Match Thread Vs Newcastle United

I dont think they will mind but I copied this piece off SpursVital ... Plenty of truth in this ....

Written by Dubaispur





Pass. Shoot. Score? No. Run. Head. Off the ball. Composure? No. Blast the ball 80 yards. Again. Again. Again. Square for a tap-in? No. Blast the ball at the keeper. Again. Again. Again.

Sigh.

Tyneside has never been a particularly welcome destination for the mighty Spurs in recent years, and by all rights, we should have been apprehensive about this fixture from the start, perhaps even before our recent winning streak. We should have been doubly doubtful of our chances after witnessing the Toon's unbeaten start to the season. And we should have been triply concerned about the game when Sandro, VdV, and Adebayor were rated as doubts. But we weren't. Buoyed by our winning streak, we thought this game was ours for the taking. A resurgent Spurs, with the mighty Adebayor at the tip of the spear, sweeping all and sundry before them. And we were ever so close to doing just that. We twice took the lead. Twice. And then we twice threw away the lead in the most frustrating of circumstances. We had several more chances to win the game. But we threw them away with equal reckless abandon. Decision-making; we need some.

Oh, well, a point's a point, I s'pose.

Observations-

Oh, for a Cahill- In retrospect, relying on Ledley and Gallas to be fit, in order to hold Dawson's, Kaboul's and Bassong's hands, was a rather optimistic policy at best. Now both are injured. At the moment (a few minutes after the game) I don't know for how long Ledley will be out, but it's probably safe to assume a while. That leaves Bassong and Kaboul our only recognised centre-backs, and both looked shaky today after Ledley went off. Kaboul, while good in the air, lost that positioning sense which had served him so well over the past few games, and Bassong committed quite a few errors which left BAE struggling to keep track of Newcastle's runners. Neither are half as good without a gentle hand guiding them through games, which rather annoys me. They're bloody international defenders- Kaboul for France ,and Bassong for Cameroon. Heck, even Daws plays for England. Yet when thrown together they look as hesitant and unsure as two rather dim guinea pigs trying to find their way out of an electrified 50-mile spike maze. Now, I'm not saying we need to buy someone like Cahill. I still believe Redknapp made the right choice not going for a CB, as doing so could have seriously jeopardized the prospects of Steven Caulker. But we do need to somehow find a way to get at least one of our non-Gallas/Ledley CBs to man up and take charge. They can't keep passing the buck to someone else indefinitely.

BAE below average- He wasn't anywhere near his best today. It wasn't his fault, though; it was because of....

Gormless Gareth- A bit harsh, yes. But I could not come up with any other description of his non-tackling, feeble, malaria-stricken headless chicken impersonation. Sigh. He didn't have a good game. in fact, he barely registered. He failed to track Newcastle's wingers, leaving BAE alone and isolated in a 2 v 1 scenario several times. His decision making was truly terrible, way beyond even the team's dreadful collective mind-fail. He failed to produce even one semi-decent cross and the only time he burst past the full-back was when Simpson had a moment of madness and wandered off into midfield grinning inanely. A very, very bad performance. Wales success getting to him much? Maybe we need to start playing Townsend, to shake him out of the sense of complacency which seems to have taken hold of him recently...

Priceless Parker- Well, another exaggeration. But again, he did very well, Parker. Tired towards the end as Newcastle's thunderous rhinos charged about at will, but was effective in his screening and precise with his passes. Mostly.

Jolly Jake- The complete opposite of what he actually looked like in-game. While most of our boys broke out in occasional grins or at least flashed the occasional thumbs-up, Livermore conducted himself like his dear relative had just been brutally murdered by a man in a Newcastle jersey. His face was grim, his attitude sturdy and unyielding, and in a tussle in the second half between Livermore and Cabaye he pulsed with barely concealed venom. You sense that if Cabaye hadn't immediately gone to apologise, far from receiving just the angry push he eventually did, he would have had his limbs thundered into the stands and used as impromptu corner flags by Livermore the next time a 50-50 rolled around. Ah, Jake. Tried so hard to be a grim Roy Keane-esque midfield scourge. And didn't do badly at all, mind. Screened the defence reasonably well and made some good covering runs. But at the moment, and unfortunately for him, the ever-cheerful Sandro is doubly good at whatever thundering, scowling Jake tries to do. Which leads me on to....

