Match Preview/Stats/Thread: Southampton v Newcastle Utd

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Santon is likely to be available for the game, could we see him replacing Yanga Mbiwa at rb, MYM has done a good job the last few games but he is a defender rather than a full back who is going to provide an attacking threat and we have missed that over the last couple of games

I think Santon might take Dummett place. Shame though, I like what I've seen of Dummett and he's a better crosser than most of the team.

dummett has performed better than santon has recently it'd be a bit harsh dropping him for santon, we need more pace and attack on the right, Santon is the only option although I've thought we could try haidara on the right

Southampton:
Boruc, Chambers, Fonte, Lovren, Shaw, Cork, Steven Davis, Ward-Prowse, Lallana, Rodriguez, Lambert.

Subs: Schneiderlin, Ramirez, Do Prado, Gazzaniga, Hooiveld, Reed, Gallagher.

Newcastle:
Elliot, Yanga-Mbiwa, Williamson, Coloccini, Haidara, Tiote, Anita, Sissoko, Ben Arfa, Gouffran, Cisse.

Subs: Santon, Gosling, De Jong, Shola Ameobi, Steven Taylor, Dummett, Alnwick.

Referee: Andre (should have gone to Specsavers) Marriner (W Midlands)

from the line up it looks like we are going to go 4-3-3, it'll be interesting to see how cisse performs, i've never been convinced with him playing as a loan striker.

Its good to see haidara getting a game.

Good link


[gofirstrow.eu]

Have we even heard of defending? This could get messy if they don't shape up soon!

wonder what time we are going to start

Quote:

mentalman
wonder what time we are going to start

Looking like Sunday at 3!

We've been lucky they could have had 6 goals by now CND.

At least 6 ya. Good thing I have a foam brick to throw at my telly, this is a bit of a shambles so far!

I don't know why the crowd keep shouting for HBA he keeps giving the ball away.

I don't even know why he's on. I guess we have that many injuries.

Elliot man of the match by far in the first half.

we've got nobody else, he's not playing any worse than anyone else in the team

Pathetic

Rodriguez 1-0

Where were the defenders?

Yes I agree mental everyone else is playing as badly as HBA. My point is why are shouting his name he's done nothing to earn that kind of praise.
It would have made more sense to shout Rob Elliott at least he would have deserved it.

none of them deserve to have their names shouted, they are obviously finished for the season

I hope Pardew is giving them an earful at half-time.

he needs to, i wouldn't be suprised if we see some changes early on

HBA off de Jong on

Mbiwa off Santon on

C'mon Newcastle man up

Ya I guess the "nothing left to play for" mentality has settled in nicely.

Shambolic

Lambert 2-0

looked offside to me

lallana 3-0

I blame Carys

why doesn't carver just ask the ref to give Southampton the 3 points and end the game early

the defence has been shambolic

Hadara

I agree mental it is painful to watch.

Dummett on Sissoko off ? injured

C'mon Dummett

its not even that they are a better team, they aren't we just have made no effort to be involved in this match

Tiote has not had as much influence on the game as normal.

I wish we'd had Santon and Dummett on from the beginning they both like getting forward.

Lambert off Ramirez on

I've switched over to the end of Palace v. Chelski

had mbiwa still been on I doubt they would have scored the second goal even thoough it was offside.

Santon won't defend the back post from crosses he either lets it go over his head or just jumps in the hope of that he puts the attacker off.

Haidara's positioning has been shocking at times

the midfield has been none existent and so we've redorted to hitting it high to cisse who is ineffective with balls like that.

Rodriguez 4-0

I don't blame you CND

Technically Palace is my "home" squad as that's the part of London my mum is from so it would be grand if they held on for the 3 points.

Your man Ranoic did well to take a set off Nadal CND. It's the first time he's done it.

I can't wait for the final I'm a big fan of Nadal

this match had similarities with the fulham game;

1, We lost
2, Terrible performance
3, Carys was in attendance

The curse of Carys

Quote:

mentalman
this match had similarities with the fulham game;
1, We lost
2, Terrible performance
3, Carys was in attendance

The first 2 can't happen without the third?

Do you remember Carys saying this mental?

Quote:

Carys
IF we lose against Southampton then the next time I go to a game I won't tell anyone till we win and my curse is broken

yes i do although i'd rather she just didn't go anymore

I wont be don't worry.

That was the worst performance I have seen in years. We didn't get started and when we did we just gave the ball away.

I was mortified to see us "clearing" the ball across the pitch rather than up it which meant the ball was still in their end - what is that all about?

Sissoko was carrying his injury for a good 15 minutes before he sat on the floor to ensure he got off - he was holding his hamstring for a good while and hobbling around.

Very odd bringing Dummett on for Sissoko when we were 3-0 down would have thought Shola would have added more at that stage.

