Fringo tucks into an iced bun for a late breakfast
the Great Western for home fans
so that people end up miles away from the pitch
Top class pub!
suddenly regain the use of their legs
|
Wolves 1 Toon 1 |
|
Fringo tucks into an iced bun for a late breakfast
the Great Western for home fans
so that people end up miles away from the pitch |
Top class pub!
suddenly regain the use of their legs |
Villains thrashed!
What a truly bizarre 90 minutes of
football the Villa game turned out to be! I wasn't much pleased when I saw that
we were starting with just Carroll up front again. That gives the impression
that we're going into the game primarily not to lose. If we do that every game
it's going to be a long, hard season because we will in fact lose plenty of
games, and may not win enough to compensate. Then the game kicked off. We looked
very nervous in the early minutes, and defensively we were all over the place.
When Harper brought down Young my immediate thought was "One-nil down and down
to ten men. It's going to be a long, hard 90 minutes, as well as a long, hard
season". We received a massive boost when the ref chose not to send Harps off.
While this was in fact the correct decision, I'm still surprised at his
leniency. The follow-up of Carew blasting the pen miles over the bar was almost
too good to be true. And then of course we had the game virtually won within
half an hour or so.
In the same way as the defeat
at Old Trafford didn't make us a bad team, the massacre of Villa doesn't make us
a good team, and we shouldn't expect to have any more games as easy. We should
just enjoy the win and be grateful that we've got three points in the bag. The
main thing to come out of the game could be the confidence boost that it should
have given to a few players. Those who looked scared and a bit out of their
depth against Man U looked more and more at home the longer this game went on.
One player who this doesn't apply to though is
José,
who has simply picked up where he left off last season. Two years ago he looked
like he couldn't really hack it at this level. You wouldn't say that now!
The only disappointing thing
about the Villa game was the attendance. It is though a sign of the times, and
come the end of the season we will I'm sure be the third best average gate in
the country once again. The club's announcement during the summer that there was
no money available for signings wasn't going to do anything for season ticket
sales, but better that than Freddy Shepherd's promising that we're on the point
of signing all the world's best players, only to end up with Albert Luque!
While there was a good
turn-out of Yorkshire Mags at the game, just as the match attendance was lower
than we might have expected, there were a few of the old regulars missing. One
was Keith, another was Big Issue. Of course, nothing's a surprise when it comes
to Big Issue, he could have been literally anywhere. Amongst the Yorkshire Mags
in Spoons there was quite an array of Toon tops on display. The only person with
the new top though was Steady. It's the first time I've seen the top close up
and I wasn't impressed! It looks a bit cheap and nasty all round, but the
Northern Rock logo in particular looks like it's just been stuck on. Perhaps
that's so that if we change sponsors at the end of the season people will be
able to just rip off the logo and replace it with a new one!
Man Ure 3 Toon 0
This was a pretty dire
performance, but I don't think we should read too much into one game. After all,
in the same fixture two years ago we played really well and got a 1-1 draw, and
yet ended up the season getting relegated. A good performance and/or result this
time round would have been nice, but it didn't happen. I actually thought we
started promisingly, but after the first 15 minutes or so we were gradually
playing deeper and deeper and it seemed like it was only a matter of time before
the first goal came. Having said that, without Jose's little touch Berbatov
mightn't have scored, and who knows how the game might have ended then.
It was slightly worrying to
see how many players looked out of their depth. Nolan reminded us that if he's
not scoring then he doesn't really do much, and of course he didn't score last
time he played at this level. Smith is still very limited, Barton still isn't
half as good as he thinks he is. Perch struggled, but he's got to be given time.
The same goes for Routledge, who was a major disappointment for me considering
how well he played last season. Jonas was a shadow of the player who made his
debut in the corresponding fixture two seasons ago.
Anyway, where we finish at the
end of the season is going to be determined by what happens over thirty eight
games, not just one. Three points against Villa and things will look a lot
different!
Record breakers
I don't think anyone can dispute the Toon's right to finish as clear champions. As the long season comes to an end
we've won the most home games and the most away games (despite the over-cautious
approach away from home for much of the season), lost the fewest games, scored
the most goals, and conceded the fewest. Along the way we've had the highest
average attendance outside the top flight since Man Utd in 1974/75, as well as
the highest gate (52,181) since Man Utd had just over 60 thousand against the
Mackems that same season.
On top of the above we've also
set a string of club records including (as far as I'm aware):
- most games won in a season
- fewest defeats
- most clean sheets
- fewest goals conceded (on a goals per game basis)
- most points
- most points on a points per game basis (with points totals from before 1981/82
converted to 3 points for a win equivalent)
All in all a pretty good day's work from Mr Hughton in his first full season in
management!
There were a stack of
Yorkshire Mags down for the QPR game. A few had travelled down on the Friday or
Saturday, but most of us were on the 8.24 from Leeds on the Sunday morning.
Fortunately the alcohol ban which had threatened to put a dampener on the
promotion party didn't apply to this train, and we took full advantage. Arriving
in London just before 11 most of us headed straight over to Shepherds Bush and
the White Horse. I'd phoned up during the week to make sure that they'd be open
and that we'd be able to get in (it's home fans only normally, but the
landlady's a Geordie and a Toon fan so surely she couldn't turn us away), and
Tom had called in on the Saturday to check the place out and to sweet-talk the
landlady. As expected, the pub was in theory shut and we had to sneak in the
back door. Unfortunately though it seemed that half of the West End of London
(and dozens of Toon fans) were aware of this arrangement, and the place was
absolutely heaving. There were only 3 or 4 staff on, and they weren't even
trying to serve people in order, so it was a nightmare getting served. I almost
felt like giving it up and trying somewhere else, but I reminded myself that any
other pubs that might be open were much further from the ground. In the end
Maggie managed to catch someone's eye and got a big double round in. Well done
Mags! Tom, Jude, and Steady had got there before us, so we made our way over to
where they were. I was expecting at this point to get the full story of the
previous night's 'altercation' with Leeds fans outside the Dolphin at Kings
Cross which resulted in Gordon ending up in an ambulance with two black eyes and
a broken nose, but it seemed that no one really knew exactly what had happened.
When I'd first heard about the incident I was very surprised that any of our lot
were anywhere near the Dolphin knowing that there'd probably be a load of Leeds
there after their game at Charlton. However, I'm guessing that Tom was meeting
Jude there, and I think Gordon had arranged to meet up with some Leeds fans from
Tad. Having said that, I still don't think you would have got me near the place
- let's face it, most of the Leeds fans were going to be in a pretty foul mood
and it probably wouldn't take much for things to kick off.
Anyway, back to the QPR game.
There were loads of rumours of pitch inspections and the match possibly being
off. I found it hard to believe, but they'd apparently had three days of it
chucking it down in London. When we got into the ground the pitch looked like a
carpet (a very wet carpet admittedly), so I suspect that the rumours were a load
of bollocks. The first half was a typical end-of-season affair, not helped by us
having more than half of our first-choice eleven missing from the starting
line-up. The front two in particular were awful. It sums up the first half that
the highlight was far and away when someone in the crowd blew for half-time -
the players stopped playing, one of them picked the ball up, the ref checked his
watch (why?!!!!), and the crowd pissed themselves. I think even the ref had a
good laugh in the end!
The second half was much
better, although even against 10 men we struggled. But we did what we've done
all season which is to take our chances and not concede. After clapping the team
off I raced back to the White Horse where we'd all arranged to meet. It was
again back door only, and it was again heaving even though most QPR fans were
still in the ground. As it happens I only found Paul, Fringe and Aaarrooonnnaa
in there. The others had either gone straight for the tube or had already been
and gone (!). After a pint we headed for the tube ourselves. Back at Kings Cross
some of us executed our cunning plans for beating the alcohol plan; others
surprisingly seemed to be reasonably happy to go without!
Back in Leeds we headed off in
various directions to get buses, trains or taxis, or in the case of Alan and
Mike to the pub to get a pint to make up for not having a drink on the train.
And so that's it for another season. We can now look forward to a nice relaxing summer
break, to be followed by a return in August to the real world of losing on a regularly
basis. Or even on a very regular basis!
 Pre-match pints in the White Horse
|
 Ditto
 That's it for another season |
Some pics from the Ipswich game:
The face is vaguely familiar, but I can't quite place him
Maggie and Miguel celebrate in style
Fringo takes advantage of complimentary coffee in First
Class
Should he stay or should he go?
(with apologies to The Clash)
Now that promotion has been achieved the management at the Toon will no doubt be
planning ahead to next season. We'll obviously be looking to bring some players
in. But in terms of the current squad, which of them do we want to keep hold of
and which do we want to see jettisoned? Well here's may take on it for what it's
worth!
Stay
Harps
Krul
Jose
Nolan (but with reservations bearing in mind how little he contributed in the
relegation season)
Williamson
Guthrie
One Size (as cover)
Routledge
Lovenkrands
Simpson
Gutierrez (has under-achieved in terms of assists and goals, but we miss him when
he's not playing)
Carroll (purely from a playing point of view; he needs to sort himself out off
the pitch)
Stevie Taylor (although I appreciate he may be forced out)
Kadar
Ranger
Out the door
Butt
Barton (although he will no doubt be kept on despite his ridiculous wages and
virtually zero contribution since he signed)
Xisco
Pancrate (not a footballer)
Shola (has failed to prove himself Premiership quality despite countless
opportunities)
Jury out
Coloccini (massive wages, and still not proved himself a premiership defender)
Smith (seemed to be indispensable early this season, but then we managed fine
without him later on)
Ryan Taylor (seemed out of his depth in the relegation season, but possibly
worth keeping as cover)
Best (will obviously be staying though)
A job well done
For the Toon to
achieve something is obviously a very rare event. To do so without some major trauma somewhere along the way
is unheard of. And yet that's precisely what's happened this season! The only minor blips were a run of 4 games
way back in September/October where we only picked up 2 points, and then the
Carroll-Taylor 'incident'. At the start of the season I would honestly have been
happy with just staying up. When you think of how poor we were last season,
together with the players who'd moved on since then (Owen, Viduka, Oba, Beye,
Bassong, Duff), it just didn't seem logical that we could possibly challenge for
promotion. Having said that, when I saw the line-up in that first game at West
Brom it did look that we had a stronger squad than most teams in the division. A
good start then helped to build confidence. I was still though concerned that we
didn't have much strength in depth and that injuries to key players (at that
time specifically Enrique, Taylor, Smith and Shola) could see us struggle. Yet
we've been without all of those players for long spells and have hardly missed
them. A lot of credit for this has to go to Hughton for the players that he's
brought in during the season. All of them, whether loan or permanent signings,
have with the exception of the total waste of space that is Pancrate have come
in and done a job. Not overpaid has-beens, just good professionals. Credit also
has to go to the FCB who has apparently learned from some of last season's
mistakes and realised that it was in his interest to invest in a few players
during the January transfer window to improve our chances of going up.
The run of four straight wins
after the Bristol City game, together with Forest dropping quite a few points,
meant that promotion was secured earlier than most of us could have have
anticipated. In the end it was all a bit of an anti-climax, certainly when
promotion was confirmed by events elsewhere. Looking back it would probably have
been better if we'd have drawn at Peterborough, leaving us needing to beat Sheff
Utd. I'm not complaining though!
We now have to try to keep our
good form going for the remaining five games. Partly to ensure that we finish
top, which we deserve to after setting the pace for basically the whole season,
but also so that we don't finish the season on a low. It would though be
understandable if performance levels slipped a bit. And it'll be interesting to
see if Hughton uses the games to give some of the fringe players the chance to
show what they can do.
 The Promotion Party heads for Peterborough  Like the good old days |
 Where's the fringe gone?
|
Almost there....
At half-time in the Bristol City game I was a worried man. Forest had won
earlier in the day, and it appeared odds on that we were going to lose. That
would see the gap between us and them reduced to 9 points. In the upcoming
midweek fixtures Forest had a very winnable home game against Palace, whereas we
faced a tricky trip to Doncaster. It was possible that we might go into the
Forest game with only a 6 point advantage, in which case I suspect many of us
would have been nervously thinking back to THAT match against Man U (when
coincidentally we were also unbeaten at home all season going into the game) in
the nearly season. However, the second half at Ashton Gate saw us come back
strongly to get a point, and the rest is history. In fact, by the time the time
the Forest game came around I wouldn't have been bothered if it had ended up a
draw, because that would have been more than enough to kill off whatever hopes
they had of overhauling us.
Going back to the Doncaster
game, it was a bit of a novelty to have a midweek game that was so easy to get
to by train, and quite a few of us took the opportunity to make a bit of a day
of it. Myself, Alan H and JT met up in the Fox at Cookridge (that's Cookridge,
not Bramhope, not Horsforth) at 3 o'clock. After a quick pint there we strolled
down to Horsforth station to jump on a train into Leeds. JT was very smug as he
bought his ticket, using the old fogies bus pass he'd got a couple of days
earlier to pay only 70p as far as Wakey. Alan was even smugger because he could
also get a third off the fare from Wakey to Donny with his Pensioners Rail Card.
Being a youngster I of course had to pay the full fare for the whole journey.
Once in Leeds we had another couple at the station while we waited for Tom to
join up with us. As we set off for the train we bumped into Gary P, so there
were now five in our little party. Once in Doncaster we were spoiled for choice
for pubs. Based on the research I'd done I reckoned the top three options, all
within about a hundred yards of the station, were the Leopard, the Corner Pin,
and the Plough. We made for the Plough. And what a cracking pub it is! As well
as it being a proper traditional pub, they serve a belting pint, and the bar
staff and locals are dead friendly. There didn't seem much point in moving on
anywhere else, so we didn't! Meanwhile Gordon, who'd arrived just after us on a
train from York, dragged a stack of people into a nearby Sam Smiths pub,
possibly the worst of the dozen or two pubs within a few minutes walk of the
station. To be fair though, they did move on from there. Tom spent most of his
time in the Plough in communication with the Cooks, who were en route by car. As
far as I could work out he was trying to explain to them whereabouts we were and
how it was no use them trying to get there and what their options might be. A
bit of advice for future reference Cookies - read the Travel page before you set
off. While all this was going on JT was backwards and forwards to the smokers
area (which, by the way, surely cannot comply with regulations!), where he got
into conversation with "The Professor", who apparently is massively well read.
JT was so impressed with his depth of knowledge on a vast range of subjects that
he said he might go down to the pub sometime in the future to meet up with him
again! Anyway, all too soon it was time to go to the game. The lad behind the
bar told us where we should be able to get a taxi, and off we went. He wasn't
wrong, and a few minutes later we were on our way. Mind, it wasn't much faster
than walking because of the traffic. But there was no way we were going to walk
because it was lashing down! Eventually though the taxi couldn't get us any
closer to the ground and so we piled out. The meter said £6.60. JT said "Give
him a tenner, that's 2 quid each". A 50% tip?!! We gave him 8 quid, for a
journey of just over a mile. The rain continued to lash down during the game,
which was unfortunate for everyone except those in the very back rows as the
wind was blowing it straight into the away end. Fortunately though it eased off
a bit by the time we came to head back to the station. We had just over half an
hour to make the 18 minutes past 10 train. Myself and Gary P set a cracking pace
and ended up with enough time for a quick half in the Leopard, another fine pub
I might add. As we walked out the door we bumped into Tom, and off we went
together for the train. As the train pulled out the station Tom got a text from
the OAPs saying that they were also on the train. This was a big surprise to me
as I was certain they wouldn't make that train and would have to get the next
one. Anyway, we pulled into Leeds a few minutes early, as is normal on trains
via Wakey. I raced down to the bus stop on the off chance that my bus might be
late, and it was! It should have gone 5 minutes earlier, but was running about
10 minutes late. That was a definite result - it meant I was in the house at 20
past 11 rather than the expected midnight. JT also caught a bus almost straight
away. Alan though, rather than catching the same bus as JT, for some reason
decided to instead wait 40 minutes for a train. Well I suppose he did save 35p!
So we can potentially get promoted on
Saturday at Peterborough? It's very reminiscent of the 83/84 promotion season.
