[Archived] Newcastle 3-0 Blackburn Rovers

[Kennysuperbuyer]

I was quite pleased with the line-up today. Unlike our resident tactical genius Tashor I thought playing 4-4-2 and taking the game to the confidence-shy Geordies was exactly what we should do and I was looking forward to a cracking game. Surely if there was ever a game where we'd be up for it this was the one.

How wrong I was. We were simply pathetic.

We were second to every 50-50, we let the Newcastle players have yards of space every time they were in possession, and we failed to do the most basic of defensive duties.

Newcastle scored from the first corner of the match. A ball was swung over and Flitcroft headed it into the back of his own net. God knows why.

There was space all over the pitch. No-one in a blue & white shirt could be arsed to close down and Newcastle carved through us at will. A through ball found Bellamy challenging the hapless Neill and Short down their left flank. He was allowed time and space to pick out a great cross and Shearer did what he does best.

It could have been any score by half-time. The only chance we created was when the lively Stead turned and hit a looping shot onto the top of the crossbar. It deserved better. Sadly the rest of the team's efforts didn't.

The second half was a non-event. Newcastle went through the motions and we looked disinterested. Newcastle wrapped the game up near the end when a bit of a scramble led to O'Brien squeezing the ball home underneath Friedel.

Where do I start? Neill was utterly inept. Pathetic. Short and Matteo looked like they'd never met before. Flitcroft was anonymous. Ferguson was a show-pony - all nice touches but sweet fa substance. Pedersen is starting to look like a joke. Seriously, a pub player could have made more of an impact today. Emerton looked lively at times but he neglected his defensive duties. Dickov worked hard but produced no quality at all. Only Stead looked genuine class - his efforts deserved better.

We were abysmal today. I was sure we'd be up for it beforehand. How could we not be? Sadly, we were simply pathetic. No heart, no fight, no passion, no pride in the shirt. Tashor was right all along. Our players aren't good enough to take the game to a team like Newcastle away from home.

Our new manager has a hell of a job on his hands. Souness has left a fuking sh!te team behind.

Spot on Scotty. The club is now riddled with ###### players. In my opinion we have only three players who are an asset to the club, Friedal, Stead and Gallagher.

Lets be honest if anybody wanted to take any other of the squad away from Ewood would it be a disaster. I dont think so.

[SharrockDownSouth]

In case you hadn't noticed, 60% of the premier league clubs are riddled with "mediocre" players.

It's not about bleating on about how we don't have a team of world beating players, it's about convincing each player to play at the top of his game each and every week.

Which is why we're getting a new manager (in case you hadn't noticed)

[1864roverite]

Now then Tashor lets see.

Douglas, well I have seen him play for the youth set up, the reserve side and the first team.

I would say that at the most he is a bit part player.

Whatsmore I have actually spoken to him on many occasion as his girlfriend's parents live very nearby !

The guy is not a Premiership player, he may have the odd good game but in the main he is a very poor effort and his bad games far outweigh his good one.

He has good points but plenty of bad points. He has no speed and is pretty much one dimensional akin to Andreson.

If you seriously think that it was DOUGLAS who kept us in the league last year then your thoughts are surely misguided. He didnt in fact he probably cost us more points with terrible misses and mistimed tackles.

I am not going to enter into some sort of feud with you LAD ! (nearly split my sides) but you entitled to your opinion and me mine. I dont agree with you full stop !

now then arse and elbow ? arn't they on your head ?

[rover6]

Too many people are over-reacting.

Our squad is not 'sh1te'. Imo if we get a decent manager, with tactical and motivational nouse, he'll get the best out of the players to finish at least mid table.

MGP should not be dismissed after approx. 2 games. He's playing in a team that's in limbo and with little confidence. He needs time, Henry looked bad when he first arrived in the Premiership. For his sake, I hope all the upheaval and poor performances have not irreparably damaged his confidence - as appears the case with Emerton.

