Reading 2 - 2 Newcastle United - 29/09/12 - post-match reaction from page 43

[STM]

The biggest problem we had yesterday is that we only had 3 attacking players on the pitch yesterday.

 

Jonas is becoming more and more a problem, other than some quality closing down, he offers nothing to us. Shane Ferguson deserves his chance and make just turn our performances around.

 

Were in 9th, beaten in one, playing averagely but picking up points. One decent attacking decision from Pardew will see us improve.

 

Either put put Santon right back and Fergy left back or directly replace Jonas for Ferguson.

[Varadi]

Haven't read the whole thread so will probably be covering old ground here, but the thing that stood out to me was the lack of movement and pace right across the pitch - HBA was trying to make things happen but seemed to get no support, and we had no-one try to put their defenders on the back foot until Ferguson came on.

 

Really frustrating game to watch.

[Guest Roger Kint]

Terrible effort, IMO. We were plain lucky to get a point against a side that is bound for relegation. Coloccini and Cabaye were sorely missed. Bigi lost possession too much and both Jonas and HBA should have been more involved. Cissé is clearly out of form.

 

Harper 5

 

Perch 4.5

Williamson 6

S Taylor 5.5

Santon 6

 

Ben Arfa 5.5

Tiote 6.5

Bigirimana 4.5

Jonas 5

 

Ba 7.5

Cisse 4.5

 

Few generous marks and a stupidly low one for Harper there. Overall pretty much what i thought though

[Elliottman]

depressing wathicng MOTD and some of the football that was played by teams we are supposed to be chaallenging.

[Big Geordie]

Ba's first goal - what a sexual finish.

[Stuy_O]

In some ways it's unfortunate that we were so successful last season. This has led some (and I include myself) to think that, apart from the top teams, we should sweep all that is before us. Anyone who attended games on a regular basis last season will know that we maximised our playing resources and were relatively fortunate with injuries, that we scabbed some games, that at times we were brilliant but also that we lost some games to significant scores against.

 

Fifth position was great but I really don't expect such success this season. A draw away at Reading given their motivation is a decent result for this squad in view of our injury issues. I know that our best eleven on the top of their respective games is a match for any other team but the club is in a position of not having the luxury of cover in many key positions. Having said that I believe that more effort should have been made in recruitment in the summer. We have obvious weaknesses at centre-back and full-back that stand to be exposed now. I hold the club responsible for that; there was no requirement to spend large just to recruit in our most needful positions

 

 

Individualism is getting us the points at the moment and their is an element of pressure on the players to produce performances like last season on a regular basis, which at the minute we look a million miles away from. Now given what Pardew has achieved before this, trust has to be given for him and his staff to get us out of this rut we're in. He's done it before.

 

In his defence I think his options are limited at the moment, thanks to the quite shocking transfer window just gone. Their is no freshness in the squad, just a familiar reliance on Ba / Cisse / Ben Arfa. And also, it really could be a lot worse.

 

But Pardew needs to get the basics right, and that's where he's letting himself down at the minute. Watching rubbish set plays and passing since the season began is becoming infuriating.

 

 

[sugoinufc]

our defence second half:

 

 

tarvernier    perch  wiiliamson    santon

 

 

need quality. A strong cb who can cover LB or RB is needed. would be good not always moving anita around. let him focus on CM.

 

tarvernier still need enough games to develop though. would prefer competition/cover for santon.

 

just get Mbiwa....heard he can cover most postions in defence.

 

then also perch can focus more on cm. maybe gosling out on loan and bigi didnt have to start yet.

[ohmelads]

Yesterday Harper, Perch, Williamson, Tavernier, Bigirimana, Ferguson and Ameobi all played. That's 7 players who are, let's be brutally honest, inexperienced or very average. Now I think Ferguson and Bigi have a future, maybe Tav too, but they'll take time. Perch has been effective but he's not a centre back, and Ameobi, Williamson and Harper are average at best.

 

Should we be so surprised by the performance when this is the quality of bench or 'rotation' players called upon to get us a result in the Premier League? They are 7 of the 14 players who represented us yesterday.

 

Of course, we have also witnessed poor performances with a stronger team out. The problems with weak squad depth are multiple. Not only do these players weaken the first team when called upon, but there is a lack of genuine competition for places which does not bring the best out of our first team. Players such as Cisse or Cabaye are unlikely to fear for their place when Gosling and Ameobi are on the bench. Successful teams always have fierce competition for places, we have none.

 

Pardew's tactics have frustrated me at times this season. But the problem is also related to the resources. He needs to freshen up the team but when you look across our bench, you do not see many candidates.  Of those who could come in I'd like to give Ferguson a couple of games. Cisse and Gutierrez are two players I really rate but their form has dipped. I would add Cabaye to that list but I'd still rather have him in the team than Gosling. And therein lies the problem.