That year we thumped Carlisle 5-1 on Easter Monday, which with results elsewhere
going our way meant that we could be promoted the next Saturday at Cambridge
(not very far from Peterborough....). Realising the invasion that might be about
to descend on them, Cambridge suddenly made the game all-ticket. They did though
give us three sides of the ground! It's worth mentioning at this point that
Cambridge had had an absolutely shocking season. They were rock bottom (like
Peterborough....), not having won for over 6 months and something like 30 games.
But this is the Toon we're talking about, and needless to say we managed to lose
1-0. As it happens we didn't even secure promotion when we beat Derby 4-0 the
next Saturday, and instead it was the 2-2 draw at Huddersfield on the May Day
bank holiday that did it. I somehow don't think it'll be as drawn out this time
around. I certainly hope not anyway!
Andy's Riverside rescue
The
Boro trip ended up being a reminder of how away games used to be in the bad
old days of the 80s. The local plod in their wisdom, contrary to what they'd
said in the build-up to the game, held all the Toon fans back after the final
whistle. Announcements during the game informed us that fans who'd travelled by
train or car would be held in a cordoned off area behind the stand until the
streets around the ground had been cleared of Boro fans, and then
"escorted back to your transport". This is all well and good if you're on the
train (but not, of course, if you absolutely have to catch a train at say
quarter past 5), but as many of us know from bitter experience this can be a
nightmare if you're in a car. The police take you so far but then you're on your
own, and by this time all the home fans have ambushes set up all over the place
and can spot the away fans a mile off. Why the hell the police couldn't just let
everyone straight out I don't know. This has worked perfectly in previous
seasons, with the police spread out along the route to the station and at
strategic points in the town centre. That way people in cars can mingle in with
the home fans within yards of the ground and shouldn't have any problems.
Anyway, more on this later!
As I did last season, I opted
to catch the train straight through to Boro, rather than doing what most of our
lot do which is to have a few pints in Darlo and then catch the last train over
from there. As I arrived at Leeds station I bumped into Fringo, who was stood in
the ticket queue. He though was heading for Darlo to pick up his ticket from Mr
Blacklock, and so we went our separate ways. Getting to Smogland just before
half 12 I made straight for the Isaac Wilson, the Spoons pub close by the
station. There were quite a few Toon fans in there, a lot of them wearing
colours, and there was absolutely no problem with the locals. It was still reassuring though that there were two absolutely enormous
bouncers on the door and occasional walkthroughs by the police. I'd only been in
there 10 or 15 minutes when I was joined by Bryn and Ben, who'd driven up and
parked in the town centre somewhere. They hadn't been able to get tickets in the
Toon end and so were going to be infiltrating the home section. Hopefully they
didn't celebrate our goals and avoided getting get chucked out! Later on Fringo also turned up. He'd had a
couple in Hogan's in Darlo, but had decided to not to hang around there, partly
because it was chocka but also because he didn't fancy being on the last train
over (for the benefit of anyone who didn't read my Boro trip report last season,
it's very crowded and very unpleasant).
We timed it really well to
leave the pub because we passed the station just as the escort of the train lot
was preparing to set off. A quick jog made sure we got ahead of them and so
weren't held up at all. As for the game, the less said about our performance the
better. Ultimately it's another point towards promotion, but I can't help
thinking we could be be in an even stronger position than we already are if
Hughton was more positive. I'm sure he'll have seen Forest's score at half-time
and decided that a point would be enough from this game. But that approach very
nearly cost us when he brought on Butt to supposedly shore things up. A couple
of minutes later Butt gives away a free-kick with a trademark trip and all of a
sudden it's looking like we're going to lose the game. Fortunately though we
managed to get an equaliser out of nothing, and then looked like possibly
winning it when we actually had a go for the first time in the game. For me we
shouldn't be basing our approach to games on what West Brom and Forest are
doing. We should simply be trying to end up the season with as many points as we
possibly can and making it virtually impossible for anyone to overhaul us.
Ultimately though you can't be too critical of Hughton, and coming out of the
game with a point can't be bad considering that the totally useless Pancrate was
in the team and that the defence all over the place for most of the second half
after Taylor came on for Collo and Simpson moved to left back.
When I heard the announcements
about getting held back at the end of the game I thought "No way!". My plan was
to tell the police that I had a train to catch and needed to get straight away.
In reality my train wasn't until after 6 and I simply wanted to get back to the
pub in time for a pint or two. However, once we got out the ground it was
obvious that the police were very serious about keeping everyone back. Myself
and El Fringo got as near to the front of the Toon fans as we could, but there
was no way that I was ever going to persuade them to let us through. As we
waited there was quite a bit of pushing and shoving, but not much. Then all of a
sudden we started moving forward. I honestly thought that we were setting off in
the escort, but it soon became clear that it was just that the police line had
temporarily broken. I didn't hang around for a second and weaved through the
police and was away, closely followed by Fringo. Incredibly, I didn't see anyone
else who managed to get through! We'd only lost a few minutes and so made it to
the pub in good time. A couple of pints later we wandered over to the station
expecting the place to be quiet and to walk straight onto our train. Wrong!
There were police and Toon fans everywhere, and there was no sign of our train.
There was a Bishop Auckland train packed with our lot waiting to pull out (I'm
guessing this was the 5.25 service which had been held back - fantastic if
you're just a normal passenger trying to get somewhere), and then there was
going to be another Bishop Auckland train coming in straight after it to pick up
the rest of our fans. It turned out Brendan and Gordon were amongst those
waiting on the platform. Around quarter past 6 our train, which was supposed to
leave at 7 minutes past, suddenly disappeared off the departures screen, which
had us a bit concerned. Only a bit though because there was another train at 7,
and the pub was just over the road after all. However, when we made enquiries we
were assured that the train was definitely running but was queued outside the
station. And so it turned out. Although the train was busy, it was nothing like
the Bishop Auckland trains had been, and we managed to get seats ok.
Who knows if/when we'll be
playing at Boro again. Going straight there is in my view miles better than
drinking in Darlo. But if there's going to be all the same carry-on at the end
of the game again then I suspect I'll just give the whole thing a miss. I did
all that enough in the 70s and 80s and don't want to do it again thank you.
Toon 3 Preston 0
Well,
wasn't it nice to have a home game at 3 o'clock on a Saturday! Clearly a lot of
people felt the same way, based on the fact that over 45 thousand turned out for
it, a massive increase on the Coventry gate. In fact, there was even a good
turn-out of Yorkshire Mags in Spoons before the game for once, including Keith
no less! He wasn't happy when his lunch arrived though. His double veggie burger
though was supposed to come with a "large, flat mushroom" according to the menu.
It might have been flat, but it definitely wasn't large, and so back it went.
The mushroom that is, not the burger. Of course, most of us wouldn't have even
known that the mushroom was sub-standard because we would just have scoffed the
burger without dissecting it. Not Keith though.....
While the three-nil scoreline
definitely flattered us, it's good that we can pick up a comfortable win without
getting out of second gear. Jonas had put so much into the Coventry game that it
was hardly surprising that he had a quiet game against Preston, and without his
penetration down the left we were always going to create less. It was good to
see us score early and late again - yet more goals missed by the arrive late /
leave early brigade. The gate may have been one of the highest of the season,
but the atmosphere all game was just about the worst. At the start of the season
it seemed that the players and the fans were really up for it, and there
was a real togetherness around the place. Now though the fans at least are
turning up to games expecting the team to win, both home and away. The result is
fans fighting amongst themselves at away games and crap atmospheres at home.
It's interesting that Hughton
is saying that we need to carry our home form into away games. Perhaps if we
adopted something like the same approach away from home as we do at home then
we'd have more chance of winning the odd one. And we desperately need to pick up
a couple of victories away from SJP between now and the end of the season. The
alternative is that we'll have to potentially win every home game, and we don't
want to be putting ourselves under that sort of pressure. For instance, we'd
ideally like to go into the Forest game thinking we'd be happy with a point
rather than it being a must-win game.
The Great Escape
I don't know how badly we played at
Derby, but against Swansea we were absolutely dire. Quite how we came away with
a point will forever remain one of life's great mysteries. We started the game
so lethargically you would have been mistaken for thinking that it was the
players and not the fans who'd spent most of the night travelling down. And it
didn't get any better. We
couldn't control the ball or pass it. One incident summed it up for me. We had a
free-kick about 20 yard inside their half, wide on the left, on about 75
minutes. We were one-nil down and had created nothing all game, and there's 15
minutes to go, so obviously we had to lump it into the danger area. Wrong!
Guthrie told whoever was stood by the ball to knock it short to him. He ran
three or four yards with the ball before before tripping over it and going sprawling,
allowing one of their players to take the ball off him. Unbelievable.
When I'm at a game I never
slag off players. Well, apart from Bowyer and Barton of course. That's one good thing about watching at home, you don't have
to feel guilty about shouting "F**k off Carroll/Guthrie/Nolan you f**king
useless twat" at the screen. Nolan and Guthrie were shocking, getting caught in
possession time and time again. Routledge, despite having loads of possession in
potentially threatening positions, didn't once manage to create anything, as
often as not running too far with the ball and losing possession. The defence
weren't much better. Up front Carroll looked like his head's not right. In fact,
I would have dragged him off long before the end. So it's just as well I'm not
the manager then! Possibly the only player who looked at all sharp and up for it
was Lovenkrands, so naturally it was him that made way for Best. I don't know why Jonas
wasn't in the team, I'm guessing some sort of injury with him not even being on
the bench, but we really missed him because we had no threat whatsoever down the
left.
Our long unbeaten run had to
come to an end sometime. You mightn't have expected Derby to be the team to do
it though. But better Derby than one of our promotion rivals. I myself was
amazed that it didn't happen sooner considering that we hadn't been playing well
for a while and then had to make wholesale team changes. The Cardiff result in
particular was incredible when you think that we basically had half a new team. The
downside of the Cardiff result was that people started getting carried away. I
hoped that Derby would be a big wake-up call all round. Apparently not judging
from Swansea.
With 5 minutes to go against
Swansea I was expecting to be seriously depressed for the rest of the weekend.
Then we get an equaliser from nowhere, Forest lose, and Albion draw and so have a
replay that they could well do without. All of a sudden things are looking up!
Realistically though we have to start playing much better otherwise we're
looking to another team, probably Forest, dropping enough points to put us in
the top two at the end of the season.
Missed opportunity
Walking
back to the station after the Leicester game, getting colder and colder with each
step, everyone seemed to be in agreement that this was definitely a case of two
points dropped. Before the game most people would probably have settled for a point, and
it seems that that was also Hughton's view considering that he included Butt in
the team while leaving Lovenkrands and Jonas on the bench. And I suppose a
cautious approach was possibly quite sensible when you think that our defence
included two basically new players and also a second choice right back. However,
we really should have taken the initiative once Leicester went down to ten men
with an hour left. Surely that should have been the signal to replace the extra
defensive midfield player with someone who could cause Leicester problems
further up the pitch. Well clearly that's not how Hughton saw it, and the
sending off made no discernible difference whatsoever. This is of course so
often the case when teams go a man short. We seem to be the exception to this
though -
we invariably replace a front player with an extra defender and proceed to fall
further and further back, desperately trying to hang on to whatever we've got.
Anyway, it wasn't until the last 15 minutes or so that we had any sort of a go
at Leicester. By then we could have easily been behind - Van Anaholt was
dead lucky that Fryatt shot straight at him on the line after he'd turned his
back, and then Leicester should have had a penalty when Carroll blocked that
free-kick with his arm. Mind, it's about time we had some luck with penalties
after what's happened in recent games.
I was down in Leicester reasonably
early, just before 2, but most of the other Yorkshire Mags who ventured down by
train were there before me.
Rather than meeting up with them in the city centre, I opted to instead hike to our
normal pre-match haunt in Leicester, the Western. It's changed hands and had a
lick of paint since we were last there, but the beer was as good as ever.
Despite it being such a good pub and being one of the closest to the ground, it
wasn't as busy as I expected, and certainly not as busy as it used to be.
Perhaps though that's because of the shortage of YMs in there! In the past we've
had some big turn-outs, but on this occasion there was only myself and Hamish &
Bernie.
The first train back north after the
game was just after 8, which obviously gave us time for a quick one. The plan
was to call in the Hind, just over the road from the station, then to get a
carry-out from the Tesco Express right next door to the station. Well that was
the plan anyway. I walked into the Hind and saw that the labels on all the
hand-pulled pumps were turned around. Thinking they couldn't surely all be off I
checked with the landlord. He informed me that they'd been drunk dry by Toon
fans before the game. I didn't bother to point out to him that he'd had three
hours to get at least some of them back on, instead just asking for a pint of
John Smiths. "That's off as well - we've only got lager, cider or Guinness". I
walked straight out the door in disgust, Round Boy and Fringo trailing behind
me. We went straight over the road to Tescos to get some beer for the train
while we were there, only to find that the place wasn't open for some reason!
Plan B then. Fortunately I was already aware of an alternative pub and off
licence. The pub was the Barley Mow, a belting little traditional pub only a
couple of hundred yards away, and the offy was just over the road and, as it
turns out, sold cheap cans of strong Polish and Czech lager. Even that wasn't
strong enough for Stevie - he went for K cider, at 8.4%!
The journey home was fairly
uneventful, as far as I remember anyway. The train back to Sheffield was bang on
time, which was just as well because none of us had a lot of time to make our
connections. Most of the Newcastle fans headed off for a Doncaster train, while
us YMs jumped on the lovely warm Leeds train. Fringo was really looking forward to
meeting up with Paul McKenna for a few pints when he got back, and he texted him
to make arrangements, only to discover that he'd been stood up - Paul was out on
a date. At least that's what he claimed anyway. Anyway, we said goodbye to Fringo and Round Boy
at Wakey, while the rest of us carried on through to Leeds.
Another long day, and yet
another away game that I've attended that we haven't won. I really have been a
jinx this season - that's only one victory in seven away games now. The good news though is
that I'm giving the next few away games a miss in a bid to boost our promotion
prospects.
Honours even
A win against West Brom would have
been fantastic as it would have given us a decent cushion over them. But it
wasn't to be, and in the end we were pretty lucky to come away with a point.
Certainly they were far and away the best team we've seen at St James' this
season. Their touch, passing, and movement were streets ahead of ours on the
night. One or two other teams have played some lovely stuff against us, but
mostly with little goal threat on the end of it. Albion, however, looked
dangerous every time they went forward, and our supposedly solid defence were
all over the place most of the night. Simpson in particular was given the
runaround by the very tricky Thomas - an unfortunate way to end his spell with
us, if that turns out to be the case. Scorer of their second goal Bednar also
proved to be a real handful until he was thankfully replaced by the much less
effective Miller. In partial defence of our defence, the stroll against Plymouth
last week wasn't very good preparation for the this game and they were probably
a bit rusty. Although Albion were the better side over the 90 minutes, it could
all have been very different if the ref punished their 'enthusiastic' tackling
with a few more cards. There were at least two of their players who were lucky
to be on the pitch at the
finish. One offence that went totally unpunished was the pulling back of Shola
early on as he was trying to get clear on goal. It went on for about 20 yards,
and even if the ref didn't see it the linesman had a great view. As far as I was
concerned it was a definite sending off offence.
Speaking of Shola, it was
worrying to see that he was back to his frustrating worst in this game. He
really needs to start scoring again soon because if not, and if we don't bring
in another striker, then it puts a lot of pressure on players like Nolan and
Guthrie to score more than their fair share.
Happy New Year
Goodbye to the nightmare that was
2009, and welcome to a new year which will hopefully a much better year for the
Toon and their fans. Although the last few months of last year were a big
improvement on what had gone before, the results in the final two games were of
course a big disappointment. No doubt a lot of people will be looking back on
the draws against Sheff Wed and Derby and thinking that if we'd won those games
we'd now be sitting 12 points clear going into the new year. While that's
obviously true, everybody can play the "what if" game. West Brom fans, for
instance, can look back at the home defeats against Cardiff and Swansea and
think how they'd now be top with a game in hand if they'd managed to win those
two games. Instead of looking at individual games, you have to look at the
bigger picture. It's a fact that we've picked up 27 points from our last 11
games, and if we can reproduce that run anytime between now and the end of the
season then we'll be promoted. Whether or not we can though remains to be seen,
particularly if we don't strengthen during the transfer window. I was
disappointed that we didn't extend Marlon Harewood's loan. I know he didn't win
many people over during his stay with us, but his goals per game ratio is miles
ahead of anything Carroll and Ranger are liable to achieve.
