Oba + Owen Partnership

[Kev]

We all know they played well together v spurs, its only one match but still... should they play together every single match unless one of them are injured?

there is a high chance they will be playing together tomorrow so wait and see until then?

viduka is tall and strong but oba/owen looked the one on monday night imo, martins can challenge nearly everyone in the air even if hes pretty small

 

[Dave]

If all four (including Smith, not including Shola) are fit and available, I'm not really sure which two I would pick on a regular basis.

 

That's a good thing btw.

[Guest eyeball_tickler]

if viduka and owen are fit, it has to be them 2 for me. very unfair on martins, but he'll get his fair share of games due to injuries.

[Shak]

You're really wasting Owen when they play as a partnership, as he has to play as the link up man a lot more as Martins is abysmal at linking the play tbh.

 

Owen's all-round game is good enough to be effective there, but ideally you want him playing on the shoulder of the last defender. He may not have the pace anymore, but he times his runs and reads the game so well that he doesn't need it to still be top quality.

 

Good to see them do alright together, though Spurs are awful at the back and I think against other teams the partnership would struggle.

 

I'd not want them as the front 2 too often.

[ElDiablo]

if viduka and owen are fit, it has to be them 2 for me. very unfair on martins, but he'll get his fair share of games due to injuries.

 

Home maybe against shite opposition but otherwise that. ^

[chicago_shearer]

When you are playing against slow or average defenders (Dawson) then you should play Owen & Martins together.  But against better teams or away you need someone like Viduka to hold up the ball and for set pieces. 

[Baggio]

You're really wasting Owen when they play as a partnership, as he has to play as the link up man a lot more as Martins is abysmal at linking the play tbh.

 

Owen's all-round game is good enough to be effective there, but ideally you want him playing on the shoulder of the last defender. He may not have the pace anymore, but he times his runs and reads the game so well that he doesn't need it to still be top quality.

 

Good to see them do alright together, though Spurs are awful at the back and I think against other teams the partnership would struggle.

 

I'd not want them as the front 2 too often.

 

The only time Owen would be good on the shoulder of the last man is if their defence was no further out than the 18 yard box.

 

Martins should be starting every away game as far as I'm concerned.

[Tooj]

You're really wasting Owen when they play as a partnership, as he has to play as the link up man a lot more as Martins is abysmal at linking the play tbh.

 

Owen's all-round game is good enough to be effective there, but ideally you want him playing on the shoulder of the last defender. He may not have the pace anymore, but he times his runs and reads the game so well that he doesn't need it to still be top quality.

 

Good to see them do alright together, though Spurs are awful at the back and I think against other teams the partnership would struggle.

 

I'd not want them as the front 2 too often.

 

The only time Owen would be good on the shoulder of the last man is if their defence was no further out than the 18 yard box.

 

Martins should be starting every away game as far as I'm concerned.

 

Completely agree.

[Guest optimistic nit]

tbh i'm not sure if anyone, least of all owen knows what owen's best role is now. he's just come back from 2 legnthy injuries and may well have lost a yard on the pre newcastle owen. he'll need to change his game as shearer had to. he has a preditory instinct and finishing skill that cannot be taken from him, but owen will need to remould his style to continue to be a top flight striker.

[Shak]

You're really wasting Owen when they play as a partnership, as he has to play as the link up man a lot more as Martins is abysmal at linking the play tbh.

 

Owen's all-round game is good enough to be effective there, but ideally you want him playing on the

shoulder of the last defender. He may not have the pace anymore, but he times his runs and reads the game so well that he doesn't need it to still be top quality.

 

Good to see them do alright together, though Spurs are awful at the back and I think against other teams the partnership would struggle.

 

I'd not want them as the front 2 too often.

 

The only time Owen would be good on the shoulder of the last man is if their defence was no further out than the 18 yard box.

 

Martins should be starting every away game as far as I'm concerned.

 

Agree with the second point, not the first though.

 

You act like pace is the be all and end all of it. Timing of the runs and passes is far more important and a lot harder to defend against than just blind pace.