[TRon]

Yesterday Harper, Perch, Williamson, Tavernier, Bigirimana, Ferguson and Ameobi all played. That's 7 players who are, let's be brutally honest, inexperienced or very average. Now I think Ferguson and Bigi have a future, maybe Tav too, but they'll take time. Perch has been effective but he's not a centre back, and Ameobi, Williamson and Harper are average at best.

 

Should we be so surprised by the performance when this is the quality of bench or 'rotation' players called upon to get us a result in the Premier League? They are 7 of the 14 players who represented us yesterday.

 

Of course, we have also witnessed poor performances with a stronger team out. The problems with weak squad depth are multiple. Not only do these players weaken the first team when called upon, but there is a lack of genuine competition for places which does not bring the best out of our first team. Players such as Cisse or Cabaye are unlikely to fear for their place when Gosling and Ameobi are on the bench. Successful teams always have fierce competition for places, we have none.

 

Pardew's tactics have frustrated me at times this season. But the problem is also related to the resources. He needs to freshen up the team but when you look across our bench, you do not see many candidates.  Of those who could come in I'd like to give Ferguson a couple of games. Cisse and Gutierrez are two players I really rate but their form has dipped. I would add Cabaye to that list but I'd still rather have him in the team than Gosling. And therein lies the problem.

 

I disagree. If we had been playing one of the top 10 teams you could argue that we had an under strength team out, but we were playing Reading. Reading who had won a total of 1 point all season before we played them. Reading who were so palpably shit it was actually painful to watch them clumsily attempting to pass the ball on the fw occasions they attempted it.

 

Pardew sent out a confused team who seemed to be trying to compete with Reading physically and were unable to pass them off the park which any half decent side would have done. Badly prepared, badly set up, and by the looks of it, no coaching of a passing philosophy whatsoever.

[Guest Geordiesned]

Maybe a Giggs but we should have had a penalty when Ba was brought down by keeper but flagged offside. TV pictures show it was Mariappa who flicked it on not Shola so not offside.

[newsted]

That's what I thought but I've only seen it once

[nuneaton]

At what point do people realise that last year was the freak and that we overpeformed? For where we are right now in the evolution of the club i'd be satisfied with 8th and a cup run this year.  We're still on for that aren't we?

 

I just think with players like Krul, Santon, Coloccini, Tiote, Cabaye, Ba, Ben Arfa and Cisse that 8th is an outrageously low expectation. That's 8 of your first 11,  a fantastic set of players. Who are these 7 teams with better individuals?

 

And don't forget it's NUFC who chose not to strengthen that squad because we thought we were already strong enough.

 

precisely

[SteveMc]

We are very susceptible to the impact of injuries to front line players. The fink tank in the times yesterday did a feature where we had the third weakest squad depth in the league.  Three of those individuals were out yesterday and we didn't have the quality to replace them. This was compounded by the loss of another front line player in saylor. I'd hoped we would do more in the window but it seems that the blueprint that got us the individuals mentioned above wouldn't allow it.  Hopefully it'll happen in jan. We've made a lot of progress and I think we've got to take a long term and objective view.  Not easy as a passionate supporter, granted.

[Dave]

Yesterday Harper, Perch, Williamson, Tavernier, Bigirimana, Ferguson and Ameobi all played. That's 7 players who are, let's be brutally honest, inexperienced or very average. Now I think Ferguson and Bigi have a future, maybe Tav too, but they'll take time. Perch has been effective but he's not a centre back, and Ameobi, Williamson and Harper are average at best.

 

Should we be so surprised by the performance when this is the quality of bench or 'rotation' players called upon to get us a result in the Premier League? They are 7 of the 14 players who represented us yesterday.

 

Of course, we have also witnessed poor performances with a stronger team out. The problems with weak squad depth are multiple. Not only do these players weaken the first team when called upon, but there is a lack of genuine competition for places which does not bring the best out of our first team. Players such as Cisse or Cabaye are unlikely to fear for their place when Gosling and Ameobi are on the bench. Successful teams always have fierce competition for places, we have none.

 

Pardew's tactics have frustrated me at times this season. But the problem is also related to the resources. He needs to freshen up the team but when you look across our bench, you do not see many candidates.  Of those who could come in I'd like to give Ferguson a couple of games. Cisse and Gutierrez are two players I really rate but their form has dipped. I would add Cabaye to that list but I'd still rather have him in the team than Gosling. And therein lies the problem.

 

Totally agree, great post.

[The Prophet]

I have no doubt we'd of won that game with our first choice back five. We didn't play that badly, but the defence seemed to fall apart as soon as Taylor left the pitch.