It'd be nice to think we've got a striker lined up (Beckford would surely be a
fantastic signing, but will Leeds let him go?), but I'm not holding my breath.
Speaking of the bigger picture, once
again I won't be too disappointed if we lose at Plymouth on Saturday. A victory
would be good for confidence, but a cup run is something we could well do
without. Progressing past the 4th round in particular is bad news as it means
we'd end up with extra games in Feb and March when we're already scheduled to
play six games a month. So perhaps beat Plymouth on Saturday (no replay thank
you!), then a narrow defeat against one of the big boys in round 4.
A day out in sunny Barnsley-by-the-Sea
If Barnsley's game plan was to be so
hopeless in the first half that they'd lull us into complacency
then it certainly had me taken
in. I just couldn't see any way that they were going to score if they'd played
until midnight. But then they came out a completely different side in the second
half, and we can have no complaints about the final result. It was only a matter
of time before our run of winning games without playing well came to an end, and
at least we still kept our unbeaten run going. At the same time, the failure to
win was as much down to ourselves as to anything Barnsley did. Bringing in
Taylor for Simpson at right-back just didn't make any sense unless Simpson was
carrying some sort of knock. I've never been a fan of player rotation, and you
definitely shouldn't make changes at the back when they're playing well, unless
of course you're forced to. Retaining Butt in the team was also a bad move. I
know we won at Coventry when he played, but that should be viewed as a victory
despite him being on the pitch. The lack of any creativity in the centre of midfield
at Oakwell meant that we resorted far too often to lumping long balls forward to
Carroll. On this occasion we actually got some joy from it, but you can't expect
that to happen very often.
Despite Barnsley being the closest
match of the season for most of us, it wasn't that easy to get to, certainly not
for myself anyway. Usually I catch a bus down to the station, but the strike meant a change of plan. I instead walked the mile and a half to Guiseley
station to catch the 9.54 train. This would leave me loads of time in Leeds
before jumping on the 10.37 to Barnsley, time I intended to use to pick up some
food for the train, and I needed to eat having had nothing since grabbing some
toast at half 6 on my way to swimming. Well that was the plan anyway. By the
time the train eventually limped into Guiseley 20 minutes late it was touch and go whether or
not I'd even make the connection in Leeds. Fortunately though we made decent
time into Leeds and I was able to link up with Gordano on the Barnsley train.
There was a heavy police presence in
the station when we pulled into Barnsley thirty odd minutes later. It appeared
that they were attempting to funnel any Toon fans out the back exit of the
station. We weren't having any of that, so we sneaked past them and out the front entrance towards
the town centre, where we bumped into Brendan, Paul Blacklock, and others.
They'd arrived 10 minutes before us and had had no luck finding a pub that they
could get into. I had no intention of drinking anywhere near the station anyway
and set off vaguely in the direction of the Outpost and the Dove, with the rest
in tow. We passed a few pubs along the way, but most of them had bouncers on the
door and were clearly home fans only. After a few minutes we passed a bloke who
told us that the Outpost was the place to head for. Apparently it had been in
the local paper during the week that the people who run it are Newcastle fans!
He pointed us in the direction, but then along the way we came across the Silkstone (Wetherspoons)
which looked sound enough, and we piled in for a quick one. For most of our group
it was just a quick one, as they'd decided to move on to the Chicago something
or other just up the road. Well I knew that there was absolutely no chance of
getting a decent pint in a place with Chicago as part of the name, so myself and
Dean and Joanne stayed where we were for another one. By now there were a few
police hanging around outside the pub as a precaution (as they were with most of the pubs), and there were only a few Barnsley fans
actually in the pub, so it would have made sense to have stayed for quite a
while, and in my case to have got some food, but instead we just had the one
more and moved on to the Outpost.
Suprisingly the Outpost was very
quiet when we arrived, only a handful of our fans and about tan equal number of theirs.
We got on talking to the Sand Dancer landlady and she told that they'd only been in the pub for
5 weeks, and that she'd been wearing a Toon top earlier on until the police had
made her to change out of it! Unfortunately the Outpost didn't have anything at
all going for it - no food, crap beer, and not enough staff on when it did
eventually fill up later on. I really fancied moving on to the Dove, especially
when I received a text from Alan H saying that it was pretty quiet in there (even though it was
closer to the ground - bizarre!), but we stayed put because various people were
on their way to the Outpost to meet up with us. The landlady may be a Toon fan,
but she was a miserable cow when a handful of people started singing. The
Barnsley fans certainly weren't bothered, but she said she was going to stop
serving if people didn't shut up. Quite what she expects a pub full of away fans
to be like shortly before kick-off I'm not sure. Anyway, a few minutes later,
after a couple
more outbreaks of singing, she shouted "That's it, yous have spoilt it for
everyone. I'm shutting the bar at quarter past (two)". Anyway, quarter past came
and went, as did 20 past and 25 past, and they were still serving.
The first train back to Leeds was at
12 minutes past 5, and we could have caught this quite comfortably if the match
had finished anything like on time. But what with kicking off the second
half well late, and then having 5 minutes added time, the train was well gone by
the time we reached the station. Well, I can't actually be sure of this, it
might have been running late for all I know. But myself and Paul Mck and
Aaarrrrooonaa just assumed we'd missed it and walked straight past the station
into the town centre in search of a pub where we could kill the time waiting for
the next train half an hour later. Again, the pubs around the station were no
go, and by the time we'd got to the Joseph Brannah (Lloyd's No 1, very nice) and
got served, it was virtually time to set off back to the station. It seemed a
waste to knock back a full pint in 5 minutes, so we agreed to take our time and
catch the next train. Half-way through the second pint my accomplices decided
that they were in no hurry to get home and would catch a still later train. I,
on the other hand, was keen to get home (and to get some food! - I still hadn't
eaten a thing all day) and was determined to leave, but in the end I allowed
myself to be persuaded to have another pint and to catch the train with them. We had
some good crack with the Barnsley fans in the pub. They were more than happy
with the point and said that they thought we'd played well (what game were they
watching?), and that they were really looking forward to their trip to St James'
later in the season. Anyway, we did draw the line at three pints and headed to
the station. Paul and Aaaarrrroooonnnaaa jumped off the train in Wakey, while I
obviously stayed on through to Leeds. Of course I still was far home, with the train to Guiseley and
the long walk from the station ahead of me. It had been a long day by the time I
eventually walked through the door!
|
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It
looks like I'm going to have to ban myself from going to away games in an
attempt to get
our promotion push back on track - that's two I've been to this season, and
we've lost them both. Alternatively we can stop wearing that horrible third
strip which has got the same 100% record as me. I'm guessing that we've got an
agreement with Adidas to wear only the second and third strips in away games.
It's the only explanation I can come up with for never wearing black and white.
And yes I know that we wore black and white at Portman Road, but that was a
special one-off strip.
 A canal in a pub; quite normal I suppose |
 Not a particularly clean canal mind |
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Says it all!
Mid-life crisis?
Everyone who knows Gordon (and that's
most people likely to be reading this) will be aware of the dedication he's
shown for many a year. Until recently he never missed a game. His devotion has
though been gradually on the wane for a while, like a couple of seasons back when he missed a home game to go
and see Robbie Williams, and being away on holiday for the vital final two games
of last season. But over the last few weeks there's been a total transformation
in him. On Wednesday, for the QPR game, he came up with Big Issue on the train.
But whereas Ish came straight to Spoons from the station, Gordon wandered off to
"get a programme" and never showed his face in the pub. Then on Saturday he
didn't leave York until one o'clock. His train was due in at 2, which became
more like quarter to 3 (not good when you're bringing up a ticket for someone!)
when a tree got blown onto the tracks somewhere south of Darlo. And remember,
this is the same person that invariably used to be the first person in the pub
at 11. Gordon's explanation for all this bizarre behaviour is that he's "lost
the buzz" for home games. Personally I think there has to be a woman involved
somewhere.
There was a lot of
déjà
vu to the Bristol City pre-match - a club from the south who brought a stack of
fans, many of whom had clearly come up the night before, and Toon fans heavily
outnumbered in Spoons until quite late on. There wasn't the same friendliness as
when Plymouth were up though. It was obvious that the Green Army were there
first and foremost to have a good time, regardless of the result, and most of
those in Spoons were wearing colours. Not so with the City fans though, with
more of them displaying Stone Island badges than colours. I found this slightly
disconcerting when I first got to the pub, but to be honest never felt
uncomfortable, and there were no problems. I'm not sure if things passed off
trouble-free everywhere else though judging from the number of police present
around the Bigg Market and outside many of the pubs after the match.
Against QPR we were pretty
fortunate to pick up a point after being outplayed for much of the game. Bristol
City was the opposite though, and on another day we would have won by two or
three goals. For some reason the highlights on The Football League Show didn't
include the nearest we came to scoring, when we hit the bar during a big
goalmouth scramble in the second half.
If we'd have beaten QPR and Bristol City then obviously we'd
now be sitting seven points clear going into the latest international break.
I've got to admit that I can't help feeling disappointed that we're not in that
position. Realistically though, being so far ahead would just have meant that
we'd be even more of a scalp than we already are in every game we play. And
let's face it, we've had big leads early in the season before and ended up by
missing out!
Sold out away section
Heavy police presence after the game
Tractor Boys trounced
I have to confess that I feared the worst in the build-up to
the Ipswich game. Yes, I realise that they hadn't won a game all season, but
that just made them overdue a win as I saw it. On top of that we hadn't played
well in the previous few games, culminating in the Peterborough horror show. I
totally agreed with Hughton's team selection for that game and wasn't concerned
that we lost, but I could only wonder how the manner of the defeat might affect
the morale of the squad. I was also concerned that we were missing some
influential players at Portman Road. So what happens? The most one-sided game
I've seen in ages. It's hard to comprehend how Ipswich could be quite so bad. I
can only think that Keano's asking them to do things they're just not capable
of; let's face it, they're hardly the quality of player that he played alongside
all those years. In the end the biggest threat to us winning the game was
ourselves - giving away clumsy and unnecessary free-kicks in dangerous areas,
and suicidal passing by Enrique.
I thought the Ipswich fans came out of the game with a lot of
credit. If we'd have played as badly as they did and been 4-0 down early in the
second half then the ground would have been empty long before the end of the
game. Their fans on the whole stuck it out though,
and there was no mass exodus until
the last few minutes.
So how will we get on against QPR?
Not a clue! What I do know is that they've got an impressive away record - only
two goals conceded in four games. That statistic, together with us only having
conceded one goal at home suggests a tight game. So it'll probably be 4-3.
Toon 3 Green Army 1
A Saturday 3 o'clock kick-off,
a stack of beer, three points, and a defeat for the Mackems. What more could you
ask for! Well, I suppose a half-decent performance would have been nice. Still,
one sign of a good team is supposed to be getting results despite playing badly,
and that's certainly what we did in the Plymouth game. We started brightly
enough, but the goal probably came too early - we hadn't conceded a goal at
home, Plymouth had lost five in a row, so obviously it was game over. Wrong!
From this point on we faded quite badly. Of course it didn't help that Barton
and Geremi had inexplicably started ahead of Guthrie. All I can think is that
either Geremi is fcuking brilliant in training (no, I can't see it either!) or
Guthrie wasn't 100% fit. We did manage to pick our game up again after the
Plymouth equaliser, helped by the introduction of Guthrie and Ranger. In the end
we could have won by a bigger margin, but that would have been very hard on
Plymouth and the Green Army.
I couldn't believe the number of Plymouth fans knocking about
the Toon when I arrived just after 11. Presumably they must have all travelled
up on Friday to be there so early. If that's the case then they did really well
to get hotels with the Great North Run being on. Some lads I was talking to said
that they'd flown from Bristol on Friday morning, and had booked the flights and
hotel as soon as the fixtures had come out "because it's the biggest game of the
season for us". They were lucky then that the game wasn't changed to the Monday
night!
West Brom's thumping of the Smoggies stopped us going back to
the top. While part of me would like us to be up there, the more sensible part
of me thinks that not being top takes a bit of the limelight and pressure off
us. That same part of me won't mind if we lose to Peterborough tomorrow night.
Let's face it we're not going to win the damn thing, and we could certainly do
without the extra games a cup run would bring, so I think we have to do an
Arsenal and give a load of kids a run-out. No doubt most of the Toon fans who
are going to the game will want to see us putting out the strongest side we can,
but that just wouldn't be wise.
Wake-up call
If we're going to have a chance of getting promoted this
season then we have to be up for games against smaller clubs in pokey stadiums.
However, we turned up at Blackpool displaying loads of complacency, both on and
off the pitch. All the
things that the players had been doing well in previous games - passing it
about, closing down the opposition all over the pitch, keeping it tight at the
back - went right out the window. Straight from the kick-off Blackpool put us
under pressure and created a stack of good chances, and only poor finishing and
a series of smart saves from Harper prevented them from building up a
comfortable lead. We, on the other hand, just couldn't get going. We couldn't
string two passes together on the rare occasions that we actually tried to pass
it. Mostly though we just resorted to hopeful (or should that be hopeless?) long
balls up towards Carroll. One reason that the players struggled to find their
team-mates could be that they simply couldn't see each other - the floodlights
were feeble (surely there must be a minimum level of lighting that has to be
conformed to???). To make matters worse we were wearing our third strip (all
black and navy blue), which meant the players were invisible against a backdrop
of the crowd. Blackpool were of course sensibly wearing their virtually
fluorescent tangerine and white.
We took the lead totally against the run of play following
our first decent bit of inter-passing, and you couldn't help but start to think
that it's fated that we'll win the league. This didn't last long though, because
it was only a few minutes before Blackpool brought to an end our long run of not
conceding and deservedly drew level on the stroke of half-time. We picked up our
game a bit after the break (it would have been hard not to really), but then
went behind to a scruffy goal. This triggered a double substitution. Bizarrely
Guthrie, for me our only half-decent midfielder up to that point, was one of
those who made way, when Butt and Barton had both had absolute shockers. One of
the players to come on was Geremi and he was asked to play wide on the right. I
don't think he can have ever played that far forward in his career before.
Certainly he clearly has no concept of the off-side law. Anyway, we forced a few
decent chances late on and could have grabbed an equaliser in stoppage time.
This though would have been undeserved and would only have papered
over the cracks. A defeat on the other hand will hopefully give the players (and
fans, many of whom were clearly there primarily for a day on the beer by the
sea) a good kick up the arse. Certainly the response to this result will tell us
a lot about our prospects for the rest of the season.
Getting a pint before the game
was harder than it might have been. Quite a few pubs, including a number that
are supposed to be away fan friendly, were only allowing home fans in. One of
the places that was happy to have Toon fans in was the awful, awful Manchester
on the front. I have to say found it pretty ironic that they were so welcoming - on my first
ever visit to Blackpool (not for a match I should add) we ventured into the
Manchester for a pint on the Saturday evening and they wouldn't serve us.
"Couples only" or something was the reason given. This was difficult to
understand given that the place was totally empty at the time. Thirty years
later I've come to realise though that they were actually doing us a favour.
Eiffel tower
The Manchester beer garden
The new stand that Blackpool hoped to have in use
for the
start of the season; not quite ready methinks
The "GK" stand (you might end up
singing in the rain)
So far, so good....
Firstly, apologies for not updating the main page since my
waffle following the Sheff Wed game. Apart from anything else though, all I've
seen of the Palace and Huddersfield games are the goals and so I can't really
comment on the performances. By all accounts we were pretty comfortable against
Palace. The same can't be said about the League Cup game! I wouldn't have
actually been that bothered if we'd lost to Huddersfield because a cup run could
be bad news considering our minute squad.
And it's not as though we've got a chance of winning the thing! At the same time
it was nice to see us come back from 3-1 down to win, and of course it can only
be good for the players' confidence.
I wasn't too concerned about our lack of available strikers
going in to the Leicester game, the reason being that our midfield had suddenly
re-discovered how to score in the previous two games. For the past couple of
seasons we've had to rely virtually entirely on the strikers to get the goals,
with the midfield not managing double figures between them. One reason for the
apparent change this season could be the different style of play we've adopted.