Matteo is not 'pap'. He's been messed around by Tinkerman Souey and this was his first chance to play in HIS position - centre back. Give him time and I think he'll be a very good signing. Problem is, who's going to partner him? Short Nissa McEveley Amoruso

Newcastle were always going to win because the players were stung by the criticism. Probably feeling guilty for getting Robson the sack - and for getting the backroom staff the boot. And Souness was watching - so they experienced 'new boss syndrome', with players eager to impress.

Meanwhile, we are in limbo with a nice man in temporary charge but not manager material.

Edited September 12, 2004 by rover6

[92er]

It's hard to pick out the good players-I would say Friedel and Short,despite his age,but then I start to struggle.

Neill had a bad season last season and hardly seems any better this.Gray brought balance to the defence,but struggles against real wingers.Flitcroft always needs to play quite a few matches to get match fit, and last season helped in the run-in when he was playing right midfield but is struggling in the centre. I actually thought that Andresen eventually played reasonably well there and was a bit more fluid/athletic than Flitcroft.

Dickov is never going to be a world beater but has done some reasonable things without being a real partner for Stead. Radio Lancs thought Stead was starting to show some form yesterday.

[rover6]

The fundamental problem yesterday was midfield. Flitcroft was played to provide steel in front of defence. He was utterly useless and whilst the o.g. was unfortunate, it also came about through rank bad technique.

Well said.

[Scotty]

The fundamental problem yesterday was midfield. Flitcroft was played to provide steel in front of defence. He was utterly useless and whilst the o.g. was unfortunate, it also came about through rank bad technique.

Well said.

As bad as the midfield and Flitcroft undoubtably were, they were not the fundamental or only problem. There were fundamental problems all over the pitch - front to back.

[tashor]

Scotty, I agree with all your points. At least you analyse the facts and adapt your argument accordingly. We cannot afford to buy a new team hence must appoint a manager who can use what we have.

1864 - I don't rate Douglas but we cannot afford luxury players at the moment for obvious reasons.

And not that it should matter a jot but if your date of birth is as stated on your profile then you are younger than my youngest brother.

After a night of reflection I am a sight more angry than yesterday and am to be found on the sofa next to the dog watching the telly with my elbow wedged firmly up my arse, the resulting discomfort providing a welcome distraction from our miserable plight.

Hopefully next weekend I shall be sat next to my boys cheering our new manager who we will be welcoming as our saviour on the road to a top half league finish ( wearing my myopia inducing dark glasses as modelled by my yellow faced friend )

[Manchester Blue]

The fundamental problem yesterday was midfield. Flitcroft was played to provide steel in front of defence. He was utterly useless and whilst the o.g. was unfortunate, it also came about through rank bad technique.

Well said.

As bad as the midfield and Flitcroft undoubtably were, they were not the fundamental or only problem. There were fundamental problems all over the pitch - front to back.

Exactly you couldn't pick on one area and say that's why we lost, we were poor everywhere. The fact that Newcastle were playing in front of a new manager whilst ours were going through the motions was biggest difference. Remember the Plymouth game when Kenny was announced. The players all of a sudden looked world beaters. Let's just hope we have a new man in place this week or it will start to look pretty dire indeed.

[Paul Mellelieu]

Newcastle fans must have been pondering how a team that finished sixth playing exciting attacking football had been turned into relegation fodder within two years. Well those were my thoughts as I left the ground.

The main accusation that I would throw at Souness is that he has weakened us up front - although Stead was very good yesterday, left us without an obviuos central midfield pairing, and signed two left sided players, neither of who at this stage look up to it. Those problems are the legacy of the last twelve months of a confusing and ill-judged transfer policy.

I thought Ferguson did Ok yesterday, but the team lacks cohesion and solidity - in aprt a symptom of constant changes in team selection.

