The night still could have been a success - My thoughts on the Cup game.

Well, we lost, but as soon as Cisse scored he looked orgasmic. That overhead kick effort was fantastic.

If Cisse gets back on form.... while Demba is on form...

We've had a tough start to the season with the fixtures we've had and the injuries, but I've got a feeling things could start going our way.

We've come through this tough start, and got a good points total from it. 8 pts from Spurs, Chelsea, Villa, Everton, Norwich.

Anyway -

Elliot - 7.5 - Some fantastic saves to keep us in the game. He's got good relfexes, and we can see why Pards stuck with him. I personally was never gonna give up on him, as he played one game in the cup last year, and everyone was bashing him. He's looking promising!

Tav - 8 - Looked very good. Still got developing to do, but all round great. A real prospect.

Colo - 6- Meh, he was quite good, but nowt spectacular. He made some poor decisions, which is unlike him, but he's still getting back to fitness. Howay Colo!

Willo - 6 - Decent. One of our best threats in set plays.

Perch - 6 - Decent effort.

Gosling - 5 - Nothing surprising, not really involved much, but I think he did an ok job at times. He can't be criticised for the first goal. He was unlucky not to win the first tackle.

Tiote - 5 - Hope to see him back to fitness soon. He showed some good quality, but also some poor decisions.

Obertan - 5 - Good first half, some good play. Slowed down second half. Again, far from great.

Marv - 5 - Some good quality at times, but he struggles to get into the game at times.

Vuckic - 5 - Some great touches and skill, but still needs developing. He needs to go out on loan!

Shola - 6.5 - Some great flick ons, and was our biggest threat early on. He won a lot of headers and was a problem for Man Utd.

Cisse - 7 - Great energy, dropped deep to attack and good goal. Hopefully he's back now. He could have got us back to 2-2.

Freguson - 7 - Fantastic display when he was on. Great pace and movement, and some good deliveries, especially the one that lead to the goal. He could be a big part in our future.

MOTM - I'll give it to Tav, closely followed by Elliot.

Overall -

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We shall see how this has effected our players.

 

Disagree with Tiote but spot on everywhere else. All we had to do was get crosses in to Shola early and we would have more from this game.

Also worth mentioning Willo has now played about 5 games in 2 weeks.

 

Yep. Willo is not a quality player, but he can fill in when needed.

 

Just a point about the BBC, on their live text I did a quick experiment, especially as ours was clearly the most high profile game.
Liverpool mentioned 61 times
Manchester United mentioned 30 times
Newcastle 33 times
Arsenal 41 times (they did score 6 goals)

I am just wondering why the bias is so clearly evident EVERY time football is being played!

On another note, we did OK tonight. Could have pushed it into extra-time with abit of luck but Cisse firing is obviously the most important thing.

 

I'm gutted, there goes our best chance of silverware again for another season. And make no mistake we could of won this tie.

 

We could, but we will never get a draw against a dross side, let-alone a home draw so lets just chill. Silverware is not everything, a good league position and a decent run in the Europa league would do me fine this year.

 

The FA cup could be just as possible, it all depends on the draw.

But I think we should put more effort into the Europe League and finishing in a Europa position.

 

I thought Willo was ****e tonight, Colo was the one who looked off the pace and Gosling was just plain and simple "absent"... Tiote deserves a greater score and I don't even see a score for Bigi... He was on for a little while, but he was superb.

Cisse just needed that goal, so hopefully he'll bag a couple more (in a few FF transfer windows time when I have put him in my team!).

Overan, Oberflan, Feckoffandhideinthevan, whatever you want to call him... I genuinely can't think how he's got so far without any real footballing ability. He's a 80th minute "we're winning by one goal, let's counter-attack" sub, nothing more.

