Three Points: Stunning Draw Against Liverpool

As my co-blogger Bob tweeted following yesterday's match, Newcastle won 2-2. It may only have added one point to the season tally, but it felt like so much more. My three quick takes on the club's best draw since the 4-4 against Arsenal:

False start for the false nine

The surprise in Alan Pardew's lineup wasn't the players he selected, but the way he arranged them. Instead of going with actual strikers Loïc Rémy or Yoan Gouffran to lead the line, he chose Hatem Ben Arfa. Sadly, Ben Arfa as a pseudo-striker doesn't really work, especially in a match like yesterday's.

Obviously, Ben Arfa doesn't have the ability to play with his back to goal and hold the ball up, something that both Rémy and Gouffran possess to some extent. But he's also not great at making an incisive run off the ball and freeing himself in the box. Because he is accustomed to having the ball so much, it's just not a skill he's ever really developed. So when Newcastle got the ball around the Liverpool goal, its supposed striker was often out of position. In the end, only 2 of the 14 shots aimed at Simon Mignolet came from inside the penalty area. The misuse of Ben Arfa was a big reason why.

Good and bad Yanga-Mbiwa

Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa has to be the most frustrating of Newcastle's January signings. He's got all the physical ability in the world, and captained the French champions at 22 years old. But for all the fantastic plays he's made, he's had a nasty habit of losing focus at inopportune moments. Saturday's performance was a microcosm of his career at the club.

In his 40 minutes of work, he basically stonewalled a potent Liverpool attack (1 tackle, 3 interceptions, 10/11 passing). As shaky as Newcastle looked in defending set pieces, Yanga-Mbiwa didn't appear to be at fault. And in the blink of an eye, he was off, and Liverpool had leveled the score. Obviously, there's no shame in getting beaten by Luis Suárez, and the Uruguayan did what he's known for by going down very easily. There was also a strange mitigating circumstance, as Suárez would have been offside if not for Cheick Tioté getting up off the turf. But it was shaping up to be the match that finally settled Yanga-Mbiwa at the club, and instead he'll be serving a suspension.

6-0 seems far more than 6 months ago

After watching yesterday's showing, it's amazing to think that 8 of those players also got destroyed by Liverpool at St. James' Park in April. Critics of the club's transfer policy have used the 6-0 to highlight its failings. In slightly stereotypical fashion, some of those detractors have claimed that Newcastle's French contingent was mentally weak and didn't know what it took to succeed in the Premier League. In their view, the players lacked fight and dropped their heads whenever things went wrong.

That attitude was not at all apparent in this Liverpool match. Newcastle started confidently, dominating the ball early on, then holding firm when forced to defend. It thoroughly deserved the 1-0 lead it got via Yohan Cabaye's patented long-range strike. The team could have rolled over after losing a man and the lead in one fell swoop. Instead, it continued to stymie its heavily favored opposition. Let's hope the positive vibes continue next Sunday, as there's one more spring result that desperately needs to be avenged. 

Comments

[Patrick]

Looking at the 6-0 and Saturdays match you would have to say Coutinho was one of the big differences.

[Dave]

So you think you 'avenged' the 6-0 defeat with a 2-2 draw at home?! Each to their own I suppose!

[geordie pat]

Ben Arfa as a false number 9 was interesting, and it's effectiveness can be argued either way on Saturday's showing, but on balance, I'm prepared to accept that the end - a starting 11 which outplayed one of the 'form teams' in the league - justified the means.

Cisse's omission was reasonable - as was playing Ben Arfa in a position where his lack of tracking back wouldn't undermine the team's overall defensive resilience. Ben Arfa is probably better suited to a no.10 role - but that leads us back to the problem of not having an adequate Cisse understudy. It looked like Arfa and Remy were switching as the game went on. Gouffran nicks goals but offers little goal threat - if that makes sense. I thought he was exceptional in a wide position though, where his workrate finally gave Debuchy a bit of cover. Remy is a versatile forward but switching from a position in which he has scored 5 in 4(?), strikes of solving one problem by creating a bigger problem. So who else was there in fairness?

It was also smart of Pardew to adapt his formation to exploit liverpool's lack of width - and also their 3 at the back. They play a narrow, passing game a lot of the time and - largely thanks to Tiote's commanding performance - we were forcing them wider and wider.

[Jim McBurnie]

When Yanga-Mbiwa went off we would have been better off removing HBA and playing Anita there instead, with the main purpose of breaking up Liverpool's attack by giving their defence/midfield no time on the ball. With HBA up front we were basically down to 9 men.

[Devin]

@ Dave

Yes a 2-2 draw at home when you're a man down to the team at the top of the table, that would be considered victory.

[Uday]

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