Sandro the Mighty- We missed him today. Arguably more than we missed anyone else out of the legion of walking wounded we seem to perpetually carry around with us like some mobile field-hospital. He gives us boundless energy in the centre of the park, combined with an intimidating physical presence and some delightful attacking awareness. Combined with Parker, he would have completely nullified whatever threat the energetic Cabaye and the short, squat, thundering barbarian known only as 'Tiote' would have posed. He would also have given us far more by way of an attacking influence than Livermore did. I swear to the Lord, whatever esoteric injury curse Darren Anderton placed upon the Lane when he left, it better clear itself away soon, or I hire a witch doctor from deep inside central Africa to do the job for it.

Physios? What physios? - How many men have we got out now, ten, twelve? At least half our payroll are injured. Corluka's out, which means we'll have to play Kaboul and Bassong again against Rubin in the midweek fluff match. That'll lead to exhaustion when we play Blackburn away next. King's out now for god knows how long. Gallas hasn't played for God knows how long. Huddlestone's so far out of the picture he's dropped out of the frame and onto the carpet. Daws gone, Charlie gone, Niko gone, and what consolation have we got? The almighty Golden Ball winner in waiting that is Steven Pienaar. Sigh. Well, small mercies, I suppose. Still, our injury list is horrendous, and has been for so many seasons now it just isn't tolerable anymore. Where's the problem? The fitness coaches? Our generalized training drills? Our inept physios? Where? Tell me, Darren!

And finally-

Decisions, decisions....-By far the worst aspect of our draw today was our horrifying decision-making. So many times, when Adebayor was waiting for a tap-in from two yards out, one of VdV or Defoe would try to go it alone instead. Then, when Defoe made surging runs behind Newcastle's weary back line, Adebayor turned selfish, trying to do it all himself. When we were two-one up, we should have retained possession, took the sting out of the game, played the ball around. Instead we aimlessly bashed it 80 yards to Krul or the Toon back line. Over, and over, and over, and over. Giving them possession, surrendering the ball, throwing away any sense of stability and encouraging their attacking endeavours. Why? god only knows. Same thing with Walker's burst up field; he ran, and ran, and ran, and then overran the ball in front of their area, when a pass to Defoe could have finished the game off. So many poor decisions. As a team, we will never be regular Champions League entrants if we continue to be this brainless when it comes to the simple things- pragmatism, intelligence, experience. We lack all of those, and it's worrying that, even after Parker's arrival, we still do.

Sigh. Well, at least it's a point at Sports Direct@St.James' Park. It counts as a decent result, and we've managed to keep pace with Liverpool. Our players are more or less settled now, and our unbeaten run now stretches to five games, with very winnable ones against the likes of QPR and Blackburn coming up. Newcastle are bound to lose when they face the Manchester clubs away in consecutive fixtures, and that should deflate them enough to give Chelsea the win the game after that double-header. So everyone will get points off them except Spurs, who faced them when they were at their strongest with half our team injured. Sigh. Still, we've now got six relatively easy games coming up, and should be aiming to secure at least fifteen points from those fixtures. That'll give us ten wins from fourteen games ,which would be a fantastic total to reach by the end of November/ early December. So chin up, lads, and let's gear up and roll on to the next fixture.

and, look at it this way; It's almost certain Shola Ameobi will never score again.

Sigh. Tottenham Hotspur. The Roy Sullivan of world football.