On another subject, I thought Souness turning up to the ground, with his son in black and white stripes was disrespectful to the Rovers and I would have thought breached his gardening leave agreement.

[Anti Euro Smiths Fan]

From high up on one of the St James's Park stands - the watching Graeme Souness wouldn't have had any regrets at all about his decision to swap life on East Lancashire for a new venture on Tyneside.

Flitcroft's own goal was merely the start of the shambles.

This was followed by some disgracefully slack defending seven minutes later when Shearer was given oceans of space to head home and make it 2-0.

It was criminal for our defence to give that amount of time and space in the box to the most prolific striker in Premiership history.

They say that football is the greatest game on earth. It can also though be incredibly infuriating when our players fail to do the basic simple things properly.

Our failure to mark Shearer and give him such time and space in the box was scandalous, disgraceful and an abject failure of duty.

I'm still fuming from it.

On Monday morning, Tony Parkes needs to sit the players down, make them watch a video of the shambles and tell them that they can't let this continue to happen.

As Scotty said, it could have been a cricket score at half-time - such was the space we were affording the Newcastle players.

It was in effect, game set and match to the Geordies after just 16 minutes.

You just couldn't envisage Rovers coming back to make it 2-2, like Norwich City managed at St James' Park a couple of weeks ago.

After the match, Parkes said: "We didn't play very well and the players will be disappointed by it."

That was certainly an understatement from TP.

I thought it was a shocking and disgraceful display.

Make no mistake, these are worrying times ahead for us. We desperately need the right man to come in soon and sort this mess out.

30 miles down the road from St James' Park, two men came face to face yesterday who had both apparently turned down the Newcastle job.

Messrs Bruce and McClaren, if reports are to be believed, were both ahead of Souness in the queue to be boss of the Toon Army.

For one reason or another, they both decided to stay in their respective jobs.

Souness must be counting his good fortune that they did so. If Souey had remained at Ewood Park, there's no doubt he would have come under real pressure at Rovers if our poor results had continued.

McClaren incidentally, won the battle of the Riverside stadium 2-1 yesterday, with the surly Mark Viduka scoring both of Boro's goals.

Just down the A171 from Middlesbrough to Whitby Bay, the stern figure of Captain Cook stands on the shore - looking out towards the North Sea. (Pictured here)

To use a ship metaphor, Rovers are rudderless at present. We desperately need the right man at the helm to steer us through the stormy waters that lie ahead.

With Mr Williams saying that we have to run a tight ship from now on, I'd welcome Gordon Strachan on board the Ewood ship with open arms.

It's vital that we set sail away from danger soon.

Otherwise there's a real worry that we'll end up firmly anchored near the bottom of the Premiership sea - leading to eventual catastrophe.

Edited September 12, 2004 by Anti Euro Smiths Fan

[1864roverite]

nice one tash

I will be there as well

[bellamy11]

Well nearly 24 hours on, I've had time to reflect.

Thoroughly rubbish performance, but slight glimmers of hope from some areas.

The new manager will have one of the world's finest goalkeepers to start building a defence in front of. Michael Gray is another very solid player who gives it his all. I thought that he was the only defender who didn't look lost, and did a much better job of containng Dyer than Lucas did with Robert. It was reminiscent of Tiny and Ziege in Cardiff - every time Ropbert got the ball he had 20 yards to run into and it caused us problems throughout the match, especially in Newcastle's purple patch in the first 45.

Short is still a good defender but will need a much more capable partner than Lothar (who I'm close to giving up on already). Shearer was quite limited yesterday. It was the rest of Newcastle's pacy attack that did the damage. When teams run at us with pace and skill then our defence has major problems. The direction that the game is going in is one of pace and directness. What Rovers have is a defence which would be fine in the 1990s, but isn't upto scratch with the modern game. The new manager will have to deal with that.