 

And he's not exactly shit-slow either tbh. He won't just purely outpace and go go bounding away from players anymore but once he gets in the space you'll have a hard time getting to him before he gets the shot away which, given his finishing quality, still makes him very dangerous.

[Baggio]

You're really wasting Owen when they play as a partnership, as he has to play as the link up man a lot more as Martins is abysmal at linking the play tbh.

 

Owen's all-round game is good enough to be effective there, but ideally you want him playing on the

shoulder of the last defender. He may not have the pace anymore, but he times his runs and reads the game so well that he doesn't need it to still be top quality.

 

Good to see them do alright together, though Spurs are awful at the back and I think against other teams the partnership would struggle.

 

I'd not want them as the front 2 too often.

 

The only time Owen would be good on the shoulder of the last man is if their defence was no further out than the 18 yard box.

 

Martins should be starting every away game as far as I'm concerned.

 

Agree with the second point, not the first though.

 

You act like pace is the be all and end all of it. Timing of the runs and passes is far more important and a lot harder to defend against than just blind pace.

 

And he's not exactly shit-slow either tbh. He won't just purely outpace and go go bounding away from players anymore but once he gets in the space you'll have a hard time getting to him before he gets the shot away which, given his finishing quality, still makes him very dangerous.

 

Pace isn't the be all and end all but it's still an important part of being a striker, especially with the scenario that you put forward.

 

He's too slow to play on the shoulder of the opposition unless they're pretty close to the goal, Barnsley, Wigan and Spurs were games where his movement got him into decent positions but his lack of pace meant he had to have a shot at goal from outside the area on all 3 occasions because the defenders caught up with him in no time.

 

He's a penalty box striker now who will find plenty of space in the box when we're dominating games like he does for England when they play at home against weaker teams, how many times he's going to be in the same situation for us, especially away from home you could count on one hand.

 

For Owen to get back to anywhere near the player he was he's going to need pace all around him in the team, that way games can get stretched on the counter attack and Owen can take advantage of the space created by team being disorganized while under pressure.

[Guest Pie]

You're really wasting Owen when they play as a partnership, as he has to play as the link up man a lot more as Martins is abysmal at linking the play tbh.

 

Owen's all-round game is good enough to be effective there, but ideally you want him playing on the

shoulder of the last defender. He may not have the pace anymore, but he times his runs and reads the game so well that he doesn't need it to still be top quality.

 

Good to see them do alright together, though Spurs are awful at the back and I think against other teams the partnership would struggle.

 

I'd not want them as the front 2 too often.

 

The only time Owen would be good on the shoulder of the last man is if their defence was no further out than the 18 yard box.

 

Martins should be starting every away game as far as I'm concerned.

 

Agree with the second point, not the first though.

 

You act like pace is the be all and end all of it. Timing of the runs and passes is far more important and a lot harder to defend against than just blind pace.

 

And he's not exactly s***-slow either tbh. He won't just purely outpace and go go bounding away from players anymore but once he gets in the space you'll have a hard time getting to him before he gets the shot away which, given his finishing quality, still makes him very dangerous.

 

Pace isn't the be all and end all but it's still an important part of being a striker, especially with the scenario that you put forward.

 

He's too slow to play on the shoulder of the opposition unless they're pretty close to the goal, Barnsley, Wigan and Spurs were games where his movement got him into decent positions but his lack of pace meant he had to have a shot at goal from outside the area on all 3 occasions because the defenders caught up with him in no time.

 

He's a penalty box striker now who will find plenty of space in the box when we're dominating games like he does for England when they play at home against weaker teams, how many times he's going to be in the same situation for us, especially away from home you could count on one hand.

 

For Owen to get back to anywhere near the player he was he's going to need pace all around him in the team, that way games can get stretched on the counter attack and Owen can take advantage of the space created by team being disorganized while under pressure.

Good post. We are piss poor on the pace front tbh. Nor do we have the players with sufficient technical ability to make up for it.