Instead of hoofing the ball up to strikers (Owen, Martins, Shola) who couldn't
do anything with it, long balls are now an absolute last resort if the Leicester
game is anything to go by, with the ball on occasions being played back to Harps
rather than punted aimlessly upfield. Harper himself used the defenders for
distribution whenever he could, which is definitely something that didn't happen
last season. Anyway, the players certainly seem comfortable playing this
possession game, and it gives them more opportunities to get into the box, as
demonstrated perfectly by Guthrie for our goal. Leicester were rather
unfortunate to be behind at that point, but from then on they never really
threatened. They couldn't even take advantage of us losing all our shape after
making three substitutions (unwisely in my view with the score still at 1-0!). I
take this as further evidence of the massive gulf between the Premiership and
the fizzy pop league - we've lost our two best defenders and yet kept four
clean sheets in a row, compared to seven clean sheets the whole of last season.
Anyway, that's 13 points in the bag, which I could never have
dreamed of us achieving by this stage. I'm still looking on it as 13 points towards
survival though. However, I have to confess that I'm starting to believe that we may be
able to think in terms of more than merely staying up this season. Our prospects of
potentially being involved in the fight for the promotion places has been helped
by not losing any further players at the end of the transfer window. While it would
have been good to see our massive wage bill cut further, it was getting to the
point where it would have been madness to have offloaded anyone else. In
fact, the squad was strengthened at the last minute rather than weakened with
our re-signing of
Lovenkrands. He's no
world-beater, but he showed last season that he can chip in with the odd goal.
Just as importantly, he gives us the option of a bit of pace up front.
Changing the subject completely, some of you will recall
Yorkshire Mag Brian Ferries running a few marathons to raise money for
Tiny Lives. Well
he's at it again! Except this time he's set himself a much tougher challenge -
three marathons and three half-marathons during September and October. He must
be mad if you ask me! Anyway, you can do sponsor him
here if you wish to do so.
Despite what you might think based on the lack of updates of
the site, your webby has in fact been quite busy recently! I've been moving all
the video clips from where they were (Google) to YouTube.
The reason for doing so is that the viewing quality is much higher on YouTube.
While I was on I edited out some of the more boring bits from the longer ones
which should hopefully make them more watchable - click on 'Video' on the menu
on the left to judge for yourself!
Toon 1 Owls 0
We've got to be happy with
seven points from three games. To be honest, before the season started I would
probably have settled for five points from the first four games. I always say
that confidence is a massive part of success on the pitch, and this was
demonstrated by the way that we started out against Wednesday. Straight from the
kick-off we passed the ball round well and created numerous openings. If we'd
got the penalty that we should have had for the blatant foul on Carroll then the
game could have been virtually over by the end of the first half, but it wasn't
to be. I've no idea what the thinking behind keeping the players in the dressing
room for so long at half-time was, but it back-fired spectacularly because we
just never got out the blocks in the second half. It's hardly surprising really
- the longer the players are sat down the more their muscles will tighten up and
the harder it'll be for them to get going again. At least Harper had the sense
to get back out on the pitch and do a work-out. Despite all Wednesday's
possession in the second half they actually didn't threaten at all until the
last 10 minutes when it needed a couple of smart saves from Harps to keep them
at bay. While we couldn't have complained too much if they'd sneaked an
equaliser, it would have been a bit harsh based on the 90 minutes.
I'm still looking at our seven points as seven points towards
staying up. However, the longer we can keep our unbeaten run going then the more
confidence will build and we may eventually start to be able to think about more
than mere survival. We'll probably get beat at Palace now that I've said that!
The Sheff Wed game was notable for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, Ryan Taylor finally managed to get a free-kick on target after 6 months
of trying. Also, we won despite Massimo from Italy being over for the game, and
we virtually always lose when he's there!.
The season may be only three games old, buy Steady (who
else!) is already a strong contender for the Numbness of the Season award. As
many of you will know, the Stead works weekends and can normally only get to
midweek games. When he can make it to a game he likes to make the most of it and
so often stays overnight. For the Sheff Wed game therefore booked himself into a
hotel in the Toon and drove up early looking forward to a good session. He was
therefore taken aback when he turned up at the hotel reception to find he didn't
in fact have a room - he'd got the date wrong and had booked Tuesday night! Paul
Blacklock saved the day by letting Steady stay at his.
The Shola show
I have to confess that I set
off for the Reading game with no enthusiasm whatsoever. I feared that I'd be
drinking in a half-empty pub, then watching the match in a half-empty ground
probably devoid of any atmosphere. Plus there was of course the possibility that
we'd get beat. Well, I'm pleased to say I was completely wrong on all counts!
Spoons was pretty much the same as ever, with most of the usual faces in
attendance. Notable absentees though were Gordano (preferred supping in North
Shields!) and Brendano (no idea where he was).
And then it was onto the ground. Ten minutes before kick-off
the place was virtually empty and I was resigned to it being an embarrassing
attendance, but then the place suddenly filled up and in the end it wasn't far
short of what we had for some games last season if you ignore the 'executive'
areas. Certainly where I am in the East Stand there weren't a lot of empty
seats, and the same goes for the Gallowgate. Directly opposite me though the
lower parts of the Milburn were almost totally empty - didn't we just know that
the band wagon jumpers would desert the club as soon as things started to go
wrong. The people who were kicked out of their seats to make way for them must
be well and truly p!ssed off.
As for the atmosphere, for me it was just the same as last
season, and better than at some games. I suppose that's not surprising really
considering that the people who stayed away never contributed to the atmosphere
anyway. The Sheff Wed game should for various reasons see a bigger gate and
better atmosphere. Let's hope it ends up with us picking up another three
points!
I'm not getting carried away by our start to the season,
especially after we had the same number of points at the same stage last season,
but there are reasons to be hopeful. Apart from anything else the Reading game
suggests that there's a massive gulf between the Premier League and the
Championship (or second division as I'm calling it). Our current squad, despite
its shortcomings, is probably as strong as anything in the division. What that
squad will look like next month is of course anyone's guess. It's a financial
necessity that we get rid of some of the players on ridiculous wages. If would
be nice if the ones who went were the ones we would prefer to see go (B****n,
Geremi et alia), but no doubt it won't work out that way.
Apparently Alan H said after the second goal that if Shola
got a hat-trick he'd show his arse in Fenwick's window. We're still waiting
Alan.....
New season, new league, same old problems
The draw at The Hawthorns was a pretty fair result overall,
although they'll probably consider that they created enough good chances to have
taken all three points. We had the lion's share of possession, but as ever there
was little end product. This was partly due to the final ball not being good
enough, but also down to the front two's inability to get shots on target. Shola
and Carroll are never going to score many, even at this level, so it's vital
that midfield chip in with a few. However, most of our midfield have forgotten
where the goal is! That's if they ever knew where it is. The biggest
disappointment to me is Nolan. Not only does he hardly get forward, but he can
be totally anonymous for long periods. It's incredible that someone can be
involved in play as little as he was in the first half against West Brom.
If we're going to struggle to score then it's vital that
we're tight at the back. Unfortunately that's unlikely to be the case -
Coloccini continues to look like he's not a defender, and Ryan Taylor continues
to look out of his depth. Unfortunately we haven't got many options after
arguably our best two defenders from last season moved on in the summer, as was
fairly inevitable. I was surprised and disappointed at how little we got for
Beye though. I'd be more then happy if we got the same for Coloccini, but let's
face it who's going to want him!
One positive to come out of the West Brom game was the
performance of Alan Smith, easily his best game since he signed for us. If he
can continue to do the same and also take a big pay cut then I'm happy for him
to stay at the club. Who knows if he'll be around for much longer though as the
club continue to try to reduce costs. Selling those on big wages is
understandable, but at some point we're going to need to get some bodies in;
with everyone fit our current squad should be good enough for us to stay up
without too much problem (which is good enough for me at this point!), but if
anyone else goes without being replaced and/or we get a few injuries then it
looks like being another long hard season.
A point from an away game against a team who will be there or
thereabouts at the end of the season is at the end of the day a decent result.
Don't forget though that that's exactly how we started last season!
At least it was a sunny day*
Before
the Villa game I'd anticipated that if we ended up the day relegated then I'd
spend the ensuing few days totally depressed. Instead the emotions I've
experienced have been primarily frustration and anger. I'm frustrated that we've
ultimately been relegated by a deflected goal. I'm also frustrated that we would
still have been in the Premiership next season had Viduka's late equaliser
against Fulham not been wrongly disallowed. I'm angry that in the second half
against Villa, when one goal would have been enough to keep us up, we couldn't
manage a single attempt on goal. Ultimately though we can't have any complaints
about going down - we
were poor in too many games and we
simply didn't get enough points. The Villa game typified our
season - did ok for the first half, but then ran out of ideas; no creativity in
midfield; Nicky Butt was shocking (although he did at least try, unlike one or
two others); no pace in defence, resulting in having to haul their players back.
While totally p!ssed off at getting relegated and having to
play teams like Scunthorpe, Doncaster Rovers and whoever next season, I'm still
convinced that we would probably have struggled like
hell next season if we'd have stayed up. We would have needed
to ship out a load players who are past it and/or are being paid an absolute
fortune, while also bringing in some much needed quality. That would have been a
massive ask. Mind, I would still have preferred that problem to the one we're
now faced with. Now that we're down it's even more imperative that we clear out
the big earners though. It's all well and good Duff saying that he wants to
stay, but the simple fact is that we can't afford his current wages. If he's
prepared to accept a 75% wage cut then possibly he's got a future at the club.
To be fair, he was one of the players who seemed bothered against Villa. He's
still done very little since we signed him though.
It's vitally important that we get the manager's situation
sorted out as soon as possible. If, as
seems likely, AS is offered the job long-term, then at least he's got the whole
summer to try to put together a squad for next season. I see that the bookies
have us as favourites for the title next season. That though means nothing -
it's simply based on us being the club that'll attract the most bets.
Realistically yo-yo clubs like West Brom and Boro have more chance of bouncing
straight back. Apart from the fact that they'll be able to hold onto more of
their current squad, they'll be under less pressure then us next season. Let's
face it, despite all the people queuing up to say that Newcastle aren't really a
big club, we will be far and away the biggest club in the division next season
and we will be the team that everyone will raising their game for.
Oh, nearly forgot. More than
anything I'm angry that our relegation is down to years of mismanagement. With
our turnover it should have been impossible for us to go down. Fundamental
mistakes have been made by successive regimes, we've flirted with relegation on
more than one occasion, lessons have not been learned. Certain people have a lot
to answer for - FFS and MA in particular.
*
Tom received a text from his Nicky first thing in the morning saying "At least
it's a sunny day". She must have known.
Looking for a miracle
It just wouldn't be like the Toon to have beaten Fulham,
leaving us needing at the most a point against Villa to stay up.
Walking up to the ground it seemed like, unlike the previous two home games, it
was a bit of a party atmosphere. A lot of people seemed to be under impression
that the job was already done. The same appeared to be the case with the
players. As the game got under way I got a sense of complacency both on and off
the pitch. On another day we could of course have come out the game at least a
point, which wouldn't have been the end of the world as it happens, but every
club can point to games where things could have turned out differently.
And so it all comes down to the last day of this calamitous
season then. Just in case anyone's not clear on it, these are our options for
staying up:
We win and either the Mackems or Hull don't
We draw and Hull lose
In our favour is the fact that Villa's form is currently just as bad as ours -
only one win (Hull at home) in 15 games in all competitions. Also, Villa have
nothing to play for other than pinching 5th place off Everton. But Fulham had
nothing to play for! I'll be doing my bit to improve our chances by NOT taking
the flag that I had at the match on Saturday. As far as I can remember the other
games it's been to are the semi-final at Cardiff and the Alkmaar away game; it
hasn't exactly brought us luck then.
I'm expecting everyone at the Villa game to give nothing less
than 100% backing from start to finish, no matter what happens on the pitch and
elsewhere. The club might be a shambles and the team might have been crap all
season, but at least we can show that we the fans are Premiership class. And if
the unthinkable does happen, no crying on the telly please!
One down, two to go
Had results gone against us recently
then we could have been down before the Boro game. Fortunately though just about
every result has gone our way the last couple of weeks. That was well overdue
though after a sequence of results that had me starting to believe in conspiracy
theory - Hull and Blackburn both winning at Fortress Craven Cottage after both
were apparently totally outplayed, plus Blackburn beating Spurs after Spurs had
been absolutely coasting it until that player got himself stupidly sent off. It
was great to see the fans really rallying to the cause last night - getting in
early (well, relatively early) to get the atmosphere going, sticking behind the
team after we went behind, then keeping it going throughout the game. Most
people even stayed until the end!! We now need the same approach from everyone
concerned on Saturday. We're obviously up against a better team in Fulham, but
their away record is pretty pants, only marginally better than ours in fact. On
top of that I can't see them showing the same commitment as the Smoggies did. If
(fingers crossed) Bolton can do us a favour and we can beat Fulham then we'll
unbelievably be safe regardless of what happens in the last game. That would be
fantastic - I don't think I can cope with going to Villa if our survival depends
on it - the last 20 minutes last night was bad enough! That said, it's not a bad
game to finish with if we need points - Villa's current form is on a par with
ours, with only one win (against Hull last Monday) in the last 3 months.
It's in our hands.
Scousers 3 Toon 0
They may as well scrap this fixture. Just call it a 3-0 home
win and save everyone a
lot of time and money. As it happens this could have ended up a lot worse than
3-0, and we could yet be very grateful that it didn't if it all comes down to
goal difference. Apparently Joey B****n has apologised to Shearer for the stupid
challenge that resulted in his red card. Well that's ok then. It doesn't matter
that his three match suspension can only harm our chances of staying up, just as
long as he's said he's sorry. I'm still waiting for my apology by the way Joey.
A lot of our fans applauded him as he went off. Quite why I haven't got a clue.
Perhaps they were thanking him for his contribution in this game. Except he
didn't contribute much. Perhaps it was for all those great performances over the
last 2 seasons. All 3 of them. Personally I booed him, then stuck two fingers
up.
Bizarrely we've ended up the weekend in a stronger
position than we were before it. It was always virtually a banker that we would
lose, and a win or even a draw for any of our rivals would have made our
survival less likely. They all lost though, and
so it's almost in our hands
now. Two wins from our two home games could well be enough to keep us up. That's
still a lot easier said than done though considering our current form.
Just about the one good
thing to come out of our trip to Merseyside was stumbling across a belting pub
next door to Lime Street. Unfortunately it could be a long time before we get to
go there again! There weren't many Toon fans on the train over - a few York Mags,
myself and Gordano, then Stevie and Joanne from Huddersfield. Despite this the
train was seriously crowded - not as bad as coming back from Blackburn last
season, but still pretty bad. At the last stop at Warrington there were quite a
few didn't get on. Whether it was out of choice or because they physically
couldn't I'm not sure. Anyway, it was just before 11 when we pulled into Lime
Street. Our plan was to head for the nearby Punch and Judy (cheap beer, scallies
trying to flog you stuff out of bin bags), except it was shut. Never mind,
there's a Wetherspoons just round the corner. After standing at the bar there
for a minute or so it was clear we could have been there for a good 10 or 15
minutes before we got served - two staff on and thirty people waiting. Plan C
then - back to the Crown, which we'd walked right past on the way to Spoons. And
what a result! Really nice pub, cheap, good range of hand-pulled, decent food,
and no bother getting served. I can't believe that I've been to Liverpool so
many times and never given this place a look. I can't even recall noticing it
before!
I'd wondered if I might
fancy hanging around for a pint or two after the game. In the event, like the
rest of our mob I just wanted to get home. it was straight back to Lime Street
then. As myself and Gordano were walking to the nearby Spar for beer some bloke
asked me what the score was. "Three-nil". "Who to?". Seriously.
The train back was fairly busy, and some of us had to
stand, including Round Boy.
Hence "the incident". We'd been going about 10 minutes when the train went over
a bit of a bump. Stevie lurched ever so slightly towards this bloke sat next to
him. "You'd better watch yourself kid" the bloke said. "Kid? Kid???", replied a
not at all impressed Stevie. "I'm 38 years old, I'm not a kid. And you're not my
Dad". I think I can safely say that Stevie was seething, and he kept on ranting.