The midfield is again a mixed bag. Emerton is becoming my only positive of the season so far. In the last three games he has been far more willing to put his head down, knock the ball past the defender and RUN. This isn't to say that he's turned the corner (his corners are still diabolical) but theres defnintely enough to show that he shouldn't be written off.

Contrast this to Morten Gamst Pedersen. Deary me. He needs time to settle in, and these two fixtures in a demoralised side isn't the right time, but nevertheless we've needed him to shine immediately, and its fair to say he hasn't. I'm totally with Scotty on this one - a pub player could have done just as well yesterday. I've no doubts he'll get better, especially as the Norwegian contingent of this board seem to be hopeful about him. However, yesterday he was pretty shambolic.

Our central midfield was completely overrun. Pace. Power. Strength. Accuracy. Newcastle ran us over with all of these. Ferguson will perform well with a good partner, I'm totally sure of this. However, he can't do it on his own. If we're going to play Flitcroft and let the opposition overrun us then we may as well have spent £7.50 on a midfielder, not £7.5m. Surely Flitcroft has no future under a new manager? I hope not.

Stead and Dickov definitely have potential, but are somewhat lightweight. Dickov is the perfect 2nd striker - he works like a dog, has quality, and will patch in with goals. This leaves Stead with the mantle of numero uno striker. This is a task that he's not developed enough for yet. Yesterday he created himself chances, and even managed to clip the bar. He can run at players, his first touch is very good, and his holding up play is infinitely better than it was six months ago. Is he ready for the responsibility of getting 15+ goals this season from nothing more than scraps? I doubt it.

Newcastle were a team playing to impress a new manager. They clicked, and when they do, very few teams can contain them. Better teams than us will get gunned down at St James' (at least until GS can ruin them properly). Whilst it's all well and good saying this, we can't let this happen too often. All last season we were "waiting for our season to start", and look what happened there.

The new manager (whoever he may be) has a great deal of work to do. The most important job will be to instill confidence. Our side isn't much weaker than some of the midtable clubs. It is definitely stronger than the promoted clubs, and should be better than the Southamptons of this world. However, without a complete makeover of the most brutal nature we'll never get back to the days of qualifying for Europe via the league.

Edited September 12, 2004 by bellamy11

[thenodrog]

On another subject, I thought Souness turning up to the ground, with his son in black and white stripes was disrespectful to the Rovers and I would have thought breached his gardening leave agreement.

C'mon GS will be whackin it big time at the moment! The mags fans have made it plain that he is about as popular as a turd in a swimming pool and so his statement that he wants his son to grow up into a Geordie is just a weak and transparent attempt to ingratiate himself with them. Surely you didn't think the kid would turn up in blue and white halves did you?

As for us.......we have a mis-firing squad and first and foremost we need to become hard to beat in order to boost confidence and morale amongst the players and supporters by conducting a damage limitation exercise betwen now and January when the new manager may be able to do some wheeling and dealing.

Every time TP has taken over in the past he has succeeded in doing this and yesterdays squad of an adventurous 4-4-2 with 2 wingers away to Newcastle certainly surprised me.

Our best results last season when we had our backs to the wall coincided with us playing 3 'water carriers' narrow and behind Tugay who in turn was playing just behind the strikers. I suggest that we should revert to that formation in the short term. It aint pretty but if that allows us to be less of a push over and to actually pick some points up who cares?

Edited September 12, 2004 by thenodrog

[Kennysuperbuyer]

At least we can always click on Figleaves if we get too despondent !!

[joey_big_nose]

Our First Eleven when everybody is fit is:

Stead Dickov

Pedersen Ferguson Thompson Emerton

Gray Matteo Amoruso Niell

Friedel

We also have a substantial amount of decent players who can come in: Gallagher, Reid, De Pedro (I hope, is he going?), Johansson, Gresko, Bothroyd, Tugay.

We can look terrible and everybody can eff and blind but our playing staff are quite decent. The single largest problem for me is that we still do not have a good partner for Ferguson but what can you do....