And the Spurs go marching on.

last 10 mins 2 aganst 1 ade defoe ade should of passed for defoe for tap in and didnt.

few mins later same scenrio but this time defoe and ade and defoe has a shot and it comes back to him and has ade with a tap in and goes for another pot shot

then its walker who runs whole lengh of the pitch and is 3 on 1 now but goes for wild shot.

im sorry but they wouldnt do that at man u. fergie would be goin mental at the lack of team play there.

its ok if your 3 1 4 1 up but at 2 1 you get chances like that it should be game over,

VisionarySound wrote:

ArnieArdiles wrote:

VisionarySound wrote:

ArnieArdiles wrote:

anicoll5 wrote:I think you are being a bit harsh lads. The first half was pretty diabolical for both sides but after half time and the penalty Toon opened up which brought the game to life. Pardew has set up Toon to be a difficult to beat side and so it proved yesterday. They ran hard and battled for everything and in spite of Modric's technical superiority he constantly found himself harassed and hustled, Bale faced the same double teaming, Ade tightly shackled. And when they got the ball Toon had two lanky awkward strikers willing to hold it up.

Very good goal from Ameobi to level it - a fair result and plenty of other sides will drop points at SJP this season

Have to agree with our Gooner mate Nico that perhaps some of us are being a tad harsh here...

Newcastle are coming along nicely under Pardew .. He's got them playing as a unit , all willing to go the extra mile for him.... The foundations have been laid for a good future if they can add real quality in two or three positions over the next few transfer windows...

Arnie are you having a "bubble" my friend ? At 2-1 we had the game in the bag. Poor decision making on the pitch let us down. Bassong for King was the changing moment . . . .
SJP is a tough place to get a result , more so against a confident , vibrant set-up... This is not a shite Newcastle team with the Geordie support turning on its own ......
3 points would've been great seeing as we were leading with 10 minutes to go but on the balance of play, I'd say a draw was the fairest result...

Vis , the game was never in the bag , did you really think so because we were 2-1 up after 70 minutes ?

To many of our players had off days , it wasn't one of our best team performances , not from what I saw..Our passing was poor and apart from maybe the first 10-15 minutes of the game I didn't really see us dominating long periods of the game ...

I'm disappointed like the rest of us that we didn't hold on to the three points but for me, it were never in the bag ...

Yup I did think it was in the bag Arnie, but it always looked like we was going to throw them away ! Frustration is my main feeling from this game, so many players had an off day . . . . .

After we went 2-1 up, I were thinking we needed another one because we couldnt control the game with possession...As already been said , we had the chances for 3-1 and 3-2 ....Was the same old from last season, where lesser teams on paper were having a go , then we were, friggin basketball type football ...
What was needed was calmness and ability to hold onto the ball against this type of opponent , we didnt do it and by the time the ref blew for time it could've been a lot worse...

Very good stuff lads - you should send that Dubai Spuds down to the Emirates - a boo boy like that would feel right at home

Reading some of the comments on here it appears you were not in fact playing Newcastle United, a side who started above you in thePL and finished above you, but Canvey Island Reserves

If only Arry had done this or that we would have slaughtered them lol

Trouble is the only ones who had not read the script was Toon

And in the final ten minutes chaps you were clutching by the fingertips

Fair result as I said - as i think even Arry said - get a grip

it shouldnt of been hanging on. the game should of been out of reach.

we had to many players who run out of puff. how the hell could ade last 89mins if he had a dodgy hamstring.
bale bottled every tackle. vdv is lucky hes scoring cos hes doing nuffin else

442 im convinced we would of won.
why play parker livermoor and be so defensive aganst them lot, we was scared of them lol

FFS 442 isnt the best tactic since slice bread u know its too open away from home think about Newcastles midfield Pardew got his tactics spot on to make them hard to beat he thought Aryy would of gone 442 but he didnt Pardew had bulldozer Tiote and Cabaye sitting there then the two wingers flying down which meant Walker and benny coundnt fly down as much as they wanted we tried the same thing with Parker and Livermore sitting so it made for a tight game which it was first half then we scored the penalty so Newcastle had to attack more. Yes 442 did bring us more chances if players hadnt been more greedy but we could of easly lost the game with there chances too.

the problem is playing modric on the right. no cover for walker
playin vdv whos unfit and ade who has hamstring problem

Seems to me Arnie, unlike the man from Dubai who has other fish to fry, you base your analysis on the eternally solid rock of hindsight - it is a common trait among the doom merchants at the Emirates.