I left before they scored their 4th but it should have been 5 or 6. Southampton didn't even play particularly well, they were better and we made them look amazing.

I cannot for the life of me comprehend how Pardew can accept back to back defeats like this.

HBA was shambolic - I am not sure what he contributed to the first half.

Even Coloccini didn't seem to know where he should be - he kept switching sides and was right up the field when he should have been further back.

It looked like a group of lost individuals rather than a team today.

The thing that annoys me most is yet again pardew has come out with the "that's not us" line
He needs to realise when the majority of performances are of that calibre and he has to spout that tripe then I'm afraid that is us !
It's the good performances that a few and far between not the other way around
The whole team has been pardewed , being asked to play in unfamiliar positions
Sissoko is a midfielder not a winger (ok he does have the odd decent game there )
Ben Arfa is an attack minded player and needs like minded players around him to thrive not to be told to track back
Cisse is just finished under this lot (all though I bet if he went to another prem club he would soon be back in the goals and come back to haunt us )
If pardew can't get them up for the mackem matches how is he gonna motivate them for the last few pointless games of a season with nothing but pride to play for ? And let's face it the pride went a long way back

why would they be up for the Sunderland match, we have a squad full of foreign playees to them its just another match no matter how much they are told different, derby matches are a thing of the past where the players of any team are concerned.

The sad truth is you are right , they don't care who it is and the local rivalry has no bearing on there paychecks
But the point still remains the same that as much as pardew likes to boast he's a winner and plays attacking football - 9 times out of ten it's followed by "but that wasn't us out there today " and "we will have to address that before next week because all my sides put in more effort than that and it wasn't acceptable "
The guy is a clown ! Last season he had the Europa as an exscuse for poor motivation and players out of position but this season he doesn't have that luxury and is being well and truly found out
And for all the pro Ashley brigade how can a so called great business man continually swallow the tripe exscuses pardew puts out ? (Apart from the obvious that he's a obedient lapdog )

the lack of motivation is because our season is relatively finished, players who are going to the world cup aren't putting their foot in to avoid injury and the players not going are thinking of their holidays.

Sissoko is playing out of position because there is nobody else to play there due to the size of our squad and certain players being gash.

I dont think MA swallows the tripe, he sees the job that Pardew is doing and overall it has been a good job, we have met the target set out by the club at the start of the season.

A good job !? Err ok then

we've finished 5th one season had a good run in the europa league, survived a relegation scare and are in the top ten this season without investment in the squad, i'd say he's done a good job so far

The position we find ourselves in this year is a false one and has more to do with how poor the teams around us have been this year to not catch us up, had it not been for that run just before Xmas we would be in very bad situation now ,
One thing I will agree on is the lack of investment but that is no excuse for the performances we have witnessed this year . Last year he had the Europa to fall back on but what is it now ?
No matter if we have a squad of 20m+ players or freebies and youth it's his job to motivate them to put in the effort in each game and not just attend to pick up a pay packet as we have seen more often than not this season maybe if he spent less time bragging to the press about how he sets his sides up to attack and how his winning mentality means so much to the side and spent more time actually putting together some tactics and training some attacking movements we would see a different side
And you bring up the 5th place finish (as bad as polish nick)and our current position and call it a success ! How about bringing up some of his other record achievements like 3 losses in a row to the @#$%& or the fact it took over a year to score from a corner , what about the longest scoreless run at st James park in as long as I can remember he has far more bad records than good
The guy needs to get his ego in check and start putting in some real work at the training ground because listening to him say "that wasn't us " every other week is getting old now

A good read from the mag
Newcastle United went from finishing fifth and qualifying for the Europa League at the end of the 2011-12 season, to finishing sixteenth and barely escaping relegation in 2012-13.

How did it go so wrong in the space of a season?

The 2011-12 Premier League season ended with Newcastle United finishing fifth and Alan Pardew winning the award for Manager of the Season.

(To feature like Sam, send in your letters/articles for our magazine/website to contribute@themag.co.uk)

Outside of the North East, Mike Ashley was hailed as a visionary for appointing Pardew, receiving £35million for Andy Carroll, and bringing financial stability to the club following years of overspending on big name flops such as Mark Viduka and Michael Owen. Tales of free-flowing football abounded as much was made of Graham Carr and an influx of French-based foreigners replacing the likes of Kevin Nolan and Joey Barton. Newcastle were apparently now a slick, well-run, and upwardly mobile organisation whose players were as hungry for success as their award-winning manager.

Twelve months later Newcastle finished sixteenth having flirted shamelessly with demotion to the Championship. In successive home games they were spanked 3-0 by Sunderland, their relegation-threatened rivals, and suffered a 6-0 humiliation to a Luis Suarez-less Liverpool. Losing top scorer Demba Ba to Chelsea in January probably wasn’t helpful, though it did negate the striking conundrum that Pardew hadn’t yet solved a year after Papiss Cissé arrived on Tyneside.