We have a good side with all the qualities to sit comfortably mid table at least. The issue is getting the players to be confident and impose themselves on the game. We cannot throw the whole side over, we have to use what we have got despie its limitations. The only way we will go down is if the coaching staff panic and the players lose confidence.

I just hope the new manager does not come in with the attitude of some of the pessimists on this board and dissmiss the majority of the side as rubbish. The we really would be in trouble.

[des]

the players thsat we have are not too bad , but the team work anf formatt are is down to gettingt he best out of them something that has not happened in the past 18 months or so, role on the new man or (women)

[G Somerset Rover]

I agree that on paper we have a fairly decent sqaud. Trouble is that there is a huge difference between a good team on paper and a team performing on the pitch. We have a few players untested still in the prem (Reid, De Pedro, Pederson) and some players who you could argue are over the hill (Matteo, Jansen, Flitty etc) and then there's the players severely lacking in confidence (Stead, Neil, Emerton and maybe even the likes of Ferguson). All I'm saying is that when you look at things on the whole, were short of players that we can depend upon at the minute. I'm just hoping that the new man can install some much needed confidence into us in time for the upcoming games.

[grizfoot]

We've got a fairly decent squad but without Ferguson & Dickov we'd be nothing, it's key we keep them 2 fit if we want to do well this season.

Edited September 12, 2004 by grizfoot

[Cheeky Sidders]

I think the main problem is we have a lot of crap defenders who the rest of the team have little confidence in and that is affecting their lack of adventure when going forwards. For over 12 months we have been starting most games thinking we are going to get beat, or that the referee is going to swindle us or "lady luck" won't be with us.

Of the players we have to defend our goal, the only two I have faith in are Friedel and Gray. I would have included Short in that but time has caught up with him and even the most generous among us would be hard pressed to say he's the player he was two years ago. As for the others, Neill makes basic mistakes and gives the ball away too much. On top of that he's a liability with some of his tackles. Amoruso is great for 70 minutes of each game but is prone to wandering about, not spotting players drifting away from him when he's waiting for a cross to come in and he's slow. Gresko is like a headless chicken sometimes and has similar attention-span problems to Amoruso. Maybe the Rovers medical team should invest in a bucketload of Ritalin.

Johannsson is a real enigma as some games he does surprisingly well and others he is just plain dire. I still maitain that he hasn't got a clue what to do if the ball is between knee and thigh height and his control is sometimes pitiful. Todd has had some good games, but we all know he's prone to losing the plot and as such he's a liability. Finally, there's Matteo... oh dear. Of the new acquisitions this was the one that worried me most as the defence was the thing that needed most attention and securing the services of this man seemed misguided at best. He's slow, his distribution is poor, his tackles are late and he's as clumsy as a cow walking on ice. While he's in the team we'll keep letting goals in every week.

Until we get the defence right, the rest will be jittery and I hope the new manager sets to work on sorting them out.

[grizfoot]

his tackles are late and he's as clumsy as a cow walking on ice.

LOL

Quote of the Week

[tashor]

nice one tash

I will be there as well  

Of that I have no doubt

Onwards and upwards

[laughatthedingles]

Matteo is poor, poor at heading when the ball is played anyway other than straight and long and he gets turned so easily it is untrue, turned inside out by a centre-half yesterday!

[colin]

He's slow, his distribution is poor, his tackles are late and he's as clumsy as a cow walking on ice. While he's in the team we'll keep letting goals in every week.

You're in good company there CS

Tom Waits' "Rain Dogs" (1985)

"Uncle Verlin, Uncle Verlin, independent as a hog on ice. He's a big shot down there at the slaughterhouse, plays accordian for Mr. Weiss."

[grizfoot]

Matteo is poor, poor at heading when the ball is played anyway other than straight and long and he gets turned so easily it is untrue, turned inside out by a centre-half yesterday!

Not to mention the 2 penatlies that never where he gave away