[Benwell Lad]

Yesterday Harper, Perch, Williamson, Tavernier, Bigirimana, Ferguson and Ameobi all played. That's 7 players who are, let's be brutally honest, inexperienced or very average. Now I think Ferguson and Bigi have a future, maybe Tav too, but they'll take time. Perch has been effective but he's not a centre back, and Ameobi, Williamson and Harper are average at best.

 

Should we be so surprised by the performance when this is the quality of bench or 'rotation' players called upon to get us a result in the Premier League? They are 7 of the 14 players who represented us yesterday.

 

Of course, we have also witnessed poor performances with a stronger team out. The problems with weak squad depth are multiple. Not only do these players weaken the first team when called upon, but there is a lack of genuine competition for places which does not bring the best out of our first team. Players such as Cisse or Cabaye are unlikely to fear for their place when Gosling and Ameobi are on the bench. Successful teams always have fierce competition for places, we have none.

 

Pardew's tactics have frustrated me at times this season. But the problem is also related to the resources. He needs to freshen up the team but when you look across our bench, you do not see many candidates.  Of those who could come in I'd like to give Ferguson a couple of games. Cisse and Gutierrez are two players I really rate but their form has dipped. I would add Cabaye to that list but I'd still rather have him in the team than Gosling. And therein lies the problem.

 

Spot on in all you say there.

[Mick]

Yesterday Harper, Perch, Williamson, Tavernier, Bigirimana, Ferguson and Ameobi all played. That's 7 players who are, let's be brutally honest, inexperienced or very average. Now I think Ferguson and Bigi have a future, maybe Tav too, but they'll take time. Perch has been effective but he's not a centre back, and Ameobi, Williamson and Harper are average at best.

 

Should we be so surprised by the performance when this is the quality of bench or 'rotation' players called upon to get us a result in the Premier League? They are 7 of the 14 players who represented us yesterday.

 

Of course, we have also witnessed poor performances with a stronger team out. The problems with weak squad depth are multiple. Not only do these players weaken the first team when called upon, but there is a lack of genuine competition for places which does not bring the best out of our first team. Players such as Cisse or Cabaye are unlikely to fear for their place when Gosling and Ameobi are on the bench. Successful teams always have fierce competition for places, we have none.

 

Pardew's tactics have frustrated me at times this season. But the problem is also related to the resources. He needs to freshen up the team but when you look across our bench, you do not see many candidates.  Of those who could come in I'd like to give Ferguson a couple of games. Cisse and Gutierrez are two players I really rate but their form has dipped. I would add Cabaye to that list but I'd still rather have him in the team than Gosling. And therein lies the problem.

 

Yesterday was just the worst of what we have more often than not and the team we put out should have been good enough to beat Reading.  Our problem isn't only the personnel, it's as much to do with the way we try to play as a team and that doesn’t come from the players. 

 

I don’t believe that our players can’t string a series of passes together against Reading.  I don’t believe that our players can’t find or create space in which to accept a pass against Reading.  I don’t believe that our players just decide for themselves that they are going to tell Williamson to go up top for every free-kick and attempt to find him every time.  That must come from the coaching and that’s what is to blame, I don’t believe that our coaches do that without some input from the manager, in fact I don’t believe that our coaches do that without the guidance of the manager because Carver has been here a long time and that hasn’t been a tactic we’ve used so often before.

 

Our coaching can't be good enough and that’s being reflected in our performances.

 

I’m not even sure that we are set up not to get beat, I think we’re set up to play a style of play that we don’t have the players to execute.  I don’t have a problem with 4-4-2 when you have pace on the wings, we don’t have that so 4-4-2 fails before it starts.

 

If we are going to play 4-4-2 then we need to bring two pacey wingers in who can get to the line and put a ball into the box on a regular basis.

 

Blaming our poor performance against Reading on our recruitment isn’t getting at the problem, it’s hiding it because we had enough on the field or not picked, to play better than we did.

 

[TRon]

Yesterday Harper, Perch, Williamson, Tavernier, Bigirimana, Ferguson and Ameobi all played. That's 7 players who are, let's be brutally honest, inexperienced or very average. Now I think Ferguson and Bigi have a future, maybe Tav too, but they'll take time. Perch has been effective but he's not a centre back, and Ameobi, Williamson and Harper are average at best.

 

Should we be so surprised by the performance when this is the quality of bench or 'rotation' players called upon to get us a result in the Premier League? They are 7 of the 14 players who represented us yesterday.

 

Of course, we have also witnessed poor performances with a stronger team out. The problems with weak squad depth are multiple. Not only do these players weaken the first team when called upon, but there is a lack of genuine competition for places which does not bring the best out of our first team. Players such as Cisse or Cabaye are unlikely to fear for their place when Gosling and Ameobi are on the bench. Successful teams always have fierce competition for places, we have none.