All the time this rant was going on the bloke never said a word, Then just as
things were calming down he for some reason came out with "You'll be able to
have a seat soon son because I'm getting off". This nearly lit the touch paper.
"Son? SON???????". I honestly thought Stevie might clock him, but of course he's
not like that. But as Stevie pointed out after the tosser had
got off, there are plenty of people who would have put his lights out for less,
so what the bloke thought he was doing is anyone's guess. Anyway, just in case
we were in any doubt as to who was in the right and wrong, as soon as the bloke
left the train someone who'd witnessed the whole incident commented that Stevie
had done absolutely nothing wrong. Very strange.
"Not good enough"
The consensus of opinion as people shuffled miserably out the
ground at the end of the Pompey game seemed to be that we're simply not good enough. There was
no shortage of effort, perhaps too much at times, but a real dearth of quality.
I always felt that getting to this stage of the season basically having to win
our last three home games was asking too much. It puts too much pressure on the
players. At the same time we could quite easily have won at least this game. We
started ok without really creating anything, then improved after Guthrie came on
(a player making runs from midfield - whoever came up with that idea?!!), with
all our strikers getting chances which on another day they would have stuck away
without thinking. As
the second half wore on we just ran out of ideas and steam, with any chance of a
win disappearing with Viduka's substitution.
Every
time another game goes by without a victory I think "That's it, we're down".
Then I look at the table and realise it's not quite over yet. The way that Hull
are going they might not get another point this season. The same goes for Boro,
particularly if we can somehow manage to beat them. First up though we've got
Liverpool. In a way there's no pressure on us in this one other than to not to
do too much damage to our goal difference, so perhaps we'll play with less fear.
Who knows, we might even beat them! Stranger things have happened. Not very
often mind.
Almost gone
Just about the only good thing about the defeat at Spurs is
that it was only one-nil. It means that if we happen to end up on the same
number of points as any of our relegation rivals then we'll be above them. It's
just so difficult to see how we're ever going to get enough points for goal
difference to be a factor though. How realistic is it that a team who has only
won four home games all season can win three in a row? In all likelihood that's
what's got to happen. In my experience it tends to be teams who are brave who
manage to beat the drop. We're just continuing doing the same things that have
taken us to second bottom. For much of the game at White Hart Lane it looked
like damage limitation was our main priority. That's not going to save us - at
some point we have to throw caution to the wind and have a real go. I'd always
thought Kevin Nolan was an attacking midfield player. I've hardly seen him out
of our half since we signed him. Instead we seem to be using him as yet another
holding midfield player, alongside Butt, Taylor, Smith, Guthrie or whoever else
happens to be in the team.
It's looking grim.
I'll still be well up for it next Monday though!
Stoke
1 Toon 1
A short time after this
game
I had a thought that really scared me -
what's the point in staying up? I mean, just assuming that we manage to somehow
avoid the drop, what will we have to look forward to next season? JFK back in
charge, EMO off to pastures new (assuming someone'll have him), Nicky Butt
another year slower, Ryan Taylor still crap, Shola still Shola, Bassong probably
off to a better team, ........ As if all that's not enough MA will no doubt not
provide funds for any quality signings. That's something I just don't understand
with Ashley. Yeah, I can see that he doesn't want to chuck endless money at the
club, but at the same time the value of the club is plummeting, and things will
only get worse if we're relegated. Surely it makes more sense to be bringing in
the best players you can and to be at the right end of the Premiership, that way
the club's worth more and much more attractive to a buyer. Of course, that
theory falls down if you can't identify the right type of player. Let's face it,
when we have spent big in recent years it's invariably been the case that the
players have turned out to be donkeys.
Anyway, back to the Stoke match. In the weeks leading up to
this game I'd looked at it as one of our remaining winnable games. In hindsight
this was pretty unrealistic considering Stoke's home record and our inability to
defend crosses, and a point was probably the best we could hope for. I'm not
sure whether Shearer's formation change was designed specifically to deal with
Stoke's game, but it's always dangerous asking players to do something they're
not accustomed to. Sure enough, we were a shambles at the back for much of the
game. We were of course a bit unlucky with their goal in that it wasn't a corner
in the first place, but there's still no excuse for Faye getting a free header.
It looked to me like he was Shola's man, but he got caught between watching the
man and watching the ball and in the end got nowhere near either of them.
Speaking of Shola, I found it amusing that for much of the game the Setanta
commentators were going on about how Carroll would probably get brought on for
Shola to give us "some presence up front". Well I could be mistaken but as far
as I can see they're both virtually the same height and build, so why should
Carroll give us more presence? He did of course.
This game reminded me a lot of the one at St Andrews last
season. At half time-time we were a goal behind. You just couldn't see any way
back for us and we were looking odds-on to go down, but then we pulled it back
to 1-1. That game proved to be a real turning point because we followed up by
going on a good little run and ended up staying up comfortably. I'd like to
think the same will happen this time round, but I'm not convinced! Not unless we
can somehow get some creativity into midfield; we can sometimes pass the ball
around in the middle third, but we're clueless where it really matters. Last
season we managed to create chances for Owen during that run, but I can't see
the same thing happening now. Our best midfield player is probably Gutierrez,
but he's currently being frequently left out due to lack of end product. While
that's understandable, at least he can hold onto the ball for a few seconds and
can take a defender on. Plus he's worth his place in the side just for his
tracking back.
White Hart Lane next. At least we sometime win there. The
same performance and result as last season would be nice, even just the same
result, but I'd probably take a point now.
Seven games from disaster
While most
people had written off the Chelsea game before it even started, a point or even
just a good performance would have given us a much needed boost going in to the
massive game at Stoke. In the end we got neither. If anyone thought that Shearer
taking over would transform our fortunes on the pitch overnight then this match
was a big wake-up call. In fact it re-affirmed a number of things. Like Collocini not being a £10 million defender (or a £10 defender come to that). And
Ryan Taylor not being a Premiership footballer. Having said all that, for 50
minutes or so there was absolutely nothing to choose between the sides. But once
we went behind we just never really looked like getting back in the game. One
again our lack of pace and creativity in midfield was scary. When you think of
the quality of the midfield players we've had over the last 10-15 years and
compare it with our current collection it's enough to make you weep!
Our remaining seven games break down as four that look
winnable, one we'll get nothing from, and two (Spurs and Villa) where we might
get something if our opponents have an off day. It therefore doesn't look
unreasonable that we could yet pick up the dozen or so points that we need. That
is until you realise that we've only won six games all season but need to win a
minimum of three out of seven. If we do go down then it will be an absolute
disaster. If anyone thinks it might not be a bad thing (see some new grounds,
loads of easy victories, then straight back up), then they just need to take a
look at what's happened to virtually every team that's gone down the last few
years - Southampton, Leeds, Forest, Carlton, Norwich, Leicester, Coventry, the
list goes on and on. There's more chance of going down again than there is of
coming straight back up..
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Plenty of pre-match optimism in Spoons
Toon 1 Gooners 3
Let's
start with the positives. The half-five kick-off was meant there was plenty of
time for a good beer session before the game. Certainly YMs were out in force in
Spoons. A notable absentee was Miguel though - saving his dosh for yet another
stag weekend in Spain! By the time we had to set off for the Park yet more bad
results elsewhere meant that it was pretty imperative that we picked up at least
a point. Walking up there was definitely a feeling of optimism in the air, and
the atmosphere at the start was as good as it's been for a while. It might be
the beer affecting my judgement, but I thought that for an hour there wasn't
much wrong with our performance. Then they scored their second and we fell
apart. No doubt people will do that what-if thing looking back at this game. If
Owen had played from the start and been on the pitch to take the penalty.... If
Oba had taken the pen with his stronger foot..... If we'd brought a sub on for
Stevie Taylor as soon he got injured.... Ultimately it's all irrelevant. If we
go down it won't be because of decisions taken in this game, it's down to the 38
games played over the season and on years of mis-management. We were in
virtually the same position at this stage last season and you'd think that
people would have done everything possible to ensure it didn't happen again.
Instead we've just repeated the same mistakes that we've been making for years.
Freddie Shepherd will I'm sure be feeling smug and telling anyone who wants to
listen that we wouldn't be in this position if he was still in charge. Well it
was under his regime that the foundations for our imminent demise were laid -
sacking managers at the wrong time and with no successors lined up, wasting an
absolute fortune on sub-standard signings, an obsession with "trophy" signings
as that's what the fans supposedly wanted, spending money that we simply didn't
have and building up a mountain of debt, etc, etc.
The big problem
with these
Saturday evening games is of course the lack of trains back south afterwards, in
particular to Durham and Darlington. It's not unusual for people with tickets
for Birmingham or London being left on the platform at the Central and with no
later train to get them home, meanwhile the trains are half-empty once they get
past Darlo. In the good old days of British Rail they would just have stuck some
extra local trains on, but that evil Thatcher woman put paid to that. Anyway, I
legged it out the ground and down to the Central the second the final whistle
went because I wanted to make sure I wasn't one of those unfortunates left on
the platform as the 19.44 pulled out. I did though take a calculated risk
stopping off at the Pink Lane offie for a couple of cans for the train, as did a
lot of familiar faces. I didn't think it would cost me too much time, but that
was before the bloke in front of me paid with a card, and before some woman
who'd been hanging round the counter for ages with no apparent interest in
buying anything suddenly decided she wanted to relieve them of half their stock
of lollipops! I was starting to panic and did seriously wonder about about the
wisdom of what I was doing, but as it turns out there was still plenty of room
on the train when I got there. It seemed like all the rest of our lot made it as
well, but I don't know for definite.
Hull was obviously a game we really could have done with
winning, but I suppose I would have taken a point beforehand because defeat just
didn't bear thinking about.
And I would have snapped your hand off if you'd offered me a point at 10 past 3!
For some reason which for the
life of me I can't fathom out I decided to give this game a miss. A Saturday 3
o'clock kick-off, bargain train fare (if you got in early), and cheap pre-match
beer in Hull. What was I thinking of!! Not being there in person meant I
resorted to trying to get the game up on my PC. This was a bit of a disaster. It
wasn't until the early stages of the second half that I managed to track down a
feed that worked (or worked intermittently to be correct), courtesy of
iraqgoals.com. It's hard to judge the overall performance on the 30 minutes or
so that I did see. It sounds though like I probably saw the best of it - we were
in control most of the time, but let ourselves down with sloppy passing and
failing to turn good possession into meaningful attempts on goal.
What's the heading all about? No doubt most people can't find
anything to be cheerful about at the moment! I think though that there are a few
things to take hope from, like:
- players coming back from injury or suspension, particularly in midfield
- Michael Owen; his goals largely kept us up last season, and the same might
have to happen this time round
- the team spirit seems decent, with heads not dropping
- our run-in; once we get Arsenal and Chelsea out the way then we've got a few
winnable looking games before the end of the season
However,
there are obviously also reasons to be very concerned right now. One of them is
Arsenal hitting form at just the wrong time for us after months of struggling.
Let's hope though that we can come up with a performance against them like we
did against Man U. If we do, and the fans (fuelled by extra drinking time!) get
behind them from the start, then I think we've got every chance of getting at
least a point from the game.
Right back in it
A weekend of disastrous results saw the gap of five points between ourselves and
the bottom three slashed to a mere two. It's looking increasingly like, rather
than securing our own survival, we're going to have to rely on West Brom, Stoke
and probably Hull to end up the season with fewer points than us. It could have
been different though because we could and probably should have come away from
the Reebock with at least a point. Don't get me wrong, I'm not pretending we
were particularly good. In fact, we were awful for the first fifteen minutes
during which Enrique cleared one off the line and a penalty should have been
awarded against Bassong. But we more than matched Bolton for the rest of the
first half, and then pretty much dominated after half-time. It's just a shame
that our defence failed to spot Gardner coming on for the second half, allowing
him to run half the length of the pitch completely unmarked before burying
Taylor's pass.
A few random observations on
the game:
- I'm not convinced that Lovenkrands should be played in midfield; I appreciate
we were a bit short of midfield options for this game (what's up with Duff by
the way?), but it looks to me like Hughton feels obliged to fit him in wherever
he can on the basis of him having had a canny game at West Brom; but he was
playing up front in that game and that allowed him to make best use of his
speed, which is clearly his main asset
- just how many stupid, pointless bookings is Nicky Butt going to pick up before
he realises that lots of bookings equals suspensions, which is hardly helping
the cause?
- I was pleased to see that when we got a free-kick just outside the box Ryan
Taylor moved the ball back a couple of yards to give himself more room to get
the ball 'up and down'; not that he did anything with it mind - how come he's
got a 100% of scoring from free-kicks against us, but a 100% of not hitting the
target from free-kicks for us?; still on Taylor, I'm impressed with how quickly
he's picked up that difficult skill of hitting the first defender from corners;
he can't do it every time yet, but I'm sure he's working on it
- why
are Oba and (especially) Shola so slow at getting back after an attack breaks
down?; it's so frustrating at times when we've regained possession to see them
still ambling back and miles offside; thinking about it, can anyone ever recall
Shola busting a gut over anything?; we had a shot in the first half against
Bolton that took a slight deflection and flashed a couple of yards wide; bit it
also flashed a couple of yards in front of Shola he was happy to watch it go out
for the corner, whereas he should have been flinging himself full length to try
to get a touch
Oh well, it looks like we'll
just have to go and beat Man U on Wednesday now. Wouldn't it be nice to see them
have an off day though? Arsenal played a blinder against us at their place, but
they've been pants in just about every other home game this season. Liverpool
were on another planet and could easily have scored double figures at St James',
then they go and lose 2-nowt against the Smogs who hadn't won a game since 2003.
It just goes to show that anything can happen in football.
Wot no Bob?
A
feature of the Everton home game in recent years has been the Horsforth
lads (Mike, Everton Bob, plus a few others) making a day of it. I assumed this
season would be no different. In fact, I half expected them to be catching the same
early train up to the Toon as myself, probably fully stocked up with bottles. I was
therefore slightly surprised to find that they weren't on board, but I just
assumed that they were taking things a bit steadier than normal with it being a
Sunday game. I was then shocked part-way through the journey when Tom mentioned that Alan had called in the
day before to drop off his and Mike's tickets. " What?!! Alan and Mike
aren't going to the game?". Apparently Alan was staying at home to look after
Cath who's convalescing after having a hip replacement (plenty of Brownie points
earned there then Al). I'm still waiting for an explanation for the
non-appearance of Mike and Bob.
I was always confident that we'd get at least a point from
this game. I'm not sure why - possibly it's just the fact that we've got a good
record against them over the years. As it turns out we never really got going,
despite Everton having a few players missing and then obviously losing their
best player Arteta really early on. If anything, we actually did better after
going down to 10 men, with Everton hardly threatening from that point on. I was
really pleased that we didn't sit back and try to just hang on for a point; if
we had have done I'm absolutely convinced that we would have lost.
So it ended up as yet another home game
that we failed to win. However, I'm sure most people will see it as a point won,
and hopefully another point towards survival. Five points between ourselves and
the bottom three looks a nice little gap, however it would only be three points
if Blackburn were to win their game in hand. And of course we've got a few
tricky fixtures coming up. Past form suggests that we're unlikely to pick up
anything from the next two games. I would suggest though that we have to look on
Bolton as a game that we can win, with a point being a decent return if that's
what we end up with.
Up and running again
Webby
now has a new PC and so is able to update the site again! It'll take a day or
two to catch up on things, but at least the Predictions page is now up-to-date
again. As well as the latest table, the page also includes the table as it was
after the Mackem game so that people can see what points were picked up from
that game.
National Express East Coast are currently running a
"Valentines" promotion, with one-third off Advance fares booked by the end of
tomorrow (Monday) for travel up to the end of April. This is obviously a
cracking deal, it's just unfortunate that we can't be sure of the dates of any
of our games in April yet. However, if anyone was say planning to make a weekend
of the Spurs game (Tom/Jude, the Cooks??), or basically is just happy to take a
gamble, then they should get booking - click on the logo. Note that you have to
follow the instructions on the site to get the reduced fares, ie log in then
input the promotional code LOVE09.
It goes without saying that the win at West Brom was an
absolutely massive result.
