Newcastle United v Aston Villa - Official Build Up / Matchday Thread

Good to see Colo and Williamson back together. Thought Dummett had a decent game.

 

I'd feel happier and reassured if he said it was what he wanted.

 

Dummett was my MOTM today.
100% workrate and tidy off the ball too.
Well done to him.

 

Between Dummett and Colo for me. Colo came straight back in and fitted right in.

 

Great to have Colo back, the team just seem to play better when he's there.

Can't fault Dummett's game, he put in a great performance.

 

Yes, all three were solid.

 

I think a special mention has to be made for Iron Man Mike for 'that tackle'
I know he only stuck his foot out at Benteke, but it was a three on two break
with Agbonlahor looking to make his move

 

Iron Man Mike got 97% of headers he went for,brilliant. Back four looked solid.

 

Our most improved player. Another good game for him.

 

I wonder if there's some kind of magic going on here... Perch was s***, then became immense... Then he left... Now Willo's, who was even s*****, became immense...

If we sell Willo, will Gosling start playing well?

 

Wonder if there's any significance in the fact that Santon, Ben Arfa and Marveux weren't even on the bench?

 

Significant in that Santon was injured, HBA was injured and Marveaux spat his dummy again during the week and was told to train with the under 18s team. I think Santon would have been on the bench at best anyway as he has been awful recently and hauled off after 45 mins against Tottenham. Not sure why Sammy wasn't on the bench though.

 

Just got back to Staly after being at the match today (via my parent's), big smile on my face. Yes we were mediocre for large parts of that show, but we got going in the end and just about shaded it. You can see that the guys were very low on confidence after recent results and it took a while to get their tails up. In this sense Villa were a good side to play as they were so poor.

The game seemed to swing late on after Willo's fantastic tackle on Benteke, when their attck looked clean through. That and Remy going up the other end and going close finally woke the crowd and then we had a lot of pressure. I thought De Jong made such a difference as well, Cisse was poor yet again.

So some positive performances. Colo and Willo were immense, and Dummett was pretty good too, especially with his dead ball deliveries which looked dangerous. De Jong and Remy looked like a good combo towards the end, hopefully once he is match fit De Jong will start instead of Cisse. Anita too- you could tell he wasn't having his best day, but he never hid and grew into the game towards the end.

All in all, a good day when we finally reach 40 points. Still in 8th, still close to Manure and the toffees, still miles ahead of the bottom half. Hoping that this result might help us turn a corner and get a run together, confidence is always the most valuable thing.

 

Good assessment. Some people are saying this result papers over the cracks which I agree with to an extent but a win is a win, and they've been few and far between recently so I'm going to enjoy this one.

 

Well what a drab game. All said and done we have reached 40 point before the end of February, so its a job well done by manager, coaches and players despite all the negativity. I thought we were pretty poor for long periods yesterday, again lacking quality and guile. The cold hard fact is without Cabaye we are very workmanlike. I thought Lambert handed us the game to be honest when he took off Westwood. Not sure what he was thinking as the lad had run the game to that point. That and Willo's brilliant late tackle. I was pleased with Colo, Debuchy and Willo. All three were very solid. Personally I have been surprised to read all the positivity on here around young Dummett. I was a big advocate of his inclusion but I was disappointed. Whilst the troubles we had down his side were not really his fault as the Gouf gave no protection or work yesterday, his passing was pretty shocking. The number of times he just lumped it forward aimlessly was very frustrating. I'd like to see Haidara in there.

We never really got to grips with their diamond formation (many have struggled with them on their travels this season) and the bald headed El Ahmadi was excellent at finding space. Not so good at making full use of it thankfully. Tiote did fairly well in the breaking up of play but Anita I thought struggled a little. Sissoko worked quite hard but just didn't have the final ball.

The Gouf. Jesus wept. Easily his worst display in black and white. I really like him but he was f**king awful yesterday. Looked short of match fitness as you'd expect and everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Bacuna gave him an almighty beasting. Remy did well. Cisse showed nice touches but was pretty poor.

The support - there are fans making me not want to bother at present. It was a terrible atmosphere, and the minority (however small) who booed at half time yesterday should just stay at home as far as I'm concerned. I'm not sure why they bother. Get behind the f**king team, they are lacking enough confidence. Obviously the run of results had everyone a bit edgy and the groans for every misplaced pass (there were plenty) just seemed to worsen the mood. We were incredibly quiet until the last 10mins. Willos tackle seemed to spark everyone to life and we saw what happens when the support gets behind the team. Its a two way street. Yeah the players have to give the fans something to cheer, but the fans sometimes have to give a bit of backing regardless and help spark something. Particularly when the team is so low on confidence.