You describe the gaffe Arry made that resulted in Modric spending his time supporting Walker and not in central midfield - Cesc you say would never have been used in that way.

Then you go on to say that Livermore, as an inexperienced should have been performing the midfield/defensive job that Modric was taking on.

Well hold on Arnie, as far as I can see Walker had a torrid afternoon and needed a hand, and if that required Modric to get about the pitch more and offer a defensive back up then that seems sound tactics to me. Stick young Jake out there with Walker and the risk is that two inexperienced youngsters would have had a torrid afternoon and the run around by Guttierez.

Ironically the Dubaispud says Livermore did well in the middle screening the defence and playing the hard man - he appears to make the points that someone uglier than Modric was required against the Toon muscle.

Seems to me an inelegant solution but one that worked and one that Arry would use again

so yes you are being unfair to Arry as far as Sunday goes

As for Cesc not being required to help out if the flanks are threatened then that seems to be a tactical failing on the part of AFC

I don't really remember Sagna ever being put to the sword by any winger but Eboue had frequent need of support as the best he had in front of him was Theo

and you can shut up as well Baz !

and you can shut up as well Baz !

[quote="anicoll5"]Seems to me Arnie, unlike the man from Dubai who has other fish to fry, you base your analysis on the eternally solid rock of hindsight - it is a common trait among the doom merchants at the Emirates.

You describe the gaffe Arry made that resulted in Modric spending his time supporting Walker and not in central midfield - Cesc you say would never have been used in that way.

Then you go on to say that Livermore, as an inexperienced should have been performing the midfield/defensive job that Modric was taking on.

Well hold on Arnie, as far as I can see Walker had a torrid afternoon and needed a hand, and if that required Modric to get about the pitch more and offer a defensive back up then that seems sound tactics to me. Stick young Jake out there with Walker and the risk is that two inexperienced youngsters would have had a torrid afternoon and the run around by Guttierez.

Ironically the Dubaispud says Livermore did well in the middle screening the defence and playing the hard man - he appears to make the points that someone uglier than Modric was required against the Toon muscle.

Seems to me an inelegant solution but one that worked and one that Arry would use again

so yes you are being unfair to Arry as far as Sunday goes

As for Cesc not being required to help out if the flanks are threatened then that seems to be a tactical failing on the part of AFC

I don't really remember Sagna ever being put to the sword by any winger but Eboue had frequent need of support as the best he had in front of him was Theo

and you can shut up as well Baz !


Nothing to do with hindsight Nico, its post match football debating and plenty have said it in the past. Modric's best influence of a game is in the middle of the park ....Our best player for ball retention tracking back out on the right flank due to continued loss of ball possession in the middle of the park to me is a no brainer ...
If you recall, we actually started Bale out on the right and whilst, Bale was not productive in his forward play in that first half, at least we kept the magpies left wing play relatively quiet ...Modric was on the left in the first half but the Magpies carried no real threat that side of the pitch so what did Harry do? Well he switched over the two players , one who has experience of defensive duties, with one that does not, onto the side where the magpies were at their most dangerous! If you want to argue the point on Harry's behalf and call it my hindsight then by all means do so but its falling on deaf ears here , sorry ..


By the way I was not advocating Livermore not being on the pitch (read previous post)I actually thought he done okay in his defensive duties and might well have had a goal for himself, had Defoe been selfless and aware ...

I still don't understand who you are saying could/should have done the covering job that Modric did Arnie

Anyway all about opinions - and my opinion is Mancini's ambitions to stay at Citeh for a few years are sinking fast