Apart from the result itself, the timing was brilliant with the match coming as
it did before the international/cup break. Two weeks of feeling good about
things should mean that team and fans should go into the Everton game in a
decent frame of mind.
Freefall
Given (!) our record at the ground, not many people will have been surprised by the defeat at Man City. However, it sounds like it was a pretty disastrous night - a very poor first half performance ("some players don't want the ball" - Phil Thompson) coupled with key players dropping like flies. We already had a load of players out injured, it's likely that they'll now be joined by at least a couple more. And there's no sign of anyone of any significance coming in. Taking 8-10 million off Citeh for Shay isn't bad business considering the cover we've got, but it's imperative that that money is used to bring players in. Having said that though, who of any quality is going to want to come to the Toon
the way things are at the club just now?
Normal service resumed
Some of you, probably most of you in fact, will have been greeted with a screen looking like the one to the right when trying to access the site at then end of last week or start of this week. What this was all about is that I was moving the domain name yorkshiremags.co.uk from one domain name hoster to a cheaper one. If everything had gone according to plan the site would only have been down for a short time, probably a couple of hours. But it didn't! Partly it was my fault - I forgot to do something on Wednesday, and then couldn't do it until I got home from work on Thursday. But the site should still have been back up sometime on Friday. Quite why it wasn't is, and will remain, a mystery. Still, it's back now. As it happens the site was never away for anyone going in on yorkshiremags.com, which has been around for a year or so in case no-one noticed. If you've got a bookmark to .co.uk then I suggest you change it to .com because it's just possible that I'll get rid of .co.uk at some point in the future to reduce costs.
This is all a bit technical, but when I took out the .com domain name I actually physically moved the site. For years it had lived on my personal web space, provided by my service provider plus.net. It's now on web space provided by one.com, which is where the .com name is hosted. Apart from now having virtually unlimited web space to play with, there are a couple of other good things about the site being hosted on one.com. One is that it's now really easy for me to do photo albums and slideshows (have a look at the Photos page for some examples). It used to take me literally hours to do these previously. The other thing is that we can have an unlimited number of email addresses like webby@yorkshiremags.com, jt@yorkshiremags.com, tommyharbord@yorkshiremags.com, etc. If you fancy having such a prestigious email address then there are in fact two different ways I can set up. The first is where the address is just an 'alias', where anything sent to that address gets redirected to your normal email account, and you can't send emails from the address. The other is a fully featured web mail account (like Hotmail in other words). With the second option you could in fact have the best of both worlds - you can have auto-forwarding set up so that a copy of any incoming email is sent to your normal email. The drawback with the second option is that you have to tell me what password you want setting up. This means that I could in theory access your email if I wanted to. The reality is that it takes me all my time to keep up with my own email!
If you want a yorkshiremags.com address then drop an email to me at webby@yorkshiremags.com. You will obviously have to say what address you want! And it's first come first served for paul@yorkshiremags.com!! It doesn't cost anything to set up these addresses, but you might want to make a contribution to the cost of running the site. Currently it's all coming out my pocket!
Big Sam's lot 3 Toon 0
Strange game this. We were the better side for an hour and you couldn't see Blackburn scoring. Mind, it was pretty hard to see us scoring either. Then Blackburn were awarded a very iffy penalty and we completely disintegrated. A lot of people are pretty much resigned to us going down, and there's a real danger that it could happen. However, it's not a done deal, especially if everyone pulls together (paying attention Mr Barton?). I reckon we'll be ok if we can get/keep Oba and Habib Beye fit. It's scary that we appear so reliant on those two, but performances and results over the last couple of months suggest we are.
The number of YMs at this game was well down on last season for whatever reason. I caught the 10.51 train over from Leeds, along with Gordon and Hamish. The train was very quiet compared to what it would normally be for this fixture - engineering work all over the place meant that only a handful of fans had ventured down from Newcastle. Pulling into Blackburn bang on time we headed straight over the road to the Adelphi, a belting pub if you don't mind it being a bit rough around the edges. Apart from anything else I like it because of the range of hand-pulled that they have on. I tried most of them in the couple of hours we were there before the game and I can honestly say that they were all spot on! As well as myself and the Wilsons, other people of note in the Adelphi were Ian from Huddersfield (knows Round Boy well) and his two mates, Big Ish, plus Fringo and some York Mags who were on the train behind ours.
Just in case we weren't all miserable enough at the end of the game, we exited the ground to a gale force wind and heavy rain. Those who walked back to the town centre (like me!) bore a very good resemblance to drowned rats by the time they got to the Adelphi. A couple of pints later though and everyone was in much better spirits. We wandered over the road with our carry-out to catch the 10 past 6 back. As many of you know only too well, last season this was the most crowded train in the history of the world ever. This time, thanks to the engineering work, there were loads of spare seats!
All in all, a canny day out spoilt by 30 minutes.
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Doing it the hard way
If we stay up (and it's definitely 'if') then it looks like it's going to go all the way to the end of the season due to our inability to win games. We're not losing many, but it would make such a difference if we could change some of those home draws to victories. Most people seemed to give us little chance against West Ham before the kick-off. This was I suppose understandable up to point considering each team's last few games. As it turned out we started quite well, and there's no disputing that we deserved the lead when we took it. And we could easily have increased that lead not long afterwards. This was despite totally wasting a succession of corners and free-kicks in dangerous areas. Step forward Geremi (again) and Guthrie.
But then it all started to go horribly wrong. Bellamy had been a threat right from the start and it was no surprise, not to mention oh so predictable, when he stuck in the equaliser. At this point we fell apart. The start of the second half was a complete shambles. It looked like the players had never seen each other before, and it was only a matter of time before West Ham took the lead. It was therefore no surprise when they did, but our "defending" for the goal was absolutely horrible. For the next 10 minutes or so I was convinced that there was no way back, and was about as low as I had been at half-time in the Birmingham away game last season. But then Charlie replaced Geremi (surely his last game for us???) and things slowly but surely turned round. In the end we were a bit unlucky not to sneak it.
To Hull and back
Watching the tame 90 minutes played out at the KC Stadium it was really difficult to see how Hull have terrorised so many teams this season; for most of the game we had loads of possession and were very comfortable. Admittedly Hull did create the better chances. I'd say a draw was therefore a fair result! Our defence looked a lot more solid with Bassong back, but of course they weren't up against Stevie Gerrard and co this week!
I'm afraid anyone hoping to read about yet another day out fraught with a catalogue of travel problems is going to be severely disappointed. In fact, everything was perfect - the train was bang on time both ways, and to make it even better most of us (but not Tom who wasn't as organised as the rest) had only paid a fiver each way. There were rumours circulating that when we arrived in Hull we were likely to be rounded up and herded into some horrible Social Club with only one person serving, as had apparently happened to a train load of Mackem fans a few weeks ago. This was backed up by the train guard saying that there would be a stack of police waiting for the train. We therefore toyed with the idea of getting off at Brough (the last stop before Hull), as Brendan and some other lads were doing. This had been arranged ages ago - Berwick Daz's brother Keith lives there and they were going to have a few pints in his local before cabbing it to the ground. In the end though only Round Boy went with the Brough option, the rest of us deciding to take our chances. As the train pulled into Hull we covered up our colours, and left the train in ones and twos so that we would hopefully not look like a load of football fans. As it happened we needn't have bothered as there were very surprisingly no police whatsoever waiting at the end of the platform! But just in case they were lulling us into a false sense of security and waiting outside to ambush us, we maintained our low profile as we left the station, with some of us leaving via a side entrance. Again though, we'd been worrying unnecessarily. Next stop Rugby Tavern!
It was Gordon who'd suggested the Rugby Tavern as the place for our pre-match session. It's a Sam Smiths pub so the beer is cheap (a bargain £1.45 for hand-pulled bitter!), and it's a 10 minute walk from the station and a bit out of the way, and therefore unlikely to be frequented by any of Hull's "boys". And so it turned out - I only saw a handful of Hull fans the whole time we were there. Toon fans though were there in good numbers; as well as ourselves there was most of the Wilson clan, and also the York Mags. We were joined later on by Bryn and Joe, who'd driven across, parked up by the ground, then trekked the mile and a half or so to the pub.
As is usually the case, all too soon it was time to sup up and go the game. Most people headed off back to the station in search of cabs. Myself though, because it was relatively early and because I'm tight and because I thought it might clear my head a bit - there hadn't been the expected (and much needed by me!) food on in the pub - decided to walk it. Mistake! It's an awful long way even if you go the shortest route, which I didn't. On the plus side though, I got to see a lot of the dingier bits of Hull, plus it probably did do me a little bit of good.
As for the ground itself, as far as I'm concerned it's the worst of all the cheap and cheerful grounds that have sprung up over the last dozen or so years. It's in the middle of nowhere, very small apart from the main stand, and the facilities are as ever totally inadequate; apparently the people who design football grounds still haven't realised that football fans, especially away fans, tend to drink beer before the game and will therefore need appropriate toilet capacity.
The walk back to the city centre seemed to go on for ever after the game, but it still left time for a quick one in a pub near the station. Then we stocked up with beer and food and boarded the train. The chaos and overcrowding we'd been expecting didn't materialise, despite the train only having two carriages. Tom had been told on the outward journey that without a reservation he wouldn't be allowed on ("There's a football match on you know"), but he had no problem. I suspect though it would have been a different story if there hadn't been replacement buses operating between Newcastle and York which must have persuaded a lot of people to travel by car or coach instead of train.
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Total shambles
JFK has to take the blame for the humiliating capitulation against Liverpool. His Wimbledon team never showed anyone any respect, and I'd hoped that he would instil that sort of mentality into our lot. Instead we went into this game thinking that the best we could do was to sit back and soak up Liverpool's pressure and somehow sneak something at the other end. That tactic might have fluked us a draw at Chelsea, but no-one in their right mind could expect to get away with it again, especially missing our best two defenders on current form. From the kick-off we were playing 10-15 yards too deep. This gave Liverpool all the room in the world to pass it around at the back and then pass it straight through us. It was obvious after 15 minutes, by which time we could have been 3 or 4 down, that we had to change, but nothing happened. Even when we went behind nothing changed. I think I can safely say that the first half was the worst 45 minutes I've ever seen from the Toon in my 40 years plus of watching them. Things improved a bit after half-time. Shola gave us a semblance of physical presence up front, and the rest of the team pushed further forward. Obviously we conceded another three goals in the second half, but at least we matched Liverpool possession wise and territorially, and could quite easily have scored 2 or 3 ourselves.
The only good thing to come out of the game was that the fans kept behind the team and (on the whole) stuck it out to the end. It was a bit like the "good old days" the way that the noise level increased after we went 4-1 and 5-1 down. So much better than against Pompey and Liverpool last season!
Bah humbug
There was a time in the dim and distant past when I used to really enjoy away games on Boxing Day. But that was when we occasionally used to win, and before we were forced to go to dumps like Bolton and Wigan - soulless grounds with inadequate facilities in the middle of industrial estates. At least now we've finally scored at the JJB 'stadium'. And at least this year's performance wasn't anything like as bad as last year's. I'd be more than happy if I never had to go back to the place though.
It wasn't a good day all round. Apart from the injuries and suspensions that we picked up, the result means we could now really do with getting something out of the Liverpool game. If we don't then we're going to be under an awful lot of pressure going into the run of critical league games that we've got coming up after the distraction of the FA Cup tie at Hull.
In case anyone's wondering what happened to the report (or whatever you want to call it) on the Spurs game, there just wasn't time for it with all the socialising I had on over the subsequent few days. Anyway, suffice to say I was over the moon to once again get one over on that lot. The fact that we hardly deserved to win just makes it that much sweeter! Their fans are just so full of themselves, exemplified to the tosser that me and Aaaarooonnaa had the misfortune to bump into on the train back to Leeds. Mind, Aaaarrrooonnnaa played right into his hands when the bloke tried to wind us by reminding us (just in case we needed reminding) that we've never won anything in the last 50 years. "What have you lot won like?" was Aaarrrooonnaa's response. Their League Cup victory last season had obviously slipped his mind!
Top class
Well, what a great performance and result that was at Fratton Park! It's some reward for those who travelled all the way down to the Toon for such a ridiculous kick-off time. I was looking at the league table before the game and thinking that, with the difficulty we've had digging out wins this season, we were in real danger of becoming entrenched in the bottom three. We haven't played like a relegation side the last couple of months, but if you're stuck down there for long enough then it's bound to get to the players eventually. The performance against Pompey should though give the players a massive lift. Instead on people focusing on a run of only two wins in 15 games, as it might have been, it's now only one defeat in 8 games! We've taken thirteen points from those eight games. The same return from the next eight games will do me nicely.
To be fair, I can't comment on the first 25 minutes of the game as Internet Explorer kept crashing on me. The first five minutes I did see were a bit worrying as it was all Portsmouth. However, from that point on we gave as good as we got and it was obvious that we hadn't gone down there just for a point. Even after we scored the first we kept pushing forward whenever we could. There was a long time left on the clock though! At one point, with about 20 minutes to go, Portsmouth had a few quick corners in succession. If that's how the the rest of the match was going to pan out I couldn't see us hanging on. We had no real problem with those corners though, and that was the last sustained pressure we had to endure. The second goal killed off Pompey and we strolled the rest of the match. Fittingly I was half-way though a bottle of Bateman's Victory Ale when the final whistle went!
Everyone played well. Charlie and Oba in particular caused their defence some real problems, and Jonas had his best game yet from an attacking perspective. Even Enrique looked like he might be the real deal, apart from one lapse when he allowed Defoe a chance at 1-0 that he would normally have buried.
While the result moves us nicely up the table, we're obviously still only one point off the relegation zone. However, there's now some real daylight between us and the bottom two. West Brom are looking odds-on to go down, while Blackburn need to turn things round quickly otherwise they'll be joining the Baggies; hopefully they'll stick with Paul Ince because he's doing a fine job at the moment. Just to confirm how tight the table is, if we'd have held out for victories in the last two home games then we might have been in 8th place now and thinking about possibly sneaking into Europe.
Here's Big Issue's report on the weekend for those that haven't seen it on the message board:
Just thought that I’d update you on the Tales of the Totally Expected that occurred over the weekend.
My train from Liverpool to Euston took a mere six hours to get there on Saturday going via Manchester, Stockport, Stoke, Birmingham, Coventry and Northampton. Apparently this was due to “flooding in Gloucester”. Nah I can’t figure that one out either! It was certainly pi$$ing down in London though as I discovered when I found out that there are two Kings Cross Travelodges and I went to the wrong one. Unfortunately the Blacklock chap had told me to walk into room 511 which I duly did. Doubly unfortunately the rather tasty Italian bint who lived in the right room in the wrong hotel unlocked the door and, thinking it was her mate that she was letting in, promptly returned to the shower. When she discovered that I wasn’t her mate she took it rather badly. Departing the wrong hotel slightly before security arrived I arrived in the right hotel looking like a drowned rat when I discovered that the North East brigade’s journey had been no less eventful and they’d got some poor smoggie arrested for being pi$$ed and sexually harassing passengers (how any of us ever arrive at the match I’ve no idea!). Apparently he’d been chucked off the flight from Smogland to Heathrow where he was travelling onwards to South Africa. Needless to say he was a guest of Her Majesty at the time he was meant to be departing Heathrow. Very expensive.
The good news was that Brendan had booked three taxis to take us to Leicester Square at 8.45. The bad news was that they charged twenty quid each and the journey took an hour. This was too much for Gordano who went hyper and started ranting that this was ridiculous and we should have got the tube and that Brendan was a twat, well everyone was a twat and we should have gone to Camden and we could all fvck off. It was also too much for Darren’s bladder and he actually convinced the taxi driver to let him out in the middle of the West End so that he could pi$$ in some posh shop’s doorway.
We finally arrived in Wetherspoons and amazingly nothing at all untoward happened. However for some reason we then decided to move to another pub. The only difference from the previous pub appeared to be that it was twice as expensive. On the way out Berwick Daz encountered some c0ckney tw^t beating up his missus and asked him politely to stop it. At this point the c0ckney tw^t made a bad life choice and asked Daz what he would do if he didn’t. Two seconds later c0ckney twa^t’s nose and face became separate items and beaten wife then attacked Berwick Daz. Daz was heard yelling “fvck off Barbara Windsor” and somehow Joanne ended up having a fight with her.