Krul - 7 Good solid game. Starting to pass it out when the chance arises at long last.
Debuchy - 7 - Solid game. Didn't offer as much going forward but otherwise pretty good.
Dummett - 5 - Might be controvesial for some. Ok defensively, and dead balls had quality on them. However his passing and propensity to lump the ball gave Villa a lot of possession.
Colo - 8 - Great to have him back.
Willo - 8 - Very good and a cracking partner for Colo.
Tiote - 7 - Broke up play well and did ok considering he was under siege in the middle on his own.
Anita - 5 - Big fan but he just struggled throughout.
Sissoko - 6 - Didn't have a greta game but I thought he worked quite hard and battled
Gouf - 3 - One to forget. When he tried to push Remy off the free kick from 30 yards, I thought "you are having a laugh son". Then he got is hands on the one from 23 yards, I knew the result.
Cisse - 5 - He tried but he is broken never to be fixed.
Remy - 8 - Would have been a 7 but that goal was very important. Worked hard and made us a much better team.
LDJ - 7 - He needs to play alongside Remy. When he came on and Remy went deeper, we looked much much better.

Fans - 3 - We need to get our fingers out and remember what supporting a team is about. Yes there is some **** happening off the pitch which is frustrating, but its get behind the team. It makes a big difference
Manager - 5 - Should have rescued the Gouf from his nightmare. Yes options were scarce but the lad was suffering. Put Haidara on the wing. Why start with Cisse instead of LDJ? Crazy. Face it, you can't fix Cisse, Newcastles Torres is broken forever. I accept he has been royally screwed by the sale of Cabaye, it has broken the perfect balance we had in our 3 man midfield. I'm not sure what the solution is to be fair but we need to find something, maybe Gouf in the hole with Remy left. I aslo think Pards should have known how Villa were going to play and prepared better for the diamond problem they presented us with.

Overall a draw was probably a fair result. The fact we held firm and snatched it is massive for us. We should now be looking to attack every game at home, and counter attack away. Amass as many points as we can.

 

3 points is all I give a damn about.

 

Hacky's absolutely bang on, for me. I couldn't fathom the volume of positive comments about Dummett; he took us back to the bad old hoofball days - remember when it used to be Danny Simpson or Mike banging it long? Well, that became Dummett's default position - very poor. People moan about Santon, but his ability to take players on, find space, get forward should not be overlooked, I think a young attacked like Santon needs better than Gouffran in front of him, someone who's more LM than CF (when Jonas used to protect Enrique is the best example). Personally I think the time has come to move Santon into the left of midfield. He has the right foot that seems to be Pardew's 'must have' for someone on the left, but can use his left peg, and has enough about him to track back properly. I'd be tempted to go with Haidara and Santon as the first choice on the left for a few games and see how it pans out. Gouff's a good option, but someone needs to remind Pardew that it's a squad game.

Gouffran did seem awful; his one decent moment was when he tracked back at pace to deny Agbonlahor a free counter-attack. But that was it. Impossible to play him in the hole, as he doesn't have the guile or confidence on the ball to do it. Anita can't do it all, he's a simple player but I think Loic Remy solved our problem on his own yesterday by dropping deeper once LDJ came onto the field; the onus was off Remy to lead the line, so he could operate more like a Rooney number 10 by collecting from deep. He has an unshakeable confidence which allows him to go past players and whilst he doesn't have the killer pass, arguably he doesn't really need it if the options left and right are good.

The fans do need to sort it out. I can't really talk, because I rarely get to a game myself, but if I could and was paying £30, I'd be pretty annoyed at myself if I couldnt try and get the team pumped up. I do agree that the team needs to do their bit, but it was like a morgue from kick off; it's like we should be decimating teams 5 or 6-0 when we're at best the 7th best side in the country.

I think we deserved the win in the end - Villa, for all they were better for 50 mins or so, didn't really have clear cut chances, they couldn't rue misses. We hit the post and scored, plus Cisse missed that sitter, so 3 points and 1-0 was about bang on for me. On the subject of Cisse, he needs to be sold this week. His presence damages the team - a while back someone called Talksh!te and claimed that the players didn't want to pass to him, that he sucked confidence from the side. On yesterday's evidence, hard to argue! He is utterly detrimental to the team and needs to be sold for whatever money the Russians will pay us ASAP. I'd much rather persevere with LDJ and Remy, with Gouff/Armstrong as backup and Shola as last resort. With 40 points, there's no need to try anything else or try and 'fix' him.

Summary:
- Dummett's not the best LB at the club, Haidara probably is
- Santon's potentially the best LM at the club.
- Remy 10/LDJ 9 is potentially an excellent partnership
- Sissoko is the best RM at the club
- The team now picks itself
- Cisse needs to go
- HBA's going to have to go
- Saylor has to go
- Armstrong needs game time

 

I damn don't give a don't.

Anyway, poor old Guzan was so frustrated that he pulled all his hair out.

 

Thing about Dummett was the amount of times Colo was pulled out wide to deal with a Villa break when Dummett simply wasn't there. As I said, at times yesterday Colo was playing auxiliary left-back as well.

 

But this was partly because Villa were obviously targetting Dummett at the start of the game. He looked a bit shaky at times but I bet that will go given more game time.