I'll believe this when I see it.

Boss Working To Improve Set-Plays

Wednesday night sees one of the Barclays Premier League's set-piece specialists host a side which has fared rather less well from dead-ball situations so far, and Alan Pardew admits his team have been working hard in an effort to carry more of a threat from free-kicks and corners.
Stoke have long been renowned for scoring goals through set-plays, from Rory Delap's famous long throw to the clever routine which allowed Jon Walters to give them the lead against West Ham earlier this month.
By contrast, Newcastle have created little outside of open play this term and Pardew is keen to rectify that - and maybe even beat the Potters at their own game.

"We've changed our whole outlook on set-plays just this week and we've had to change it once already this season because we're just not getting enough success," he admitted.
"There's no point in sitting on your hands and going 'oh well, it'll come good' - you have to make changes.
"The bottom line is we need the first contact to be won and that's what Stoke do very well. They win the first contact and it always gives you a chance of scoring straight from that contact or from the second contact.
"You can only look at something and try to improve on it, and we're going to have to try and improve on it."
Stoke go into the game unbeaten at the Britannia Stadium this term, but Newcastle ran out 3-1 winners in this fixture last season with Demba Ba scoring a hat-trick.
Pardew said: "They're always very, very difficult to beat.
"Tony (Pulis) sets his team up and they're a strong, physical unit. Set-plays they excel at and they're very good defensively so it's hard for any team to go and break them down.
"That's something that we need to try and achieve. We won there last year with one of our big results of the season and obviously we're going to have to try and emulate that.
"You need to play your own game but you need to be able to cope with theirs - that's the question Boss Work

http://www.nufc.co.uk/articles/20121128/boss-working-to-improve-set-plays_2281670_2993313

 

As you all know I'm not the negative type but this to me sounds like we have come up with another ploy which we will adopt on every free kick or set piece. I hope I'm wrong, variety is the spice of life. We need a minimum of three different set pieces, all signaled by hand movements or otherwise so everyone knows which one we are running. I don't think that is complicated!

We need to learn to use devious tactics too (maybe a few beards are required?). All the best set piece sides (Man U, Stoke - Everton previously) use blockers and decoy runners. Now and again you need to go short too and just get the ball moving quickly. It would be a good tactic for us at present because they are expecting a slow meticulous long ball driven to the back of the box. We also need to ditch Willo as the first contact, he's rubbish at it.

I'll wait until they've ran the new one(s) for a couple of games before I judge and tonight is not the time against the best set piece side in the league attacking and defensive. They need to sort this out though. No word of a lie I reckon if you gave them to me for 2hrs a week I could sort this out, so there are no excuses which are acceptable.

 

Yes Alan... that makes sense. I can see his thought process.....

(***THOUGHT BUBBLE OVER PARDEWS HEAD) 'So how do we beat stoke........ AH I KNOW lets play them at their own game. they wont expect that. Bad tackles and set pieces'

(Tiote nudges Jonas and says) "Hey Jonas.... I think the boss is going to ask us to tackle them harder, launch longer balls and generally play as we have all season........."

(Jonas laughs... rubs his hands through his shorter than normal haircut and says) " Si senior Tiote... It looks like your gonna have another 3 match break"

(Tiote shifts forwards in anticipation) "ah... your right monsiour Jonas... what an opportunity for another break and a perfect excuse.. I just hope that Owen fella is on the pitch so I can break his........."

(Jonas shouts) "Dont mention his name, he still owes me money for a racehorse he bought off me"

PARDEW STANDS UP

"Right lads... this is how we beat them... I want.... you...... to............................(players eyes glaze over and start thinking of christmas pudding (ten minutes later)) ...... so thats what I want you guys to do ok"

players leave and prepare for game

After the game, 3-0 Stoke.... Pardew is sitting in his office wondering what went wrong prior to the press conference

(BIG THOUGHT BUBBLE) What on earth do I have to do to get 3 points around here. I need an excuse for the conference I know....

(Commentator) "what went wrong Alan"

(Pardew sniffs, whipes his nose and smiles sending positive signals and vibes) "Well, I got it wrong. I thought we could beat them at our quality set plays and told the players to play in exactly the same way as they do. The problem is they are better than us at that arnt they. I just dont have the players at my disposal and we all know whos fault that is.

(Commentator expects pardew to say Mike Ashley but what happens is )

(Pardew) "The players are at fault, I just dont have the quality and it is their fault, not mine or Ashleys"




Any bananna you get my drift! This was written in haste at work out of anger and frustration but I bet this is exactly how it happens!

 

Raylor was a fantastic set piece deliverer, and he put plenty of chances on a plate for us when he played. Unfortunately he just ended up scoring most of them rofl!

 

Stoke's 'hoof the ball up the pitch' tactics have not gone down well with the technical coaches of europe, mainy Jose marinho he describes as ' Stoke play are strange system of not guiding the ball with the passing like a balerrina in a opera, like Barcelona and Peter reid quoted 'their ****e'.

 

I wish Raylor would get himself fit. He looked in good nick and is the only one in our squad who I trust to deliver a decent ball. Makes some great blocks too.

 

As the title says...I'll believe this when I see it!

Hell, he was going on about improving set pieces 6 or so months ago. We are the worst team in Europe(maybe) at set pieces, they are abysmal. Pardew only seems to be noticing what we all have noticed for the past 8-12+ months.

 

Yes right send that useless **** Williamson up

 

Good to see that the man who gets paid hundreds of thousands of pounds to organise/manage the team has only take 18 months to finally see what us fans have been seeing since the start of last season.

It's getting to the stage where Pardew can't win either way with me (not partiularly fair I know). If he changes to 4-3-3 and we keep the ball on the deck and win, it'll be something fans have been saying since day one this season.

This interview just makes it look like he's taking longer than the common man in the street to spot our problems.

 

You're just on one with him its getting silly. He has been well aware of the issue and they have been working on it for a long time and he has mentioned it several times. Its fair enough to say "the work has not been good enough" because it hasn't but to claim he hasn't spotted it is simply untrue and you're right he can't win either way. That is just daft, not constructive and shows a lack of respect.

 

To be fair I did acknowledge it's unfair of me to be like that. However the fact that the work hasn't' been good enough (as you've pointed out) should be a major concern considering the amount of time our set pieces have been well below par.

 

As I have said on several threads it is not acceptable. I wouldn't want to focus all our efforts on it, because we should not be relying on set pieces like a Fat Sham type side. But when you are in a bad trot it definitely helps and its a nice string to have to your bow at all times. To me I feel it is quite a simple thing to become decent at, its simply about variety, being well drilled and hard work. It would nice to be perfect but I'd settle for the odd one at present. Saying that I do feel we'll never be one of the better sides because we somehow have ended up with no dead ball specialists. Raylor is obviously good but who else actually puts a nice ball in? Cabaye, Benni, Guthrie, Bigi, Tiote, Jonas they've fecking all had a go at some time or other in the last few years and have all come up short on quality. Don't get wrong though, even so we should still have managed something.