Whilst everyone else pi$$ed off to a night club (ten quid in, $hit beer, $hit talent and Youth Squad got relieved of their fake ID by the bouncers) me and Gordon decided to call it a day. Gordon was a bit relaxed by now. When I tried to get through the barrier I discovered that my Oyster card needed topping up. I told Gordon to stay where he was and left him like a grinning fool by the barrier. Needless to say when I got back he was gone. Found out later that he’d fallen asleep on the last tube and woken up in ####fosters wherever the fvck that is. One twenty quid taxi fare later………………….
Meanwhile I got back to the hotel OK and bought a kebab. Took it to the room and fell asleep before eating it. Woke up later – no kebab. Found out later that the thieving seagull Tommy had nicked it and shared it with Darren.
Next day got a group ticket at Waterloo and had an uneventful pi$$ up in the pub before the match (apart from Youth Squad who couldn’t get in cos they no longer had any fake ID). After the match got the train from Fratton assuming that little Paul was getting on behind me with the group ticket. Wrong! The tw^t had got on a different train. Twenty minutes later I was relieved of fifty two quid by the ##### ticket inspector (£25 penalty fare and £27 Open Single) and this was on top of the £15 I’d already paid. I did start a full and frank discussion with her but she started saying something about foul and abusive language and zero tolerance at which point I produced a credit card.
Apart from that nothing much happened……………………………………..
Stoke horror show
After going in at half-time with a two goal lead and looking totally in control, just what went wrong in the second half? The substitutions had a lot to do with it. The first one was presumably enforced. Without a single midfielder amongst the seven players on the bench (it's worrying that there's apparently no-one playing in midfield for the reserves considered good enough to step up), JK's options were limited. After the game a few people were saying that he should have brought on Viduka and played 4-3-3. Fair comment in hindsight, but did anyone say that at the time? I thought moving Beye forward into midfield looked reasonable. After all, he's decent pushing forward from full-back, and he's comfortable on the ball. In the event he didn't get going in the second half. The second substitution is for me the one that did the real damage. Oba had been a real handful for the Stoke defence all game with his movement and probing runs. Ok, Owen had scored two scored two, but as soon as Oba went off we lost an outlet. From that point on we had zero going forward, not helped by the fact that the fat Aussie contributed absolutely nowt. Then came the last substitution. Replacing a midfielder with a defender when you're a goal up with 10 minutes or whatever it was to go just sends out a message to the other team that you're struggling to hold on. It gave Stoke a lift, and from then on in it looked like it was really only a matter of time. Again it doesn't help when the replacement doesn't get into the game.
The last two home games we've conceded a late equaliser from a set piece, and each time it's a defender's scored it. I'm not alone in thinking that the solution is to always leave at least two players forward. If you do then the opposition is always going to use three or more defenders to keep an eye on them. This has got to make it harder for the attacking team to score, plus if the ball's cleared there's a decent chance it won't come straight back in. Mind, JK's not the only Toon manager to pull everyone back for set pieces, and we're certainly not the only team to do it.
Smog on the Tees
After Although the final score was the same, this game was quite a lot different to Chelsea. Or at least it started out quite a lot different. We piled forward straight from the kick-off, and it was 3 or 4 minutes before Boro even got into our half. Unfortunately though we gradually lost momentum from that point on. We were definitely the better side in the first half, but didn't do much going forward after half-time. It didn't help that JFK decided to take off the only player on our team who'd looked remotely like scoring. Quite why he preferred to leave on the largely anonymous EMO will forever remain a mystery.
Our normal policy when playing in Smogland is to have a few pints outside the town (Thornaby when we've driven, or Darlo in recent years when we've been on the train) and then travel in as late as possible. However, I decided to give Hogans cheap beer a miss this year and catch a train direct to Boro. There were a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, it cost an extra 12 quid to go via Darlo, which seemed a lot to me. On top of that I hate the shuttle from Darlo to Boro (think of those cattle trucks carrying Jews and you'll get the general idea). And I'm convinced that one year the train won't turn up. Arriving in Middlesbrough a couple of hours' drinking time before kick-off was going to be a novel experience for me considering that I'd never been inside a pub in Middlesboro in my life.
As the train headed north from York towards Thirsk the fog was that bad that I thought there was a serious risk of the match being called off. And even if visibility was technically good enough for it to go ahead, anyone stood behind the goal wasn't going to be able to see much, if any, of what was happening at the other end of the pitch. It wasn't long though before we exited the fog into bright sunshine.
With my minimal knowledge of pre-match drinking possibilities I had only a rough plan on where to head for a pint. I knew that some lads would be in Doctor Browns. However, with this being (I think) the closest pub to the ground I wasn't sure how safe it would be in there, as I'd expect the Boro thugs to be on the lookout for Toon fans. I therefore decided to first investigate the Isaac Wilson, a Spoons pub near the station. Again, I was a bit wary with the pub being only about 400 yards up the road from the station and therefore possibly being a hang-out for the Boro lads. There are though three or four downmarket pubs nearer to the station, and I suspect that these are the pubs to definitely avoid. Nevertheless I was fully zipped up as I did a quick tour of Spoons to check out the clientele. On the whole they appeared to be pretty normal, apart from the two heads obviously, with a mix of shoppers, families, and Boro fans. There was also the odd Toon fan in there, and nobody seemed particularly bothered about them being there, so I got myself a pint of Oracle (which turned out to be a fine pint!), pulled down my zip a bit, and settled down to watch a bit of Sky Sports News. It wasn't long before my Toon top attracted the attention of a couple of nearby Boro fans (husband and wife, about my age), and next thing you know we're having a good natter about the match and the world in general. The bloke's Boro top had "Boro 8 Geordies" on the back, but he works with a load of Toon fans and had only done it to wind them up. A couple of pints later and, being in a reasonably friendly pub selling good beer, I decided that I'd skip Doctor Browns. But then out of nothing the Boro fan suddenly told me to zip up; he'd spotted some Boro thugs wandering about the pub talking on their mobiles and clearly on the lookout for Toon fans. He was happy to admit that he'd been a bit of a lad in his day, but he was older and wiser, and of course times have changed, and he wasn't at all happy about what these lads were up to. He was actually very scathing about some Boro fans he knew who were in their 50s and who still go around looking for trouble. It seemed touch and go for a bit, not for me, but potentially for the handful of other Toon fans in the pub who were oblivious to what was going on. The Boro bloke at one point came back from the toilet. He'd been talking to one of the thugs while he was away, and he reckoned that the lad was saying that he might batter one particular Toon fan, for no reason other than that he was there. Charming. Nothing happened though. Nevertheless the Boro couple were quite concerned for my safety and were very keen that I should walk up to the ground with them. I considered doing so until they decided at around 2 that they were setting off for the ground. I didn't really fancy being in the ground before half 2, so I told them thanks very much but I'll have another pint and take my chances. A pint later I left the pub and set off for the ground with no sign of any Boro fans looking to pick off Toon fans. I didn't get far though before I hit a problem - the train from Darlo had obviously just pulled in and the Toon fans who'd been on it were getting escorted at snails' pace to the ground with a big no-go zone in front and behind them. It looked like I might struggle to get in before kick-off until I spotted some Boro fans doing a detour to get past the blockage, and so I followed them.
Once inside the ground it was pleasing to see we'd been given the whole away section. So after a few years of cutting our allocation because of persistent standing Boro have finally given up. They're not the only club. It's very noticeable that we don't receive those "You stand to lose" leaflets with away tickets any more, plus they no longer bother with those announcements telling us not to stand. It therefore looks like that particular battle has been won. They just need to go one step further and make it official, and then they can give fans the option of sitting or standing. At the moment anyone who wants to sit at an away game is knackered.
I'd stupidly booked a ticket on the five o'clock train back to Leeds. I say "stupidly" in hindsight. When I booked it I didn't fancy the alternative of having to hang around in Boro waiting for the next train, which was over an hour later. In reality I would have been quite happy to have gone back to Spoons after the game for another couple of pints of Oracle. But it wasn't to be. Instead I had to leave the ground 30 seconds before the final whistle (shocking!) and jog all the way back to the station. I only made it with a minute to spare, not enough time to get some beer in. So not really the most intelligent bit of travel planning of my life.
PS Am I turning into a grumpy old man, or is the paedo thing getting very predictable and boring? Like Keano and his dog it might have initially been a bit amusing, but it's not any more. Time to move on I'd suggest.
I'll take that
After the Wigan game our Paul came out with this classic: "If you can't beat Wigan at home you go down. Simple as that." Applying similar logic he'd presumably say something like "Any team that avoids defeat at Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge will finish in the top six. Simple as that." To be honest this was nothing like the Man Utd draw where we gave them a real game. Apart from 10 minutes before half-time we never had a kick against Chelsea. Literally. For the first 30 minutes of the second half we only got anywhere near their penalty area once. It's a fact that we've played better at Stamford Bridge and lost 6-0. What I would say though is that we defended reasonably well, and for all their pressure Chelsea had few clear-cut chances. I'd probably go for Bassong as the pick of the back four, closely followed by Beye
I never normally have a go at players during the game, but I have to confess that I swore at Nicky Butt during this one. Or at least I swore at the screen, but you know what I mean. It was not that far from the end of the game and for the first time in absolutely ages we'd strung 3 or 4 passes together (very short passes admittedly), and I actually said out loud "That's better". But then Butt, under absolutely no pressure, played a casual pass back to Beye without looking. Except that he put it behind Beye, and it let Chelsea in. Fortunately they didn't capitalise on the opportunity. I just lost it though, it was just so p!ss poor from such an experienced player.
Wigan woes
This was a pretty bad day all round. I'd been really looking forward to the game - a rare Saturday 3 o'clock kick-off, with an early arrival in the Toon and a good session. Well that was the theory anyway. Reality set in when I arrived at Leeds station to find that there were delays and cancellation all over the place. It seemed to be down to a combination of 'vandalism' (someone had pinched a load of cable) and equipment problems. For myself it meant that the 5 past 10 train wasn't expected until 25 past. That went back to 10.34, then 10.42. At this point I decided that I'd better get myself a can for the train if I wasn't going to be getting to Spoons until well after 12. Five minutes later, accompanied by said can, I checked the board to see what the latest ETA for my train was, only to see no sign of it. My first thought was that it had somehow caught up 10 minutes and been and gone while I was away can hunting, but I soon decided that couldn't have been the case. Subsequent enquiries revealed that the train had been cancelled! Very strange, and, in any case, why couldn't they have shown that info on the departures board? Much later I found out that what they meant by 'cancelled' was that they'd been having technical problems with the train, and so at some point they'd taken it out of service and put all the passengers on the train behind. If I hadn't have been on a cheapie advance ticket my strategy at this point would have been to jump on the first train to York. Or at least it would have been if there'd been any train to jump on; from when I arrived at the station at 5 to 10 the first train of any sort to York didn't leave until about 5 to 11 because of all the problems. As it happens I had to wait for the 5 past 11 because of my ticket. This was of course the train which loads of other YMs were catching. When it pulled in, more or less on time surprisingly, it was pretty chocka. And it was even fuller by the time it left Leeds. The outcome of this was that for most people it was standing room only all the way up. As if things weren't bad enough already, the train crawled all the way to York and then sat outside for 5 minutes outside the station waiting for a platform. As a result it was nearly one o'clock by the time we finally made it to the Toon. Not quite the start to the day that I'd had in mind.
As for the match, we nearly scraped a win that we didn't really deserve. I'd certainly say that Wigan didn't deserve to lose. They played well throughout, and even the really bad piece of refereeing that reduced them to 10 men didn't knock them out their stride. I fully expected them to shut up shop at that point, but they didn't, and in fact very nearly scored a second long before we eventually got ourselves back in the game. Despite Owen's glaring miss I'd say that he showed enough to get a start next game. I can't somehow see us playing with three strikers at Stamford Bridge though. A tricky one for the manager!
The trains back to Leeds were as bad as the trains up had been. The 17.38, which most people had gone for, pulled out an hour and a bit after it should have; any later and Tom would have been late for his gig in Guiseley. My train, the 18.41, was only about 10 minutes late. Of course it managed to lose more time on the journey. A bad end to a bad day.
Bad day at the office
There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that we would have come back from Craven Cottage with at least a point if we'd have set out to try to win the game. Instead it was like the bad old days of Big Sam - playing a team who are in the bottom three and who struggle to score goals, and setting out not to lose. That approach almost made some sense back in the dim and distant days of two points for a win, but in the three points for a win era it's a no-brainer for me that you should always aim to get maximum points, and settle for one if that's what you end up with.
Having basically blamed the defeat on our tactics, I have to concede that we probably wouldn't have lost if Stevie Taylor had been playing. Presumably he was missing because of illness or injury - bloody Sod's Law just when the defence was starting to look much more solid. And just when I thought our luck was finally starting to change and we get away with Shola being offside for the equaliser, Andy Johnson doesn't get pulled up for a blatant push on Cacapa a second before he gets tripped by Collocini for the penalty. Grrrrrr!
Anyway, just as the Villa win didn't suddenly make us a great team, dropping back into the bottom three after Fulham shouldn't mean all doom and gloom. We are after all only two points off the top half of the table. And on top of that, there are a few clubs around us in the table who are having pretty horrendous runs at the moment, amongst them Citeh, West Ham, and our old friends Sunlun of course.
Thanks Joe
Let's face it, a lot of us were to say the least underwhelmed when JFK was appointed. And fans of other clubs made it clear that they thought it was hilarious. However, he's so far proved a lot of people wrong and done a great job of turning things around. The measure of how well he's done is that people have on the whole stopped talking about KK coming back as being a must . Ok, Joe's been helped by players returning from injury and suspension, but he's also got the team looking like a unit for the first time in absolutely ages. Added to that he's unearthed three players I didn't know we had. I mentioned two of these after the West Brom game, but I'm going to give them another bigger mention now! Firstly there's Shola. I have to confess I'd long ago given up on him, but now all of a sudden he's looking like the player he suggested he could be when he first broke into the first team all those years ago; from being clueless in the air he's now winning loads, plus he's rediscovered his dribbling skills. And he looks fired up! Then there's Duff. He had shown signs of improvement earlier in the season, but the last few games he's really starting to look an asset. There still needs to be more end product, but he's always available as as an outlet, and he's a real handful for the opposing defence. Last and not least is Enrique. Some of his distribution was still very wayward, but against Villa he had for me easily his best game defensively for the Toon. For far too long we've chopped and changed the team for no apparent reason. The last few games we've made minimal changes and we're starting to see the benefit, particularly at the back; Taylor's looking much more solid, and Collocini's redisplaying his early season form. As a result Villa didn't cause us anything like the problems I thought they might. They had a couple of great chances in the first half (as did we), but never got going after half-time. I thought our first goal would stir them into action, but if anything it was us that got better.
Despite the league table having a much better look about it after the Villa game, we shouldn't get carried away; we're still only a point off the relegation zone, we've played one more home game than away game, and we've had a pretty decent run of fixtures since the Arsenal game. Having said that, we've got a few more winnable games coming up. Get two or three more wins from them and we can start looking upwards instead of downwards.
Changing the subject completely, I've fixed a couple of things with the site in the last day or two. Firstly, I only realised very recently that the 'Videos' menu link hasn't been working for the last few months; it's ok again now though. Also, I'd been aware for some time that the search function wasn't working properly; this wasn't down to me, but to some change that Google had made. Well I've done a bit of digging today and found a new improved site search facility that Google provide, and so the search now works better than ever! You should therefore have no problem finding that feature from years ago about JT's Countdown appearance, or that Pud article about Wheely's stay at Wilson Towers.
Toon 2 Baggies 1
If ever there was a game of two halves this was it. We started off like a house on fire, and continued to play some really good stuff and to create chances until the break. When half-time came I'm sure I wasn't alone in thinking that we just had to keep doing the same things in the second half and we'd end up with an easy win. What happened during the break I'm not sure. Perhaps Joe decided to try to keep it tight in the second half, or perhaps the players had too much time to think about how important the result was and suddenly got all nervous. Whatever it was, we just never got going in the second half. I don't think the substitutions helped either - replacing Jonas with Geremi was only ever going to give West Brom a lift, as was taking off an attacking player who's a real handful (Oba). Anyway, we just about managed to hold out, not helped by the ref's creative timekeeping (4 minutes added time????).
