Sometimes a loss just seems inevitable.
I had that feeling as soon as I saw the threadbare lineup Alan Pardew was forced to field for Sunday's game at Villa Park. The optimistic side of me hoped that Newcastle would outwork its relegation-threatened opponents and Aston Villa's home crowd — already fed up with manager Gerard Houllier — would turn on its team.
Deep down, though, I couldn't really see it happening. And, sure enough, United was outplayed in a 1-0 defeat at the site of its relegation-sealing loss two years ago. The result unleashed a wave of negativity from Newcastle fans on Twitter, although I'm not sure what exactly some of them were expecting from a team missing its top two strikers (Shola Ameobi and Leon Best) and two central midfielders (Kevin Nolan and Cheik Tiote).
Pardew pinned much of the blame on those personnel losses, and it's hard to argue with him. You couldn't fault Newcastle's work ethic, but its quality wasn't good enough and there was no cutting edge in attack.
United's hierarchy needs to remember this performance over the summer, because if depth isn't added in the transfer market, relegation will be a threat again next season.
Here are the other takeaways, at least in my estimation, from Sunday's loss:
- Nile Ranger still has a long way to go to establish himself as a bona fide Premier League striker. Ranger has all the physical tools, but his skill, vision and hold-up play aren't yet close to where they need to be. Hehad two opportunities to play in his striker partner, Peter Lovenkrands. Instead, he opted to shoot on both occasions and didn't trouble Brad Friedel. Ranger also got muscled off the ball too easily by Villa's center backs.
- Joey Barton is not going to get many 50-50 calls. Barton and Pardew both complained about the foul that set up Villa's goal, but Barton did appear to make contact with Ashley Young, even if Young was dramatic in his fall. There were a handful of occasions, though, when Barton seemed to get fouled, only for Stuart Attwell to do nothing. That's become a trend this season and you'd have to be naive to not think it has something to do with Barton's past transgressions.
- Jose Enrique looked like he was sleepwalking. He wanted too much time on the ball, tried to dribble through the entire Villa team at times and misplaced more passes than usual. This all comes against the backdrop of a report that former Liverpool captain Phil Thompson told TV2 in Norway that he's heard Enrique-to-Liverpool is already a done deal. Might Enrique have been a tad distracted on Sunday, then?
It's great to have a US based Newcastle site! I have been reading regularly since I found out about it.
I agree with the above. After seeing the lineup announced Sunday, I thought to myself a draw would be a fantastic result. At least we have an extra day or two before the Man U game. Hopefully this helps the injuries (Ireland and Ameobi) to give them extra time to heal up. Jose looked terrible. He looked completely out of it for the whole game, and if the transfer rumor is true, it will be sad to see him go. He has been a beast for us most of the year.
The silver lining of him leaving could be the transfer fee though. I have read it is 15 million pounds which, if true, is definitely more than I thought he would fetch. This would arm us with 50 million to spend this Summer. With Mike Ashley as an owner, I am not getting my hopes up, but we should be able to SIGNIFICANTLY strengthen the squad this summer, even if Jose stays. We just need 3 or 4 more points to insure survival and start looking at the transfer market.
Posted by: Ryan | 04/12/2011 at 12:22 PM
Thanks for the kind words, Ryan. We want this blog to be a place where fans interact, so don't hesitate to leave a comment on the bottom of posts -- even if you think what we wrote is total crap :)
I think Enrique's play has fallen off in the second half of the season and it might be best for both sides if he's sold for a nice fee in the summer. If they get 15 million, I'd take it in a second. Great player, but that's good money for someone who has one year left on his contract.
We'll have a piece up that will look ahead to the summer transfer window in the coming days, so stay tuned.
Posted by: Tom | 04/12/2011 at 07:13 PM
I think if we can get Jose to sign a new contract then we should not sell him unless we get upwards of 20 million pounds. If we cannot get a new deal done, then definitely take the 15. I'd say this summer we need at least two strikers, two midfielder, a winger and a central midfielder, and then a left back.If we can hang on to Jose then between him and Fergie I would be fine not getting another LB over the summer.
Posted by: rob | 04/13/2011 at 03:25 PM