[Guest rebel_yell12]

You complain about Owen's style in the matches v. Barnsley, Wigan and Spurs -- yet in two of those matches, he scored the winner.  He's also scored the winner (it turned out) against Everton.  Personally, I don't care how he scores, so long as he scores winning goals I'm happy.  Also, I seem to remember reading on the official Newcastle site an interview with the fitness coach that said Owen's numbers aren't any weaker than they were before his knee injury -- his "lightning pace" went with the dodgy hamstrings when he was still a kid (19 or so, wasn't it?), not with his knee.  He's scored about 100 Premiership goals since then, he must be doing something right.  He looked slow by the time he was subbed v. Spurs, but I assumed that was because he was holding the ball up and linking play -- a bit more physically demanding than his usual role.

 

For me, Owen starts every match he's fit unless he's miserably off-song (which I haven't seen since the winter of 03-04) and Oba is on the form of his life.  I think Owen will have enough niggles over the course of a season that Oba will still get about 10 starts a season, just taking Owen's place -- and even more against teams like Spurs at home where Big Sam can play both of them or when the other strikers are out with injuries or whatever.  I find that partnership (Oba/Owen) highly unflattering for Owen -- a real waste, as Shak said.  He worked very hard and mostly got slated for his efforts from what I can tell because he didn't score.  I just don't trust Martins like I do Owen to pop up with a much-needed poached goal.  I think Owen's a mentally superior striker, whose timing, positioning and finishing are all better than Martins (at this point -- Martins is still fairly young). 

 

I also have a feeling that Big Sam trusts Owen to be consistent, and he's not yet as sure of Martins.  You know what you get with Michael Owen.  Plus, whether you want to keep him or sell him for a decent amount, Owen will need a lot of games.  He wants to play in every match, the whole match (a Liverpool coach once said that even if the season had 90 matches, Owen would want to play 91) and clearly isn't content on the bench (see experience in Madrid) so keeping him requires playing him.  Selling him also does, because no one will buy him until he's proven he can last more than 4 games in a row.  A fit Michael Owen is something any team would benefit from, and a manager would have to be mad or thick as hell to waste that.  If he links up well with Martins, go for it -- but we need more than one match to see if it works.  If it doesn't, I think Martins is the one to give way. 

[johnnypd]

You're really wasting Owen when they play as a partnership, as he has to play as the link up man a lot more as Martins is abysmal at linking the play tbh.

 

Owen's all-round game is good enough to be effective there, but ideally you want him playing on the

shoulder of the last defender. He may not have the pace anymore, but he times his runs and reads the game so well that he doesn't need it to still be top quality.

 

Good to see them do alright together, though Spurs are awful at the back and I think against other teams the partnership would struggle.

 

I'd not want them as the front 2 too often.

 

The only time Owen would be good on the shoulder of the last man is if their defence was no further out than the 18 yard box.

 

Martins should be starting every away game as far as I'm concerned.

 

Agree with the second point, not the first though.

 

You act like pace is the be all and end all of it. Timing of the runs and passes is far more important and a lot harder to defend against than just blind pace.

 

And he's not exactly shit-slow either tbh. He won't just purely outpace and go go bounding away from players anymore but once he gets in the space you'll have a hard time getting to him before he gets the shot away which, given his finishing quality, still makes him very dangerous.

 

Pace isn't the be all and end all but it's still an important part of being a striker, especially with the scenario that you put forward.

 

He's too slow to play on the shoulder of the opposition unless they're pretty close to the goal, Barnsley, Wigan and Spurs were games where his movement got him into decent positions but his lack of pace meant he had to have a shot at goal from outside the area on all 3 occasions because the defenders caught up with him in no time.

 

He's a penalty box striker now who will find plenty of space in the box when we're dominating games like he does for England when they play at home against weaker teams, how many times he's going to be in the same situation for us, especially away from home you could count on one hand.

 

For Owen to get back to anywhere near the player he was he's going to need pace all around him in the team, that way games can get stretched on the counter attack and Owen can take advantage of the space created by team being disorganized while under pressure.