The result took us out of the bottom 3, although we'll probably be back down there after Wednesday's matches. I'm confident though that it won't be long before we're well clear of the drop zone. In fact, we would probably never have been down there in the first place if we'd have had anything like a full strength squad available throughout. Now that players are coming back we suddenly look to have more than enough quality. On top of that we've 'gained' a couple of decent players in Duff and Ameobi. Will someone please explain the offside rule to Shola though?!!
A black day in the Toon's history
Firstly, apologies for the lack of updates recently. This is mainly because a few weeks back I decided, probably stupidly in hindsight, to rip out and replace the shower in my en-suite. Never having attempted anything like it before in my life, this little project is currently totally dominating my existence.
I took a day off from DIY to go to the Mackem match. I had at one point intended giving the game a miss for various reasons. I never enjoy derby games, although I've obviously often enjoyed the result in recent years. I decided in the end to go when I realised it's our only Saturday game in about two months, even if it was a stupid early kick-off. The day didn't start well for most of us travelling up to the Toon by train. Myself and the Hutchings were on the 08.12 train out of Leeds. It was running late though, which meant that we missed our connection at York. However, it was no big deal because there was a train just behind it, which Tom happened to be on, which we were able to jump on. Fringo wasn't as fortunate. His train from Bradford to Leeds was seriously delayed due to a cow on the track in Thackley tunnel! This resulted in his whole journey being screwed up.
Spoons was once again packed out with all the thugs and wannabe thugs who were getting the train over to mackemland. It quietened down nicely though once they'd all left, and those of us catching the Metro over were able to enjoy another couple of pints before we had to set off. The Metro again proved the best way of getting over there, although there was a heavy police presence for the first time. Getting back after the game was a bit hit and miss. Most of our lot joined the escort back to St Peter's Metro station. Apparently it was like a war zone as the police attempted to clear a way through the home fans. Meanwhile I made my way back to the Stadium of Light station and was enjoying a pint in Spoons while the others were still dodging missiles!
Realistically we had to lose at Sunderland sometime, but I've been absolutely dreading it actually happening. But now that it has happened I'm relieved in a way. They've obviously been under more and more pressure every year to beat us, but at the same time we've been under increasing pressure to keep our run going. That's all finished now though, and in future we can concentrate on beating them rather than on not losing!
Things can only get better?
On a day when we might well have ended up bottom of the league it was very welcome to see us actually move up a place. In theory it seemed the ideal time to be facing Everton, with them having lost all three previous home games this season and having been knocked out of the UEFA Cup in midweek. I didn't really see it that way though. Certainly I didn't think that their defeat against Standard Liege meant an awful lot. In fact I'm still trying to get my head around how they ended up playing such a good team in the first round rather than a load of part-timers from Finland or Cyprus. Well yes I know it's all down to UEFA coefficients, and clearly Belgian sides must have been absolutely pants in Europe over the last 5 seasons, and Liege haven't played at all, but Everton can still consider themselves extremely unlucky.
Anyway, back to the game. We really must stop giving away soft goals and giving the opposition a couple of goals start. I was watching the game on a feed on my PC and I had a frustrating first half. Apart from the two goals conceded, the feed kept dropping out. This possibly wasn't a bad thing because in the bits that I saw we didn't look good most of the time. Then they bizarrely cut to adverts after 44 and a half minutes. I spent half-time trying to pick up a better feed, but couldn't find one. The second half kicked off, I was dead pleased to see Duff score, and even more pleased to discover that it was the equaliser! The feed worked perfectly throughout the second half, during which we were much the better side. I expected them to cut to adverts before the game finished, but it didn't happen. I also expected Everton to score a trademark late winner, and that didn't happen either!
I saw a few things in the game to give me reason for optimism. The first was Duff looking good for the second game in a row. Also, having Guthrie back seemed to make a big difference to our midfield. Taylor getting forward from right back gave us something that we haven't had for a few games, and which we can expect to see more of once Beye returns.
Things can only get better?
It was a case of deja vu with the Blackburn game - poor defending, a lack of creativity, no-one looking like scoring other than Owen. To make matters worse our most creative player on the day (Charlie) picked up a knock which may or may not force him to miss the next game. Just about the only bright spot was Duff in the second half looking something like the player he used to be at Blackburn.
Poor as we've been the last few games, it's a fact that we've been right out of luck; two offside goals, a wicked deflection, a penalty that wasn't, plus a stone wall penalty not awarded is a bit much in only 3 games. I'm looking forward to when it starts to even itself out!
What difference will Joe Kinnear make? No idea. But surely things can't get any worse. Can they? It would help if we had a few more players available. Guthrie should by my reckoning be back for the Everton game, but we need more than him. I suspect though that a few players don't want to come back the just now and are spinning out their injuries.
The last straw
No I'm not talking about the Spurs performance and result, disappointing to say the least as they were, but the rumours that Venables might be appointed as caretaker manager. I'm tempted not to give the rumours too much credence considering that he's been linked to just about every vacant manager position in the country for the last 27 years, including a few at the Toon. However, you can just see it happening. It would be Ashley's way of getting back at the fans for the 'Cockney mafia' stuff. Let's face it, if as it appears being a Cockney geezer is the main requirement for getting a job with Ashley, then Venables is the epitome of it.
It's incredible how we've gone from being a confident team playing good football to a the current mess between the second and third rounds of the League Cup. It obviously doesn't help that we've got a load of players unavailable, but the transformation just confirms that football is largely about confidence. Look at Coloccini. He looked so good the first couple of games, now he's all over the place. I'm really hoping it's just a blip, otherwise he'll be the latest in a long line of centre backs who we've paid a lot of money for but who have turned out to be crap - specifically Bramble, Boumsong, Cacapa and Rozenhal. Clearly the sooner that we get things sorted out at the club the better. Just as long as Terry Venables isn't involved anywhere along the line.
Too little, too late
I've only been watching football for 40 years and obviously have a lot to learn about the game. For instance, I would have said that starting with a midfield of Cacapa, Butt, Geremi and Duff was a recipe for disaster, and would have given Gonzales a start after his bright display coming on as sub last week. Fortunately though Chris Hughton clearly knows a lot more about the game than me. And it certainly paid off, didn't it! Ok we didn't get the breaks at West Ham - their first goal relied on a massive deflection and their third was offside (the initial ball down the right), while we had a couple of decent penalty shouts ignored. However, we just didn't play well enough overall to get anything out of the game. Coloccini had a shocking first half, but improved massively second half. Cisco had a much better game than last week, but with little end product.
At least the Toon fans were on fine form at Upton Park, giving good support throughout. A few left as soon as the third goal went in, but that seemed to galvanise those who stayed into upping the noise level. That seemed to be picked up by the players, and our best spell of the game ensued, culminating in Owen's well-taken goal. If we'd have managed to score a second then West Ham could well have folded, but it wasn't to be.
Here's a brain teaser. How did Tom and Jude get away with not only travelling back on a different train to that which they had tickets for, but also sitting in First Class the entire journey?
Another fine mess
No doubt there'll be a lot of people celebrating the news that MA has decided to sell up. Well I'm not. While I hold him largely responsible for the events of the last couple of weeks, he's done a lot of good things over the last year or so. I honestly think that he has throughout done what he believed to be in the best long-term interests of the club. And apart from obviously paying off a stack of the club's debt, we've seen loads of welcome initiatives under his ownership:
- the introduction of the singing section
- the 'friends and family' facility for away tickets
- on-line ticket sales
- more imaginative ticket pricing
- free beer!
He's made mistakes though. Appointing KK was one. Not communicating his financial strategy to the fans was probably a bigger one. If he'd explained a few weeks back that he was only committed to subsidising the club to the tune of 20 million a year then I'm sure people's transfer expectations would have been very different, and sympathy for KK (Beckham, Lampard, et alia!!!) in much shorter supply.
So where do we go from here? The numpties you see on Sky Sports News will no doubt assume we'll have a new owner tomorrow, Keegan will come back the next day, and we'll all live happily ever after. Meanwhile back in the real world we're looking for someone with quarter of a billion pounds to spare and who doesn't mind getting a load of abuse into the bargain. That narrows it down a bit. And then if they're not prepared to write off more than 20 million a year we're financially in a worse position than we are now. And what about a manager? No-one who's half-decent and in their right mind will come in at the moment knowing that a new owner might replace them with their own choice.
Never a dull moment following the Toon.
Carry On Cocking Up
I received an email this morning (no doubt I wasn't the only one) saying "Newcastle United have renamed their ground 'Sid James Park'... Because of all the carry on! Boom boom." It's right though, isn't it. I can't believe Mike Ashley's allowed things to reach this stage. He's sacked one manager after a few months, appointed the dream ticket as his replacement, and then put in place a structure which constrained him in a way which he was never going to accept. Like everyone else I was concerned (not to mention bewildered) when Wise arrived at the club. Still, I consoled myself with the fact that the impending appointment (if not the actual appointee) was supposedly made aware to Keegan before he took the job, so he must have been reasonably ok with the situation. And my understanding was that as far as transfers were concerned Keegan would say what sort of player he wanted, then Wise would do all the donkey work of watching players and working out who was available, but it was Keegan who had the final say. This made some sense to me - football's changed and it's unrealistic nowadays to expect one person to do everything. But it seems that Keegan ultimately had little or no say in who we bought or sold. It might be how it works in other countries, but it's not how it works here! And the problem we've got now is that there's hardly anyone out there who's any good who will be prepared to take over from KK. Shearer's the only appointment that could possibly placate the fans, but he's another one who would insist on being allowed to manage on his terms. The alternative is to bring in a foreign manager coach (Spanish no doubt) who will be happy to work within a continental-type set-up. But that's hardly going to appease the masses.
What a shambles.
Gooners 3 Toon 0
... and we were lucky to get nil! When you come up against Arsenal on a day when they're on form the last thing you need on the rare occasion you get possession is surrendering it cheaply. But that's exactly what happened on countless occasions, especially in the early stages. The game wasn't 2 minutes old when I shouted "F**k off Shola!" at the telly (one of the good things about watching games on the box is that it's ok to slag off our players) when he stumbled over the ball and gifted possession to Arsenal. He wasn't the only one mind. It's not so bad when a player's under severe pressure or is trying a difficult pass, but failing to complete a simple 10 yard pass when under no pressure is inexcusable, not to mention incomprehensible. And what about that time when we won a free-kick not far outside their box and Charlie blasted it into orbit? I couldn't hazard a guess as to what he was trying to do. Although I don't rate Milner that highly, at least you could count on him not giving the ball away cheaply; we could have done with him in this game!
Despite the performance and result, I don't think we should read to much into it. I certainly don't go along with nufc.com. After the Coventry game it was all "feel good factor", now suddenly it's all doom and gloom and we've got no chance of finishing in the top half. Let's look at some facts:
- we're in the middle of the table despite the toughest start of any team in the league
- we've got one more point than most people would have expected at this point
- we've played the first three games with loads of players missing
- we're only 3 points off the top of the table!!
A lot of people are clearly concerned about the size/quality of the squad and the lack of signings. The time to judge though is after the transfer window closes. There are a load of clubs (including Man U) who are in a similar position to ourselves. If we can get another 2 or players of decent quality in then we'll have a reasonable squad. And if we can pick up another one like Spiderman I'll be more than happy. He's one player who can hold his head up after the mauling at the Emirates.
Through - but not by much
I'm not sure just what to make of the Coventry game! At times we played some great stuff, we had millions of shots and corners, and yet we might have lost. At least it was a great game for the masses of Toon fans who made the trip, such a contrast to that game at Wigan a couple of seasons back. And the extra time (courtesy of some extravagant timekeeping by the ref - I was quite happy for him to add a bit on the to original 2 mins stoppage time, but he really should have blown as soon as the throw-in was taken) gave EMO an extra 30 minutes to improve his match fitness. On the subject of Owen, despite him scoring the winner I thought our play deteriorated after he came on. Up to that point we'd been very fluid up front and Coventry found it difficult to defend against it, but with Owen on we stuck to a rigid front formation (Milner wide right, Charlie wide left, and Owen in the middle), which was a lot more predictable.
Anyway, it keeps our treble dreams alive (only joking!!), plus the three goals we scored means that four of the people I'm up against in the Predictions competition can't now score points on the League Cup goals bonus question. So all in all not a bad night.
Toon 1 Trotters 0
There can't be many Toon fans who wouldn't have settled for four points from the first two games. It means we can go to The Emirates under little or no pressure. Even if we lose we'll still be in the middle of the table having got two bogey games out of the way. Mind, we should be going there fancying ourselves to get at least a draw the way Arsenal have started.
There's a p!ss-take about Bolton in the new Mag. One of the things it says is that Jaaskelainen would be time-wasting during the warm-up. P!ss-take or no p!ss-take, that's pretty much how it was. Even when in the second half Bolton looked the more likely winners, they just couldn't not play for 0-0. So it was doubly pleasing to beat them. We'll never know for certain, but I just couldn't see us coming back if Nolan had stuck away their penalty. And I have to confess that I was resigned to us going behind because let's face it Shay's penalty record is absolute pants. But save it he did, and then our subs made the most of it by combining for the winner. It's mystifying that Geremi can put in those fantastic diagonal crosses, yet he can't take a corner to save his life!
Our Paul isn't at all impressed with the new location of the away section because it's closer to where he is. I'm very happy with it though - I can't see them or hear them from where I am! Having said that, I don't think I would have heard the Bolton fans if they'd been in the row behind me with such a pathetic turn-out. On the subject of turn-outs, the attendance was obviously a major disappointment. However, I think it's just a sign of the times - Man U didn't sell out last week despite having won the league and Champions League last season. As ticket prices (not to mention players' wages) go up and up despite all the extra TV money, and it gets ever easier to watch games in pubs and on the net, it's only natural that fans will get more fickle when it comes to attending matches. My big hope is that gates will drop to a level where they have to significantly cut ticket prices. I'm not holding my breath though.
Just rewards
So the Toon are looking to cut their wage bill? Seems to me that a good place to start would be to get a certain Alan Smith off the payroll as quickly Ok we rode our luck at times, especially in the first half, but no-one can seriously say we didn't deserve a point at Old Trafford (sorry, make that "The Theatre of Dreams"). I put the performance and result down to two things. Firstly, we went there clearly believing that we could get a result, such a contrast from the attitude in recent seasons where it's been a matter of trying to hang out for a 0-0, and failing that keep the score down. But also it was ("He's here, he's there, he's every fcuking where, Spiderman, Spiderman") Gutierrez - what a fantastic league debut he had. I can't remember the last time I saw a Toon player as effective at both ends of the pitch. Another big plus was the quality of the corners - quite a few of them actually caused Man U problems. The only real negative for me was the number of times we gave the ball away in dangerous areas; the chief culprit was Nicky Butt (he was so bad that some people next to me were suggesting he shouldn't be allowed to play against Man U!), but he wasn't the only offender by any means.
What it's all about
Taken from the classic book "A Mag For All Seasons" by Billy Furious. If you haven't already read it, DO IT NOW!
"Who of us got into supporting Newcastle United to see us waving some gaudy pot about anyway? Only the sheep and social inadequates who flock from miles away to Old Trafford and Anfield think football is just about seeing your team win silverware.
It's more to do with the crack, the laugh, the beer and what happens on that day and that match alone. Next week can bring what it will - if Newcastle play well and win today I'll be happy. If they don't we'll have a beer, take the piss out of each other and be back for the next game.
Do you remember choosing to follow this team? I don't. You just do and while some weak-minded souls can, and do, change the team they follow - we don't. That's partly because we are too pig-headed and proud of our increasingly beautiful city, its cultural heritage and our own regional identity, but it's mostly because going to the match with Newcastle fans is brilliant. Being in a strange city surrounded by friends or being in a familiar place and embracing a total stranger - it's the best feeling in the world. For all that has changed in football, and in Newcastle itself, that rush you get when the ball rips into the net for a Newcastle goal remains one of the finest things in the world and we want to be there when it happens."
If you have any comments on this site then please e-mail them to me at webby@yorkshiremags.com
