On The Air: Did That Happen, And Can It Happen Again?

The IWIWAG podcast returns with its "regular" panel (for better or worse) as Tom, Matt, Phil and Bob get 55 minutes of giddy over Saturday's spanking of Chelsea. Are we done weeping over Willo? Was Sissoko that good, or was he just winging it? Does a certain Boston blogger sleep in an 11 shirt? Did Pardew find Ben Arfa's best position? And when will Newcastle start doing this to teams it's supposed to do it to? Plus: Why Norwich is a bigger match than Tottenham (really). Click below to have a listen, or visit our iTunes page to rate and download.

I Wish I Was A Geordie 11-6-13

Comments

[Ben from Aus]

WOULD YOU ALL PLEASE GET ON THE GOUFFRAN BAND WAGON.

[@LeeSibbald]

The biggest difference for me with NUFC lately (I'm thinking last 4 games) has been some marked improvements in key personnel. Putting aside the emotional freakshow that was the and always shall be the Derby, Goofy had an excellent man-of-the-match (for me) performance against Liverpool, scoring in the process.
Against City in midweek, Yanga was outstanding for 90 minutes against an albeit City B team (usual caveat about City's B team being on par with most club's A team applies here, however).
And against Chelsea at the weekend, Debuchy was outstanding and my MOTM.

Put that alongside an improving Anita and Sissoko and you have an improving core of the team that helped us achieve this excellent win against Chelsea.

Then you must consider tactics - and it was a welcome sight to not see the false-9 setup that had served us pretty poorly in the game against Liverpool and especially the derby.

The trick now is to keep these crucial players playing at this level, and hope that other players also start to pick up their game. I'm thinking Santon, Cisse and Ben Arfa in particular. I won't credit Willohere because he's awful. Stats can prove a lot of things and Phil will back me on that, but the/my truth is Willo is awful and were it not for a better header Terry would have opened the scoring at the weekend. I will admit, however, that Willo has not been 100% awful like I expected, however he's bobbing around the 90% poop level and frankly he could go either way. I suppose that puts him in the "improving" category that just I've argued at the start of this post, and pretty much ruins my instance on complaining about him. Damn it.

[geordiepat]

Good listen. Hard to know how much we can deduce from the Chelsea win as there were too many shifting variables all coming at once.

I'm not the biggest advocate of Gouffran as a striker, however playing him in a wide 4-4-2 starting role is a good compromise, where his workrate benefits the fullback - plus his lack of overall finishing will impact less on our goal threat higher up the pitch. As a midfielder his (likely) 7 goals per season is perfectly respectable - in fact, most welcome to a team that has lacked goals from midfield for too many years now.

Ben Arfa should still be in the team. A victory (and improved performance) in his absence says just as much about Pardew's failure to harness his greatest matchwinner's effectiveness, as it does about Arfa's lack of contribution. A no. 10 role makes more and more sense, considering the abjectness of Cisse at the moment.

One of football's most popular myths is that teams 'can't carry a passenger'. I would argue most teams carry passengers every week - and even the best performances of the best sides will involve at least one or two lackluster individual showings. The key to strategic success from the manager's point of view is to make sure the under-performers are not impacting on the overall team strategy. Cisse was not only struggling, but the entire team was built around him last season - so inevitably we struggled from back to front.

That in mind, Arfa needs to play in the no. 10 role - behind Remy - where he can flop-flop-excite-flop to his heart's content, and it won't impact the full-back, nor Remy (who is more comfortable coming deep to gather the ball than Cisse.)

That leaves Santon as the remaining weak link in the team. I'd like to see 3 at the back with M'biwa, Tiote, Williamson and Anita all retained.

krul
debuchy/williamson/m'biwa
tiote
sissoko/anita/cabaye/gouffran
arfa
remy

[Dhalgren]

On a technical note, I'm happy to be able to finally download the podcast as an MP3 file! Yay!

[@Lavanglish]

Yea I think the improvements to iOS 7 has fixed the tech issue with downloading the podcast. Glad to know it's apple's fault and not ours.

Only problem I have with putting Ben Arfa in the #10 role, GeordiePat, is he never really looks for that pass. He is always a dribble first mentality and afraid he will get swallowed up by the physically of playing in the middle.