Won Draw Lost F A Goal Dif Pts
16 3 7 6 19 24 -5 16
This Season
Played Won Draw Lost F A Goal Dif Pts
16 4 5 7 18 23 -5 17
Just about the same stats
won 1 more, lost 1 more, scored 1 less goal, conceded 1 less goal and have 1 more point
Season 2010-11 back in Premiership
Played Won Draw Lost F A Goal Dif Pts
16 5 3 6 24 21 -3 19
Yet aftyer 19 games half way through the season.
Year we were relegated and our first year back in the Premiership
Played 19
pts 22 both seasons
Take what you want out of statistics – its a narrow margin between staying up and going down.
To me if we can stay free of injuries to key players and Ashley puts his hands in his pockets and buys 3 or 4 players with a track record then we will be safe- hopefully
wynsleap
Dec 12, 2012 at 9:57 AM
Comment #14As one of the so called ‘neggers’ on here I have often been criticised for saying Ashley has no ambition for this club.
The Ashley ‘accountants’ after the summer transfer window were more than happy for the owner to keep his powder dry and balance the books. Where are these fiscal geniuses now? We don’t hear much from them.
Unfortunately a balanced book can’t play full back or central defender.
I don’t think any club owner at any level of football would have stood still after a successful season before.
The natural instinct would be to improve and capitalise on that success to maintain progress. Not our owner however.
He’s more interested in putting his efforts into a failed football club in Scotland and looking for his next gamble at OUR club to see if he can make some more dough.
The bloke is a waste of space whichever way you dress it up and the worst thing to ever happen to this club (including Shepherd and Owen!).
I for one pray for the day he slings his hook for whatever reason.
With regards to Pardew I can appreciate the criticism he gets on here about team selections etc. but with an owner like ours we would be still staring down the abyss if we had Mourinho, Wenger or Guardiola etc. in charge.
The future may be Orange but it certainly ain’t black and white and that is heartbreaking to say it.