 

Can't see how Willo got a 6, when Gosling, Tiote, Marv, Obertan, Vuckic got a 5. Willo did nothing in defense, and nothing in attack. Almost getting on the end of a set-piece, is really of no use to us. I think Pardew may have been on to something, regarding the amount of matches played by Willo. But that can't disguise the fact that the guy didn't do much to help us at either end of the pitch. Too many times he let himself down against Welbeck, and the less said about his distribution, the better.

Tavernier & Ferguson's performances and Cisse scoring were the big pluses to take out of this game.

ps. I don't think our set-pieces could get any worse than they are. Not sure why we bother with the same old balls in from set-pieces - we clearly need to try something else, as causing problems in the box isn't enough. Scoring goals is surely the objective.

 

Lets be honest, if you want to win a cup you need to win at least one or two difficult games and we could have won this against a reserve Man Utd team.
Also Sorry but to the fans Silverware really is the point. You dont play the game to have "a decent run", you play to win. "A decent run" is forgettable and thats what we get year on year. We cant always just write off season after season as "decent" but always win nowt.
Granted realistically 5th would be good for us league wise, lower even if due to cup winners we still qualify for the Europa, but no Europe from the league this season will not represent decent. Cup wise we need to try to win one.

 

Pardew said we would be working on our set pieces over the summer, f*ck knows what they've been working on though, it's terrible. If we don't score from corners etc I can handle that, but I hate it when we get a free kick just short of half way and our keeper proceeds to launch an 80 yard punt in to the opposition box!!! Why not play it short and build from the back?!

I'm not too down heartened after tonight, more positives (Cisse, Tav, Colo back, Tiote back, Bigi, Fergie) than negatives (Gosling, Marv & Obertan).

 

Gosling has done nothing in a Newcastle shirt to convince me he'll ever be good enough for us.

 

Yeah, I agree with Marv being disappointing. After a couple of encouraging performances, he seems to have found his level, which is not good enough for the first team in PL games. I suspect he's going to be like an Obertan, but with less pace. The less said about Gosling the better.

All in all. Not too disappointed. The only thing is, I feel Man U were there for the taking - forget what Alan Smith and the sycophants have said about them dominating the game. They were there for the taking. Another season goes by, and we have bowed out of the league cup, far earlier than we should have.

 

I think this is why Pards really wanted Douglas.

Douglas is 6ft 4 and fantastic in the air. He's far better in the air than any of our current defenders.

Plus I think he'd be fantastic along side Colo.

 

Gosling, Marveaux, Obertan and Vuckic do nothing but frustrate. Very, very average (at best) on almost every occasion they've been permitted to wear the shirt.
At present, they should be a million years away from troubling the first team – it'll only be via the desperation of injury that will force them in.

Also – (this applies to all NUFC players and performances) does this squad do any kind of work on set piece delivery and crossing the ball effectively?
Our height offers us an advantage here but the crossing is woeful, frankly inept. Shane Ferguson, a young kid, produced the first one of quality I've seen from all our lads this season within a minute of coming on, so it IS possible.

Tonight was an opportunity missed. You've got to be in it to win it, and I just feel we shouldn't be so quick to take tumbling out of probable competitions so happily...

 

Not singling Willo out, but Douglas in the team tonight would have made a hell of a difference.

 

Gosling and Obertan need to go soon IMO. Gosling has done **** all. Obertan has shown class, but he needs to go to a lower club and achieve consistency.

Vuckic has a lot of potential, but I think he should go on loan.

Marveaux has frustrated, but he's also shown far more quality than the 3 players above. He should get more time. He can whip in a fantastic ball, and has shown great skill. He's had fewer games than the others, give him a chance.

 

Not being funny Shola is playing well, but he's not threatening enough in front of goal, as shown by Cisse when he came on.

 

We shouldn't really rely on Shola getting goals, but providing chances and being a nightmare for the opposition.

He's done it plenty of times.

He doesn't score often, but he provides at crucial times.

 

We didn't play to Sholas strengths enough. When he had the ball he was a handful but we didn't use him enough until the end. As soon as someone who could cross came on we scored.