 

agree. and owen is shit slow nowadays, when he's at full speed that is. his acceleration, positioning and especialy anticipation is still good and gets him away from players before they can react, which is why he's so good in the box. as ive said earlier sam had both owen and oba playing a high line for the first 15 mins but on the few occasions Owen got behind he was effortlessly caught up by the likes of kaboul who took the ball as if owen wasn;t there. i was looking forward to seeing oba and owen play together because i thought both would be able to exploit any team holding a high defensive line but owen was awful at this as he either got caught up easily, or was forced into a shot from distance (which he's poor at since his shots have no power), tho oba to his credit looked really dangerous. owen's link up play is good but he has no strength at all in terms of playing with his back to goal which means when he receives the ball he has to continually move to keep space between himself and defenders, and ideally get rid of the ball as soon as possible. this led to him making early passes 90% of the time, very very useful if you are on the counter attack but if you want to keep possession you need a link man/target man who can keep hold of the ball and wait until others are up to join the play. even tho owen has a crisp touch and hardly lost the ball once, he basically failed the task of helping us keep the ball, which is why the partnership looked worse than it could've. as baggio has said, if owen is in the team he needs pace all around him to push the opposition back towards their penalty box, the only place where owen will now be dangerous, and also to pull players out of position to create space. for this reason Smith makes a better partner for owen than viduka, and we need quick players coming from the flanks too, which we dont have in all cases. personally i think viduka and martins are the players with a first team position to lose at the moment.

[Cronky]

Well personally I didn't think they looked all that good together on Monday. Barely managed to link up once, is my memory. Possibly an exaggeration, but not far off.

[Dave]

Well personally I didn't think they looked all that good together on Monday. Barely managed to link up once, is my memory. Possibly an exaggeration, but not far off.

 

I think they both played well, but it wasn't as a partnership as such.

[johnnypd]

i wouldn't at all mind seeing them up front together again tbh, two players as dangerous as those is a nice problem rather than a bad one. tho i'd like to see more variety with the two changing roles so that Owen can play centrally and Oba can go wide to push the opposition back, bit like how Shearer-Bellamy was. obviously we'd need a midfielder to play almost as a support striker in this scenario, barton most likely since emre spends half the match chinwagging with the centre-halves.

[Kev]

Well personally I didn't think they looked all that good together on Monday. Barely managed to link up once, is my memory. Possibly an exaggeration, but not far off.

 

I think they both played well, but it wasn't as a partnership as such.

 

their first game together, dont expect them to be perfect first time around do you?

they make defenders shit scared which is the main thing

[Cajun]

I still think either of them would play better off alongside Viduka.

[Shak]

I still think either of them would play better off alongside Viduka.

 

Thank you Captain Obvious.

[tmonkey]

Smith + Martins for me, based on the partnerships weve seen briefly thus far, as in truth that has been the only one which has looked anything like promising enough, where the forwards have actually linked up together and created chances by playing off one another. On top of that, they both complement each other well on paper in terms of abilities (eg, unlike Owen, Martins has the raw pace, strength and shooting power that Smith lacks, whereas Smith's linkup play is better than Owen or Martins' whilst hes more mobile in that role than Viduka).

 

On that note, I really cant see the hype surrounding Viduka and how hes supposedly vital to our first team. So far, hes spent the majority of most games giving away needless free kicks (ala Ameobi), and tussling, tugging, or battling away with defenders in useless positions. Admittedly theres been a few moments of good play, but ultimately hes too slow and immobile for my liking, without being an absolute beast in the air, and most importantly, he doesnt have a Bellamy-esque partner to compensate for such a major weakness as a lack of mobility - without that player to stretch the opposition defence to give Viduka licence to play further up the pitch, hes pretty useless imo, since most of his good play will come too deep to be effective. Hes a good player in his own right, and given enough games, will get goals because of his ability, but unless we go out and sign someone to work off him with pace, someone who will stretch defences and work the flanks by making decent runs (ie not Martins), hes just going to be a bottleneck to the team forming a good enough attack as a unit.

