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Newcastle United 0 - 1 Arsenal - 29/12/13 - post-match reaction from page 33


Rich

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Guest bimpy474

We allowed them to push very high made easier by the fact Remy was all alone but most of the time he dropped deep or was out wide, put a shift in but added no pressure to their back four.

 

Isn't that what we tend to do quite a bit in home games though, Stoke before the sendings off. Chelsea first half. Numerous others. We do play ok sometimes but we seem despite a decent home record, to let the opposition no matter their level have too much room. Tbf we then tend to nick a lead, but i really wish we play a bit like we did at Palace at home, possession football at least.

Not as much as we did today, at times we had no front man and a six man midfield. Their defenders had so much space and time in their own half (well the half way line) we just ended up compacted, Tiote needs space to work so he can turn away and look for the pass. Today he turned and had Anita, Cabaye, Moussa and at times Remy so close to him. Made it very easy for them to apply pressure and win back the ball.

 

Do you know even watching on the TV i could hear Pardew shouting at Remy to drop into the space where their DM picks the ball up. When we did get it the midfield was too deep to break quickly. I can see what Pardew is trying to do but he simply cant teach us how to break, which really baffles me as W.B.A away next ?. Two seasons ago was a text book break away team in action.

 

What happened to that, it was brilliant to watch.

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Thought we gave it a good go today, and am not too disappointed. Debucchy was the best player on the park (by a country mile) and looks every inch Frances's number one right back. :thup: We just missed someone up top with the X-Factor today - Ben Arfa try as he might can't change a game all on his own from the bench, against the bigger sides. More quality reinforcements needed, IMO.

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This game illustrated why we are going to be also-rans again. They were slightly better on the ball, more composed all round and were without Podolski and Ozil ; imagine how we would have performed without Cabaye and Tiote.....

We made a great effort and as BG says, we had the best player on the pitch in Debuchy who was superb yesterday. Unfortunately, they were better in most other positions and had far too much nous for us - the fact that Wenger was prepared to concede as much ground in the final 20 mins(through his subs)showed that he was confident they could keep us out because we had reverted to bringing on Shola and lumping the ball long in desperation. HBA showed why he will always be a player who divides supporters...those who like flashes of brilliance and entertainment will always want him in the side and those who want a player who thinks more about what his team-mates are doing will find him totally frustrating. The greatest players, such as Cruyff, could beat a man AND set up chances for their team-mates as well as looking good on the eye.

We were, as everyone knew, lacking up front and unless decent money is spent, this failing is going to cost us over the season. Krul had a poor game by his standards and he is currently using up all the credits from his display against Spurs. I thought he should have been better positioned for their goal and it was hardly coming at him from a hidden position or at Warp factor 9. He looked shaky on other occasions too and his kicking was mediocre although Seczeny nearly stole the show there with his brainless clearance that hit Remy and almost rebounded into goal.

 

Overall, a brave effort but not enough REAL chances created and this will remain the case unless and until we get reinforcements up front - we face a couple of difficult games too, with WBA away and Man C at SJP soon. City will surely be more difficult opponents than Arsenal were yesterday too, and WBA have shown they can score goals....Anelka just loves playing against us..!

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Disappointed yesterday with the result, content enough with the performance. Thought was nice to give the players a good reception after the match for their efforts in that game and they all came over and appreciated that but you could see they were just as disappointed as us which is a good sign.

 

Thought Debuchy was a class act again, don't mind Coleman getting all the praise as it will be him getting linked away in Jan and not Debuchy whos performances are sort of slipping under the radar of the media.

 

The game itself was a bit of stalemate, neither team seemed like carving out a decent opening and even half chances were few and far between. Imagine it would have been a boring game for the neutral but obviously it was still nervous for us watching it. When Ben Arfa came on around 60th min really thought he might push us on for the winner and produce a bit of magic but just as i was thinking that, they go and score. Haven't seen it back yet but still beyond me how Giroud was allowed the much space, the ball in was a good delivery but the marking was awful.

 

From then on we tried to get ourselves back in the game by any means possible, i felt we reverted to the long ball a bit early especially when they had Mertesacker at the back who won everything. Shola put pressure on him tbf and the clearances weren't great but we had nobody picking up the second balls on the outside of the box. We got into some good positions in the box but then let ourselves down with poor control or poor decision making.

 

Overall though we got beat by the side who is top of the league and have a very impressive record away from home for clean sheets and victories so whilst a 1-0 defeat wasn't surprising, it's a bitter pill to swallow given how we matched them all over the pitch and restricted them to pretty much nothing.

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in some ways I'd rather we'd got beat easily than come away knowing we should have got something but didn't.

