Article: Not making excuses for the players but... | Football, Newcastle

its been only been 2/3 days since the last game and we've been ravaged by injury already and visa descisions.

Ben Afra, Guthrie, Ferguson all missing through injury, Simmo traqvelled home last night befor the game for the birth of his daughter. Barton, Cabaye, Ranger all missing due to visa issue's respectivley, and Williamson is in Holland to be nearer his pregnant wife. We also have players like Enrique and Vuckic playing with little niggly injuries

So thats 7 First Team Squad Members unavaliable leaving us with 17 out field player acctually left in the USA. Thats not even a full Prem Squad if you dont count the GK's

Then you have the weather and the pitch...pretty much self explanatory, I personally would not look forward to running around out there in that heat and it probably takes alot out of the players (though if you only mananged to catch Jose last night he was bombing it UP the left flank) and the pitch left something to be desired you could see the players struggling to judge the bounce and run of the ball.

So as I said not making excuse's for the players some of the passing and defending was very, very poor and the goal threat was almost non-existant bar Vuckic's ruled out goal. But I'm still staying positive for the start of the season and hopefully this will prove to Ashley that we need reinforcments (STR and RW should be priority [no barton on the right]) but i wouldn't hold me breath.

Its only pre-season and I dont see the need for pesimism and doubt just yet but can appreciate if you stayed up to watch like I did you would have been dissappointed.

HTL

 

Negativity....

 

ignore him he's just a skinny fecker

 

If they did play **** then it might push Pards into making more signings. Maybe?

After all, if the team's playing brilliantly, he would have very little need to sign anymore players.

 

This. I don't read into the team's performances and worry about the season, but it might be a good thing if the club does

 

Hopefully


like i said yesterday, they tried to play some really good football it's just they weren't all match fit and were all knackered. I saw plenty of positives

 

There was the astroturf as well. It does make a hell of a difference.

Overall I think this US tour was a bit of a failure. It didn't test our new players against English-style football, it was WAY too hot, and it hasn't really generated much exposure over there in a rather soccer unfriendly country.

Bit of a waste of time really. I'd much rather we had a tour which was closer to home and got the new foreign players used to the style of football they expect to face ASAP.

 

but then surely if your team was playing brilliantly the fans would also feel the same thing.

"why fix whats not broken" would have come to mind

 

This.. why couldn't it just be a simple tour of Holland/France/etc..?

 

The US tour (and the first team players playing in Holland) are all about working on fitness. Leeds and Fiorentina are far more important in terms of working on tactics, performances, result etc - in these two games we will see our first XI start (apart from Ben Arfa) and will be a much better indicator of where we are.

 

I think its a little unfair to peg them as soccer unfriendly country, because I think the fan turnouts have been pretty competitive with what we could have gotten domestically on in most other countries.
Although in respect to attention or exposure, the attention Man U gets when touring there at the same time really casts a shadow over the other English clubs touring like us, Everton, Bolton, etc., so I do agree that its hard to compete with them in a country that knows less about the clubs a peg down from them.

I definitely do agree though that having so many first team players left behind has really mitigated any benefits that could have come from a pre-season tour, although I don't know if there's someone to blame for the decision? Or it's just been a case of bad luck/timing

 

I don't know how or why so many people on this and other blogs are proclaiming this tour as a "bit of a failure"

It is far too early to be coming to such conclusions. We have to wait for the season to be up and running, say 10 games in, before reaching any opinions on the tour.

It is all about fitness etc... Results are not important at all, a la Leyton Orient at this stage.

Please can a lot of bloggers ( all sites ) just buy a drink in a glass that's half full for a change.

 

America has just been a big mistake, 3 players unable to travel and players like Williamson and Simpson cant just join up whenever they want. It's a long flight and there are too many hoops to jump through to get there. We arent going to be playing in Europe next season so why didnt we do pre season in England or a country with a similar climate and better facilities (real pitch for a start).

 

Bit of fitness work and presumably more money than we got on the Championship pre season games, job done really. Theres a good reason theres 6-7 clubs in the USA and 4 or 5 in Asia, and its not the weather.

 

what was the final score?

 

1-0 Orlando.

 

Could anyone have really known when they first decided to go to the US that 3 players were going to have visas denied, and two would have wives going into labour then though? I'll admit, if you decide to go to another continent there is a great chance of complications, but some of this bad luck has to be considered unforeseeable

 

The first few friendlies are always about building fitness, the next few about regaining sharpness and then carrying that into the competitive season. The results don't count for much in my opinion.

 

thats embarrassing.

 

we had a very solid penalty claim and a goal disallowed for offside (they didn't show a replay so I'm not sure whether it was) but yeh we expected better i suppose