Three Points: Swansea Drubbing

Three short takeaways from Newcastle United's luckless 3-0 defeat to Swansea City at the Liberty Stadium in South Wales:

Not good, but unlucky
Swansea was clearly the better team, driving play from the opening whistle. It's fairly ridiculous to argue Newcastle should have won. With some better fortune, though, Newcastle could have at least had a shot to steal an undeserved point.

Swansea dominated possession in the first half, but until Nathan Dyer's opening goal in stoppage time, Newcastle had actually created more threatening, tangible scoring opportunities (though neither team had produced many). Newcastle should have earned a penalty when Swansea left back Ben Davies used his arm to block Loic Remy's goalbound shot early in the second half. A Shola Ameobi penalty — as guaranteed as penalties come, amiright? — would have made it 1-1 and given Newcastle a foothold in the game. (Newcastle's second penalty claim — for Ashley Williams' push on Yoan Gouffran — was infinitely less convincing.)

And, of course, there was Swansea's second goal, which should have been a straightforward finish by Jonjo Shelvy but instead went in off Mathieu Debuchy after the modern-day orc, who played quite well but could have later been sent off for attempting to headbutt Debuchy, butchered the finish.

Where did Pardew go wrong?
Bad luck aside, Newcastle's performance was underwhelming after four straight wins. Manager Alan Pardew opted for the same lineup that had served him well in back-to-back home victories, and stuck with the 4-4-2 alignment that has keyed Newcastle's recent surge up the table.

Newcastle was never going to win the possession battle; Swansea leads the league in that category for a reason. So, sitting deeper early on, as Newcastle had done against Chelsea and Tottenham, was a reasonable ploy. For most of the first half, Newcastle stifled Swansea and restricted the hosts to fairly meaningless possession. But Newcastle's counter attacks weren't as crisp as in recent weeks, and Pardew's troops looked tired as the game wore on (Davide Santon, in particular, looked gassed just before Pardew lifted him for Massadio Haidara in the 56th minute). Larger holes appeared in the midfield in the second half, and Swansea took advantage.

It begs the question: Should Pardew have rotated his team a bit more for this one? It's admittedly easy to second-guess the manager at this point, but you'd have to say Newcastle would have benefitted from some fresh legs.

Short on firepower
Of course, Pardew wasn't flush with options. His two main attacking alternatives, Hatem Ben Arfa and Papiss Cisse, both were unavailable — Ben Arfa, whose absence from the bench caused a mild Twitter panic, with an illness and Cisse with a heel injury.

Vurnon Anita could have offered Newcastle some comfort on the ball and inventiveness in the midfield, but Pardew's only attacking bench options were Gabriel Obertan and Sammy Ameobi. Not exactly a duo that terrifies Premier League defenses.

In spite of the recent uptick, Newcastle still sorely needs to buy another striker in January. Even when Cisse is back healthy, it's hard to have much confidence in him amidst an eight-month deep freeze, and expecting Shola Ameobi to maintain his current pace is foolhardy.

Comments

[Beardsley's Love Child]

Actually "sitting deeper" wasn't a reasonable ploy, its a fallacy that it even works because deep starting counterattacks can only be done by swift midfielders and forwards, or if you use the dreaded long ball. And when we do that we lose (see Hull and S*nderland...). Also we were slow because our counterattacking was funneled thru the slowest forward we have: Strolla Ameobi. Furthermore we didn't line up like we did for the 3 games previous; apparently Gouffran popped up on the right with Sissoko opting for the left. Were they told by Pardew to switch because the only reason for that would be to play more defensibly keeping their respective players that they cover to the outside. (Which is why Shelvey scored from making runs thu the middle...)

No we lost because Pardew set us up to conserve energy and sit deep and counter in a 4-4-2 formation; when we should have used the 4-4-2 like we did in the previous games to great effect. You know here we defended higher on the pitch, aggressively sought to possess the space in the midfield and counter and break thru a physical hold up man (Shola the Mackem slayer--Not strolla Ameobi) who can hold the ball until the cavalry arrives (the finishers and the crossers).

(IF we were supposed to conserve energy and stifle the game a 4-5-1 with Remy the lone striker would have been much more effective...but what do I know...)

Pardew got into his own head, thougth he was Sir Bobby for a bit and outwitted himself. He has deserved plaudits for the recent winning streak (grudgingly i'll admit), but if we give him those he has to take the blame for the Swansea fiasco and not Howard Webb.

[jaeger]

just was a poor game from the boys... ill live with it if they play well against Man U.. if they play like that again, then theres no argument saying they were saving for Saturday. unfortuante that HBA and cisse had to withdraw.

the lack of luck with this game probably was due to the enormous amount of luck we had against spurs with all those great saves. it balances out in the end.

HTL!