Then the transfer window brought five French additions, two of whom, midfielder Moussa Sissoko and forward Yoan Gouffran, contributed three goals of their own. The Europa League was constantly cited as an excuse despite the young and inexperienced sides Newcastle fielded throughout the competition. Injuries to key personnel was another frequent lament by the silver-haired one, though of the first-choice players there from the start of the season, only Hatem Ben Arfa made fewer than twenty league appearances. So where did it really go wrong?

One theory is that Ashley’s reluctance to sign players in the summer, Vernon Anita being the club’s only major senior acquisition, despite the additional strain of the Europa League, and several fringe players moving on, meant that Newcastle were unable to cope when first-teamers inevitably picked up injuries. This is a view that Pardew subscribes to judging by his comments regarding selection issues and the owner having to share the blame for underachievement. Yet this fails to explain the run of form that saw Newcastle lose seven of the last fifteen games, including the capitulations to Sunderland and Liverpool, when reinforcements had already proved in their first few games, the consecutive wins away to Villa and home against Chelsea in particular, that they were more than capable of adapting to the Premier League.

Gary Neville would have you believe that the soul, the identity and the heart have been ripped out of the club by foreign imports. That they don’t understand the culture and can’t empathise with the fans, that they lack the professional integrity to give one-hundred percent each and every week; that they simply don’t care about this team. As if the only side to record an unbeaten Premier League season was full of snarling Englishmen rather than Europeans, South Americans and Africans. Of Arsene Wenger’s favoured starting eleven for the 2003-04 season, only Sol Campbell and Ashley Cole were from Britain. Of course, it’d be pointless to compare two England legends with Steven Taylor and Danny Simpson, never mind James Perch and Mike Williamson. Newcastle’s problems have nothing to do with nationality.

For those of us who watched every game of 2011-12, the acclaim that Newcastle United received seemed misplaced yet beguiling; we didn’t really mind as long as we were winning. And I imagine the season-review DVD must’ve been spectacular. All those sublime highlights, Ba and Cisse’s outrageous strikes and Ben Arfa’s genius condensed into a couple of hours’ worth of footage that embodied how the media portrayed us.

Just a few months later, following the draw at Goodison Park in September, Leighton Baines called Newcastle a long-ball team. A month into the season and we’d been stripped of our ‘free-flowing’ label. Coloccini was absent but Cabaye, Ben Arfa, Ba and Cisse were present for that fixture and the style of play was no different to what we’d seen the previous year. If anything, the second half performance that saw Newcastle avoid defeat was better than what we’d witnessed up to that point in 2012-13, including the opening day victory against Tottenham. It seems the only difference between free-flowing and long-ball football are wins and spectacular goals.

The defining characteristics of Pardew’s Newcastle are industry and discipline when the opposition have possession, although it should be noted that these were never problem areas under his predecessor, Chris Hughton. Pardew’s just took it to another level. Let’s use Jonas Gutierrez as an example. When he originally signed for Kevin Keegan in 2008, Jonas was a right-winger. Joe Kinnear saw him in a similar role, and Jonas was often the sole source of forward momentum, moving the team up the pitch by dribbling through the opposition. While his end product has never rivaled David Beckham’s, the season we were relegated I loved him for his positivity. That under Pardew he became an auxiliary full-back incapable of beating his man or doing anything other than inducing free-kicks and covering Davide Santon is testament to Pardew’s coaching and general philosophy.

John Carver, Newcastle’s assistant manager, was quoted in November 2011 as saying that Pardew works on the defence, or ‘how not to lose’, for four of the five training days while Carver has just the Friday to work on ‘how to win’. Pardew evidently understands that most football matches are decided by a mistake or a set-piece, or as we saw the previous season, a moment of audacious genius. He’s a nick-a-win coach. If I have to watch whichever Newcastle goalkeeper lump another free-kick from around the half-way line into the opposition penalty area, unsuccessfully seeking Steven Taylor or Mike Williamson for a flick-on, I might just die of boredom. It never works and it’s predictable. And it says far too much about our style of play and our ambitions.

Newcastle simply don’t have the personnel to play the way Pardew wants them to. They sit too deep and waste their energy keeping their shape. When possession is gained there’s the inevitable hoof to an isolated and outnumbered Cisse. There’s not enough movement off the ball and very little fluency when they have possession, despite being a team full of ball-players, of actual footballers. What they need is a manager who can utilise their attributes successfully. Somebody with a positive philosophy, somebody they can believe in, whom they want to play for.

At the moment it seems like Newcastle are a Ferrari being driven by a nervy, overly-cautious, short-sighted geriatric who can barely see over the steering wheel. If there had been a 2012-13 season award for mismanagement, it would’ve gone to Alan Pardew.

I'm yet to read an article from the mag that is a good read

I'm just suprised you can