Davide Santon will be a lot better for the 120 minutes he played for Newcastle on Wednesday night, as the Magpies were beaten 4-3 after extra time, in their first defeat of the season.
Davide Santon – will learn quickly on Tyneside
But our lads still put in a gallant and fighting display on the night, and we were proud of them.
And don’t forget they almost brought off a wonder win, after being 2-0 down with just three minutes of injury time to play.
Davide Santon, our Italian International full-back, is obviously a gifted player with lots of technical skill like most Italians, and he showed glimpses of that on Wednesday night.
But it was also clear he needs to adjust to the pace of the English Premier League, and the much faster pace of English football than he’s used to.
Davide is anxious to do well on Tyneside, and manager Alan Pardew said the 20 year-old had been nervous before the game:
“It was a big game for Santon. I thought he was nervous beforehand and he understands now that it’s a different game.”
“A couple of times he thought he was going to get a free-kick when he got brushed aside, he stopped playing, and it caused us a problem at the time. Those little things he’ll learn.”
“But he was brilliant with the ball. He’s going to be a real asset to us technically and you’re only going to win trophies with good, technical players. He’s one of them.”
“It’s hard to come into a team that are performing as well as us and play to that level but they’ll certainly be more viable now they’ve had that game.”
Davide nearly put the defense in trouble a couple of times on Wednesday evening, when he stopped playing after he thought he had been fouled, but he will learn quickly to play on through these rough tackles, which are generally allowed in the English game.
We saw some criticism of the boy after Wednesday night’s game, but the lad is only 20, he’s in a new country, doesn’t yet speak the language, and so what he needs more than anything right now is support, more than anything else.
He’s not a superman – well not yet anyway. 😀
But Alan Pardew has proved he can quickly gain the respect of many different types of players, and that’s because of his knowledge of the game, his excellent man management skills, and he doesn’t lack any self confidence either.
All those characteristics that Alan has shown on Tyneside, are proving us dead wrong in our initial assessment of him, when he was appointed the Newcastle manager last December.
Quite simply, we thought Alan was a hopeless choice as manager, but he’s proving to be an excellent manager for the club in many ways, and he was almost born to manage a big club like Newcastle, with their terrific and fanatical fans.
Long may Alan continue to be successful at Newcastle, and we’re pleased we were wrong, once again.
And there’s no doubt in our minds that he will make Davide Santon into an excellent Premier League class full-back, and sooner rather than later.
Comments welcome.
11 comments so far
DoddsyNufc
Oct 29, 2011 at 12:30 PM
Comment #1Whats The Best website for live footy in the best quality?
niffnoff
Oct 29, 2011 at 12:34 PM
Comment #2http://www.firstrowsports.tv/ it’s the one I use.
niffnoff
Oct 29, 2011 at 12:35 PM
Comment #3Speaking of Santon, I heard he was quite attacking on the night, good stuff to hear, still don’t get why we played a guti as a left back that night though after they took simmo off. :\
DoddsyNufc
Oct 29, 2011 at 12:40 PM
Comment #4@niffnoff its very laggy mate, not sure its the server or my old mans laptop. cheers tho
niffnoff
Oct 29, 2011 at 1:05 PM
Comment #5sometimes it is dude net streams always do.
joppadoni
Oct 29, 2011 at 1:05 PM
Comment #6doddsy try changing your resolution. its rarely laggy and might be the flipflop
joppadoni
Oct 29, 2011 at 1:08 PM
Comment #7also if its laggy try changing the browser. spesh if your using multiple chrome windows open at the same time. very cpu hungry at times
LEROI
Oct 29, 2011 at 1:14 PM
Comment #8Just wondering is there still a debate as to who should start at left back? Has Raylor managed to keep his spot based on the fact he hasn’t been on a losing team this season? Has Santon done enough to gain a start on Monday?
joppadoni
Oct 29, 2011 at 1:17 PM
Comment #9id drop simpson after weds game… assuming the incredibly terrible display i saw from our right back was him.. ive not seen such a performance from a newcastle player in my life. always out of position never felt like he made an effort and was at fault for every goal. nice lad though by all accounts :S.
BigKirky
Oct 29, 2011 at 1:37 PM
Comment #10Gervinho missed a cross along the floor from about 6 yards out or something, against Chelwsuy.
I think Ryan Taylor has improved gradually, which he’s bound to over nine games, so Id like it if he stayed in. He offers great delivery, far better than Simpson’s efforts. Jonas gets pulled up a lot fir delivery and rightly so (i think he’s great for the team btw) but Simpsons is pretty poor as well.
The more games Santon plays, the better he’ll be and sooner or later he’ll start and for me, at the moment I’d probably go for Taylor over Simpson although I’d wouldn’t mind too much whoever got it.
In yesterdays practice kickabout Santon was on the left side btw.
joppadoni
Oct 29, 2011 at 1:46 PM
Comment #11also doddsy try http://eplsite.org/ find its more stable than firststream