Similarities between this and the Stoke away game last season

I remember the last time we had a load of injuries and we were worried about our weaknesses instead of focusing on our strengths.

Pardew played 5-3-2 and played Sol Campbell as he was worried about Stoke's aerial threat and our weakness in defending against them in the air. We put so much emphasis on not losing rather than winning, that we got raped 4-0.

Today, playing Shola was pointless. Our defense was **** and Shola made little difference. He may have won the odd header but he killed our attacking play up front, apart from a few good moments.

We should have played HBA from the beginning, and we may have scored more goals and the game could have been totally different. Norwich would have been shakey.

Shola made no difference to our defense today. If we have defensive issues we should just go all out and attack, and focus on our strongest areas and making the opposition suffer, not adding a tall player to the team in hopes of not conceding.

Maybe Pardew should think about this. Instead of going into a game worrying about avoiding defeat, try harder to win!

We may still have conceded goals, but we could have scored more and killed the game off!!!

 

shola created the most chances out of all of our team.

 

So a whole article criticising Pardews choice in Shola (who wasn't that bad) yet no mention of Obertan who did absolutely **** all again. I wish people would get of Shola's back.

 

His overall play for most of the game was ****e though, in the first half he was pants. We needed Ben Arfa and his style of play today. We were playing lump ball all first half.

 

Yes but playing Obertan was obvious mate, that's not the point of the article. I'm criticizing Pardew for valid reasons. Instead of playing Shola in hopes of him winning headers in our box, he should have played Benny and just gone for it.

 

yes but look at the last couple of games shola's played in spurs he score against and then Chelsea were he was one of our best players when he came on.

 

It's the same pattern with Shola though, he has a good couple of impact sub appearances then gets picked to start and is ****e.

Last year was the same. He scored as a sub vs Wigan and was in the first team the week after, and was ****e.

Shola is decent when fighting for his place as a sub or w/e but ****e most games when he starts.

 

You can't blame pardew for a player not playing well though can you.

 

To be fair Ameobi's been just as productive as Ben Arfa this season. Just because Ben Arfa looks more threatening on the ball compared to bambiobi doesn't mean we would have won this game. Pardew would have gone with the view that at some point Norwich would get corners and free kicks in dangerous areas and someone in a Newcastle shirt would need to head the ball. I'd say there was more chance of Ameobi doing that than Ben Arfa.

 

I'm sorry Tash but this whole article is totally pointless. You have clearly created it out of shear dislike of Shola. Now don't get me wrong, I have probably criticized him as much as the next guy, but you always complain even when he has a decent game (like today). Have you ever thought that Ben Arfa maybe needed a rest after playing three games against quality opposition. That will have been his first three consecutive games in quite some time I would imagine.

 

Everybody needs to lay the **** off Shola. He had a decent game and did his job well, helping create a number of opportunities. There were a number of other players today who deserve more of the flack, most notably Obertan who is starting to get right on my tits.

 

It's nothing at all to do with how **** or good Shola is! It's how Pardew approached the two games I've mentioned.

He obviously put Shola in the side for his aerial ability and height so he could help defend set plays.

Our defense was going to leak goals, simple as, we should have just kept HBA in the side and tried to score more goals and kept out attacking quality up, instead of adding another tall player to the side and worrying about conceding.

If we had have scored more goals then Norwich would have been shakey, the evidence - They shat themselves after Demba made it 3-2 and had their backs against the wall for a while until Perch conceded a silly free kick and handed them a chance to win the game.

Goals would have totally changed that game. Shola got a good assist today, but his was overall quite ****e, and I think having HBA in the side would have made a big change to the way the game went.

 

Differences:

Sol Campbell wasn't playing
I wasn't there (I'm a bad omen)
We scored
We scored again
I like the other team today

 

Completely agree tbh.

It's clear as day why Pardew chose Ameobi. He wanted another tall player on the pitch to help defend against set pieces as Norwich have those big heavy forwards. Pardew even specifically mentioned that he was worried about Perch and Simpson not having enough height.

Did it work? Did it ****. And it's the second time this tactic hasn't worked, so hopefully Pardew will drop it.

And I thought Shola was ****e. He did absolutely nothing for a full hour, then had some fairly decent play for 10 or 15 minutes so now he's had a 'decent' game?

Before half time, Shola offered absolutely zero attacking threat. In fact, I can't even recall him taking a single shot on or off goal. He probably did, but I can't remember it.

Ben Arfa could have done a lot better. Don't forget that he's still coming back to match fitness, and who has he had to deal with in his last few games? Chelsea, Man City and Man Utd, who all have the toughest defences in the entire league. This was an opportunity for Ben Arfa to tear apart a team which doesn't have so much pure class and organisation as those top teams. These are situations where players like Ben Arfa can excel. Whilst some of the best defenders in the league (in the top teams) have experience dealing with tricky players like HBA, teams like Norwich do not. They just wouldn't know how to handle him.

However, it's a missed opportunity now. I really just hope that people don't criticise HBA based on these last few games against some of the hardest defences in the league. Note that Ba also failed to score in the Man Utd, Man City and Chelsea games as they were that hard to break down. The only way he did score was via a penalty.

 

Never thought that the only person to agree with me would be chappaz, it's a rip in the space time continuum!

 

I'd hate to say i told you so...

Tash and chappaz were the few to agree with us
But we lost, so **** it.

 

Ben Arfa has had virtually zero end product every time he has played this season so it's jumping the gun to say he'd have made any difference today. All random speculation.

You could do a virtualy identical article saying Best would have been a better option as he'd create and score more, given that he's done far far more in the games he's played this season than Benny has.

 

Benny would have been a damn sight better than Gosling, that's for sure.

 

He's started 3 games in which we managed scored 2 goal and he assisted 1 (although it was never a foul). That means he had as much end product as the rest of the team in those 3 games

 

So Ben Arfa's ratio of goals / assists to games is 33% (1 assist in 3 games).

Best's ratio of goals / assists to games is 50% (3 goals & 2 assists in 10 games).

So it's easier to argue that Best would have been the better option. Like I say, it's all speculation. I'm not saying Best should've started, just showing that the article could easily speculate that numerous players could've created more or had a bigger impact.