 

arsenal, as usual came blasting from the blocks for the first 15 or so, as the game went on they became more ragged, more displaced passes, more frustration and we looked stronger as it was going on. we should have had a free kick, they get one 10secs later and score, soft one from our point of view. bringing ben arfa on then was right, didn't agree with shola but could undewrstand it, didn't understand bringing on haidara at all.

 

we are a good team, we deserve to be where we are, lets see if we can stay there.

 

What, 8th? :lol:

 

I don't disagree with you - with the exception of maybe Spurs, I think all the teams above us deserve to be above us. I want us to push on much, much further though.

 

Size of our collective cock, financial flab and all that

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We were far too static moving up the pitch - often a good pass would release Sissoko, Debuchy or Remy down the channels and there wouldn't be anyone else further forwards than the centre circle by the time they looked for a pass.

 

I didn't think we were 'negative' per se, and we kept the ball in patches quite nicely, but we were a bit too stiff and rigid.

 

Personally, I think Gouffran looked knackared, Sissoko looked knackared, Remy looked pap and Anita overawed - and this is what got us edged out, despite Debuchy, Colo, Williamson and Tiote all playing really well.

 

This was also the problem against Stoke.

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It was a stalemate of a match and one where we probably did enough for a point. Was a shame to concede the way we did but hey ho.

 

Disappointing but hardly end of the world, move on to the next match

 

Thats how I feel about it.  One tiny mistake cost us, could have easily have happened at the other end.  See their keeper lashing it off Remy's face and nearly conceding.

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Noticed sissoko failing to make a run or provide an option down the right a few times which was annoying

 

Pretty much all first half, summed up the mentality we'd adopted from the off. With 2 sitting midfielders the wide men should not be afraid to get past the ball or offer a forward outlet 

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Btw with 15mins to go and looking to go gung-ho at a top opponent I didn't have a particular problem with us going more direct and trying to cause some mayhem in and around the box, especially when playing a team that is notorious for struggling with a bit of roughing-up.

 

The problem was that the only player we had at our disposal for this was Shola Ameobi, bless him.

Mayhem, exactly the word used by Gary Neville to describe what was missing from Man Uniteds play in the last 10 minutes of our game at Old Trafford.

 

Arsenal sat back and we launched stuff at them, only takes a decent knock down or defensive slip up in those situations to craft an equaliser and I had no problem with that at all.

 

Only thing I had a problem with all afternoon from us was the sloppy free kick Tiote gave away for their goal which on seeing replays on TV looks even softer and sillier as Carzola was going nowhere and contact was minimal.

 

Was good to see MotD absolve Williamson of any blame for the goal as well although I think Shearer was an axe to grind with Colo so looks to blame him for everything anyway!

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Was good to see MotD absolve Williamson of any blame for the goal as well although I think Shearer was an axe to grind with Colo so looks to blame him for everything anyway!

 

Shearer didn't like him when he was manager here, so it's no wonder seeing him shoot down Colo at any given chance on TV. Can't stand Shearer as a pundit, like.

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Yeah the issue of off the ball movement is nothing new here,  not just under Pardew.

Such an annoying thing when we have possession and the rest of the team kind of stop and leave it upto the player on the ball to do something, rather than move and give them an option.

Debuchy made some great runs yesterday but its not just about creating an attacking option for the player on the ball but giving them an option so we can keep the fkn ball and build an attack.

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I hate lofted balls up personally, I can understand the reasoning for it (unless it's Shola standing up there) but I think it's absolutely desperate and just leads to a loss of control 9 times out of 10 unless your side is set up to play like that. If there's literally 30 seconds left on the clock then fair enough, but 15 minutes against a side who have thrown away their attacking ambitions is more than enough if you don't scrap the plan and start playing like you're running out of time.

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Was good to see MotD absolve Williamson of any blame for the goal as well although I think Shearer was an axe to grind with Colo so looks to blame him for everything anyway!

 

Shearer didn't like him when he was manager here, so it's no wonder seeing him shoot down Colo at any given chance on TV. Can't stand Shearer as a pundit, like.

 

I can't either, but he's been extremely complimentary of Colo in the last 3 years.

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Was good to see MotD absolve Williamson of any blame for the goal as well although I think Shearer was an axe to grind with Colo so looks to blame him for everything anyway!

 

Shearer didn't like him when he was manager here, so it's no wonder seeing him shoot down Colo at any given chance on TV. Can't stand Shearer as a pundit, like.

 

I can't either, but he's been extremely complimentary of Colo in the last 3 years.

 

Not from what i've seen, always felt he's had some sort of agenda with him. Came in as manager, Colo makes a mistake then immediately dropped. Then whenever he's made a mistake here, he's on TV slaughtering his defensive abilities.

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