Defence.

The media seem to be desperate for an excuse as to why Newcastle were soundly beaten yesterday. We all know they have their defensive problems at the moment having to play fullbacks in center defence. This undoubtedly made some difference as all our goals resulted from headers won in the box. I don't have a problem with this issue being mentioned, but why should it be such an excuse?

We have had problems in that area ourselves, playing Russell Martin (a RB) at centerback for most of the season. Injuries to De Laet, Whitbread, Ward and Ayala have left us also desperately short in that area. The media have not been so quick to make the same excuses for us!

Fair play to the toon fans I have seen on here though. They knew they were pretty much ****ed yesterday and despite making sure we knew why, they have been very gracious in defeat.

My point is, it is not just Newcastle. We all have injuries from time to time. The rest of us just get on with it, but when one of the media darlings get beaten by a lesser fancied side the Media are desperate to find an excuse for it. Maybe the real reason is that Norwich played better than Newcastle yesterday and were able to exploit their weakness more effectively? Our weakness yesterday was a desperate lack of pace in the center of defence, somthing Ba did exploit for both his goals. Shame for Newcastle that they did not do this more, but not our fault.

Rant over!!

EDIT: On a side issue, I have read one or two critisisms of Whitbread. I personally thought he did very well. There was the one mistake which lead to Ba scoring, but we must remember that Whitbread has been out for a while and actually has not played much prem football at all. Give him the benefit of the adjustment time we allowd the others. He will be massive fo us this season. Him and Barnet should definately be our current first choice CB's. Once Ayala is fit again it will be interesting to see if he can break into that but for the time being it has to be Barnett and Whitbread for me.

 

I agree with your analysis, KF.

What is starting to worry/concern me greatly is the unforced errors, which are creeping into every game we play. De Laet's mistakes have been well documented, as was R Martin's v Aresnal. Likewise Barnett's shockingly poor backpass at Villa.
Yesterday (as you mention) Whitbread gets in on the act, losing possession by a suicidal - and totally unnecessary piece of dribbling wizardry when it was not required.

Against this level of player, it will cost us every time, whereas in the Champ and Lg 1 we could get away with it on occasions. No wonder we've had no clean sheets all season - if these defensive mistakes continue, that's how it will continue.

Bradley Johnson's second touch yesterday was to gift the ball to a Newcastle player, though he did redeem himself with a gritty performance and the free kick that led to the last goal.

This handing possession to the opponents in dangerous areas HAS to be cut out or it may come back to haunt us.

 

Absolutely, and I think it will be. We need to get a settled back 4 for a while with players in their correct positions. Once our defenders have gotten used to playing together at this level I think things will be much better. We have not realy had the chance to play our first choice back 4 for a series of games yet.

 

I've got to say I blame Whitbread for both goals. He couldn't hand over Ba to Martin as Martin had Ameobi to watch. No, he was ball watching. I watched it time after time and if he had run with Ba he might have stopped him. That was more of a crucial mistake than the second which was bad enough but admittedly was out on the touchline.
I was talking to my son and we agreed we probably have a defence that is good for the championship but not very good for the Prem. However, as a balance, Bolton are bottom with an England centre back. I think the bottom dozen sides don't have good defences. I honestly think this year will depend on how many goals you can score and so far we have been outstanding in that department.

 

They are all going to make mistakes as they are not world beaters given where they have come from, but agreed we need to stop giving the ball away easily

Ba still had a lot to do yesterday for the second toon goal after whitbreads unnecessary dribbling

Overall I thought he had a decent enough game though

Would like to see alaya given a game too, that is bound to happen over Xmas with so many games

 

Lets be fair to our defence in this leauge the quality of opposition strkers is so much greater than they have been up against in the past two years. So the odd mistake will get u punnished big time. I just cant understand why they cannot do the simple things. For example all whitbread had to do was boot the bugger any where and there would have been no second goal for newcastle and its been the same in other games. Even playing sunday league footie first rule for a defender is 'if in doubt put it out', all our defence has been guilty of it. they need to stop trying to be fancy and be calm!! I think thats the only thing letting us down at the monent. Allthough i would take 4-2 wins every game who cares about clean sheets when its points that matter!!!

 

whitbread did pretty much the same as martin against arsenal, got caught in possession near the halfway line, leaving one defender short at the back. surely now they will have learned a lesson.

 

Exactly and as Sam said above, against pacy and experienced sides, you don't want to gift them possession at the best of times, never mind on the halfway line while out of position yourself! However, as Kenny F said in the original article it was Whitbread's first game back after a lengthy lay off, so mustn't be too harsh on him.

As long as they do indeed learn from and eradicate mistakes of this type

 

Jesus wept, they played together for the first time, and did well. They actually played the ball out of defence, rather than simply twatting it as hard as they could, which made the whole team more balanced. Give some credit to the attackers and every single team in the PL is making these kind of mistkaes, remember our goal against arsenal. I sometimes feel people are asking for the impossible. But going back to the original post, I've just reader the observers report on the game and the majority of it, focuses on explaining away the toon's defeat, no credit no Norwich. it is infuriating

 

I may be being a bit picky here but Pardew said something along the lines of no team has had to suffer losing three centre-backs in a while. How about us missing Ward, Ayala and Whitbred. No one picked on that, not the fans or the media. Paul Lambert never used it as an excuse, which he could have easily done.