 

Pardew's tactics have frustrated me at times this season. But the problem is also related to the resources. He needs to freshen up the team but when you look across our bench, you do not see many candidates.  Of those who could come in I'd like to give Ferguson a couple of games. Cisse and Gutierrez are two players I really rate but their form has dipped. I would add Cabaye to that list but I'd still rather have him in the team than Gosling. And therein lies the problem.

 

Yesterday was just the worst of what we have more often than not and the team we put out should have been good enough to beat Reading.  Our problem isn't only the personnel, it's as much to do with the way we try to play as a team and that doesn’t come from the players. 

 

I don’t believe that our players can’t string a series of passes together against Reading.  I don’t believe that our players can’t find or create space in which to accept a pass against Reading.  I don’t believe that our players just decide for themselves that they are going to tell Williamson to go up top for every free-kick and attempt to find him every time.  That must come from the coaching and that’s what is to blame, I don’t believe that our coaches do that without some input from the manager, in fact I don’t believe that our coaches do that without the guidance of the manager because Carver has been here a long time and that hasn’t been a tactic we’ve used so often before.

 

Our coaching can't be good enough and that’s being reflected in our performances.

 

I’m not even sure that we are set up not to get beat, I think we’re set up to play a style of play that we don’t have the players to execute.  I don’t have a problem with 4-4-2 when you have pace on the wings, we don’t have that so 4-4-2 fails before it starts.

 

If we are going to play 4-4-2 then we need to bring two pacey wingers in who can get to the line and put a ball into the box on a regular basis.

 

Blaming our poor performance against Reading on our recruitment isn’t getting at the problem, it’s hiding it because we had enough on the field or not picked, to play better than we did.

 

 

Couldn't agree more. There are some who'll blame it on the board and lack of signings and it's no surprise to see the usual suspects jumping on that wagon. Yes we could have strengthened in some areas but to use that as an excuse to cover such a woeful performance against Reading - a team with a fraction of our resources - is missing the point in order to have a go at the board IMO.

[ujpest doza]

We might not be playing very well but we aren't losing and are still grinding out results.

 

I'd be more concerned if we were either playing crap and losing or tearing teams apart and leaving ourselves open at the back and not winning or losing.

 

We've lost one league game to the current european champions.

 

Expectations have been unrealistically raised by last seasons league position, people need to get a grip and have a bit of a reality check.

[Pilko]

Terrible effort, IMO. We were plain lucky to get a point against a side that is bound for relegation. Coloccini and Cabaye were sorely missed. Bigi lost possession too much and both Jonas and HBA should have been more involved. Cissé is clearly out of form.

 

Harper 5

 

Perch 4.5

Williamson 6

S Taylor 5.5

Santon 6

 

Ben Arfa 5.5

Tiote 6.5

Bigirimana 4.5

Jonas 5

 

Ba 7.5

Cisse 4.5

 

Bigirimana and Perch getting the same rating as Cisse

Bigirimana getting less than Jonas

Harper getting a 5

 

You're mental.

[Mick]

We might not be playing very well but we aren't losing and are still grinding out results.

 

I'd be more concerned if we were either playing crap and losing or tearing teams apart and leaving ourselves open at the back and not winning or losing.

 

We've lost one league game to the current european champions.

 

Expectations have been unrealistically raised by last seasons league position, people need to get a grip and have a bit of a reality check.

 

Expecting to beat the worst team in the league has nothing to do with finishing 5th last season.  I would think most teams in the league will expect to beat them.

[Dave]

Norwich are the worst team IMO. The one we struggled to beat.

[Guest BooBoo]

Norwich look like a team going down to me. Reading had fight about them yesterday but defensively they look frail.

[Jayson]

So inclined towards negativity some of you There are several viable reasons we didnt play well, i dont understand why you'd prefer to overlook them to find fault with someone whos been such a part of our improvement. To feel like you have some sense of "realism" that others are missing? What are you achieving? You'll have to wait to see if we improve like the rest of us, but you choose to hold doubt over belief? Ultimately you could argue against your own points easily, you choose how to percieve it & you are choosing the negative pov.

[taxfree]

We might not be playing very well but we aren't losing and are still grinding out results.

 

I'd be more concerned if we were either playing crap and losing or tearing teams apart and leaving ourselves open at the back and not winning or losing.

 

We've lost one league game to the current european champions.

 

Expectations have been unrealistically raised by last seasons league position, people need to get a grip and have a bit of a reality check.

 

http://s16.postimage.org/4sb25hs2d/ferguson.gif