 

Maybe a good option against aerially or physically inferior defenders, eg your Anton Ferdinands (in his case, plain shiite), but starting Viduka week in week out when there are more than a few defenders far stronger than him both on the ground and in the air? Dont think its going to turn out well. Granted he wasnt match fit then, but I suspect we'll be seeing more Mellberg vs Viduka matchups if Viduka becomes a guaranteed starter (if fit).

[Cajun]

I still think either of them would play better off alongside Viduka.

 

Thank you Captain Obvious.

 

Well it answered the question....

 

I don't know where the "off" came from though 

[johnnypd]

Smith + Martins for me, based on the partnerships weve seen briefly thus far, as in truth that has been the only one which has looked anything like promising enough, where the forwards have actually linked up together and created chances by playing off one another. On top of that, they both complement each other well on paper in terms of abilities (eg, unlike Owen, Martins has the raw pace, strength and shooting power that Smith lacks, whereas Smith's linkup play is better than Owen or Martins' whilst hes more mobile in that role than Viduka).

 

On that note, I really cant see the hype surrounding Viduka and how hes supposedly vital to our first team. So far, hes spent the majority of most games giving away needless free kicks (ala Ameobi), and tussling, tugging, or battling away with defenders in useless positions. Admittedly theres been a few moments of good play, but ultimately hes too slow and immobile for my liking, without being an absolute beast in the air, and most importantly, he doesnt have a Bellamy-esque partner to compensate for such a major weakness as a lack of mobility - without that player to stretch the opposition defence to give Viduka licence to play further up the pitch, hes pretty useless imo, since most of his good play will come too deep to be effective. Hes a good player in his own right, and given enough games, will get goals because of his ability, but unless we go out and sign someone to work off him with pace, someone who will stretch defences and work the flanks by making decent runs (ie not Martins), hes just going to be a bottleneck to the team forming a good enough attack as a unit.

 

Maybe a good option against aerially or physically inferior defenders, eg your Anton Ferdinands (in his case, plain shiite), but starting Viduka week in week out when there are more than a few defenders far stronger than him both on the ground and in the air? Dont think its going to turn out well. Granted he wasnt match fit then, but I suspect we'll be seeing more Mellberg vs Viduka matchups if Viduka becomes a guaranteed starter (if fit).

 

smith's movement is not needed as much when we have Martins, whose movement and running down the flanks has been excellent this season. what we need more with martins is someone with a bit of sense and skill to direct play and find openings for him. smith will bully defenders and win a lot in the air, but viduka has far more ability on the ball and, with martins either pressing defenders deep or opening up space for viduka and for through passes, he;ll have more time to use this and crucially score a good amount of goals, something smith isnt going to do. viduak's isolation and lack of success against the likes of mellberg has more to do with playing in a 4-3-3 as a targetman trying to direct headers, grappling with two burly defenders assigned solely to mark him 50 yards from the goal, having absolutely no options ahead of him, only glorified wingers hugging the touchline, somethings he's never been suited for. with a mobile striker making runs ahead of him, forcing the opposition deep and pulling centre-halves apart, rather than being the lone striker stuck up front, i think we;ll see more of the form he showed at boro playing in a similar system.

[ross magoo]

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuckin hell!!!!!!!!

 

I'm not into essays like, I did enough of that at uni.  Canna be erchied reading some of the war and peace jobs on here so feel free to ignore my post in retaliation.

 

I think Spurs is a daft game on which to form an opinion on the Owen/Martins partnership.  Me and Alec fae the pub could have stuck six past that defence.  I'm a drunken bum and Alec's sixty-seven.

 

Owen and Viduka up top with Martins as an option with 30mins to go.  It's not fair but neither is the average teenager's life.

 

[fredbob]

Again, another problem that am grateful we have, to be honest i see both pairings beings as effective as each other, The only games that i wold defineitley want to see Viduka and Owen toegther is gonna be against the top4 who probably are gonna have more possession than us, its gonna be important in those games to be able to hold up possession in the oppostition third, theres not many better players to do this than Viduka, on the flip side i think Martins and Owen will be a more prolific partnership.