Bad defending has happened throughout the Premiership this season. Just look at the results there have been.

 

Because we went from having one of the best defences in the league (up there with Man City) to having one of the worst on Saturday. No offence to you guys, but it's obvious that you don't have the kind of attacking threat or prowess bigger teams like Man City or Man Utd do, yet you lashed four past us and most of them were textbook goals. Holt just stood there and headed it in unmarked at point blank range.

We were playing four right backs on Saturday, and two little short fellas as CBs. Ameobi was supposed to mark Holt as he's a big fella, but he just did **** all, so you guys had free reign.

It's just a stark contrast which the media is picking up on, that's all. We were conceding next to no goals previously, but now we conceded four in one game, and it wasn't against an incredible side like Man City or Man Utd, which wouldn't have seemed so unusual. You guys have a decent side so I'd expect to concede one or two at your place when we're playing well, but four was shocking.

You might disagree with me, but I don't think you guys necessarily played better overall. It's just that as soon as one of you managed to get even a half-decent cross in, I just knew we were ****ed with that big lump Holt standing there and no one bothering to actually mark him. The rest of the team (goalie, midfield and attack) played well, but the defence was horrendous. I wouldn't want to detract from a good team performance (and scoring 2 away from home which is quite positive) just because two CBs (out of 11 players) were so out of their depth.

Another point is that we have no choice but to defend ourselves in the PR battle. I don't know if you've noticed, but the media doesn't like the North East teams one little bit. If we don't defend our performances and drill the facts into their thick ****ing heads, then they will be all over us saying "the bubble has burst", "the slide has started", "the confidence is shot" and so on, with all of the pundits putting us down for losses all the time.

You might not like the media, but neither do we, and in this situation it's every team for itself.

 

Are you having a laugh the media loves the North East it's a well represented region of the country. They absolutely loathe East Anglia always have done so much I fast forward through the analysis on MOTD.

 

PS: Just read that Alan Hansen on MOTD yesterday said "Newcastle are in free fall". It's not hard to see why we have to defend certain results.

They hate us. Believe me, we would know. We get a minimum level of coverage because we're two large EPL teams, but the sly digs in articles and pundit babble is just ridiculous. Just look at what I said up there.

The media love the Southern teams, especially those in London, but as we're so isolated up here in the North, it's really rather ridiculous the obvious tripe some pundits come out with. Most of them (merson for example) simply do not like us one little bit.

 

Isolated? really? We haven't even got a Motorway within 60 or so miles of Carrow Road. It takes an hour to get from Norwich out of Norfolk if you're heading south, and that is the quickest way!!! I wouldn't say that we are hated by the press, just overlooked. It is so difficult to get here that they tend not to bother more than is totally necesary and so know little about the place. For that reason we get over looked or spoken about with a total lack of knowledge.

As has been noted above, Pardew mentioned that he was unaware of any other side having to cope with injuries to 3 center-backs. This coming 10mins or so after his team had just played one!! We just didn't harp on about it and got on with the games We have had to play Blackburn, Villa, Arsenal, QPR and Man City with this injury 'crisis' and yet not one word of excuse has been uttered at any of our results during this period. Newcastle have the same problem for one match and it is national news!

As per my OP, I have not had a problem with any of the toon fans here, they have been a great bunch, just a bit annoyed by the media...

 

Here's a link!

http://www.carrowroad.net/cnews/ind...ms-as-newcastle-but-no-excuses-have-been-made

 

Newcastles Bubble has burst, they are clearly in free fall now

 

Just be glad you're down South. No ****er bothers to travel 300-400 miles up here. When Pardew asked Capello about Steven Taylor getting a look in, Capello replied with "we have enough midfielders", which just explains it all really.

Note that Pardew said he was 'unaware'. He didn't say that there were no other sides in the same situation. He can't be expected to know every detail about every other team, and someone like your manager can feel free to correct him. He's just going off what he knows.

It's national news because there's such a sharp contrast. Our unexpected rise up the table has created some media hype - as has our superb defensive record which rivalled Man City's. Now we're conceding 4 goals to teams which are hardly renowned for incredible attacking forces (again, no offence, just the truth).

The contrast between the two situations is vast, and of course, the media loves a bit of shock and awe in its stories.

Pardew is simply doing what he can to use the media to his advantage. Whether Lambert does that is up to him. The media won't comment on your injury crisis if they don't know about it.

 

I would expect our manager to know that about a team we have just played (or one we were about to)! It is called preperation. If you don't know your oponent then how can you hope to take advantage of their weakness? Lambert made sure he knew about your defensive problems (not that it was possible to miss it!) and so played two big lads up front to test the emergency pairing. This is what won us the game. Had Pardew done the same then Newcastle might have been better equiped to trouble our back line more often.

And as for "hardly renowned for incredible attacking force", that is my point. We are not renowned for anything. The press just ignore us. Taking a look at our stats this season rather than just listening to supposed 'expert' opinions would have made you realise you were beaten by a very decent side with a really good home record.

On the plus side, we have been able to suprise a few this season for making just the same mistake!

 

because we don't fecking bleat, and just get on with it. Read the papers mate, any fecking excuse for your defeatr is trotted out.

 

Newcastle = Mopes