I Wish I Was A Geordie - The Blog of Newcastle United in the US

Crystal Palace Preview: Already A Must-Win?

Welcome to our new match preview post! Phil gives you everything you need to know in advance of tomorrow's match, from tactics to tidbits, while Matt chips in with four lines of text and a couple of pretty pictures.

Battleground Tactica

Brand-new Crystal Palace boss Neil Warnock will be looking for the new manager bump to take full effect tomorrow. He'll walk into the changing room, sans eyebrows, and tell his Eagles squad, "go out there and impress me!" The veteran manager will put an arm around every shoulder and say there are starting places up for grabs and everyone has a clean slate.

Then he'll proceed to pack the middle of the pitch, defend deep, and hope to catch Newcastle on the counter. Let’s be clear: Warnock will not be playing free-flowing offensive football with his new club. The London club has not played with two strikers in either match this season, and Newcastle should expect more of the same tomorrow. It is expected Palace will line up in a 4-5-1 with its lone danger man Marouane Chamakh on his own up front.

The onus will be on Newcastle to break down a back line for the first time all season. We don’t have the biggest sample size from the season so far, but here are the five goals Crystal Palace has conceded this season (thank you, Squawka). 

 There should be plenty of room in the center of the park for Mr. Rivière and Mr. de Jong.  Attack the middle, shoot early, and shoot often.

Team we want/team we'll get 

To expose the weak heart of the defense, why not try out the Christmas tree formation? The 4-3-2-1 plays to Rivière's strength perfectly, giving him two teammates to play off with his back to goal. And both Siem de Jong and Rémy Cabella are capable shooters from long range, an area which gave Palace trouble a week ago. Sadly, our manager will likely have other ideas...

How Pardew can screw this up

Mike Williamson served his one-game suspension against Gillingham midweek, sparing the Toon Army from Steven Taylor's jazz hands. That saves one selection land mine. Alan Pardew is not one for mixing and matching his starting XI, but the erstwhile Silver Fox will be forced to make a change to insert de Jong into the starting lineup. My money is on Yoan Gouffran to take up a padded seat on the substitutes bench to accommodate him. He has had a clear-cut chance in each contest and failed to put Newcastle on the scoreboard. That sort of inefficiency in front of goal makes Gouffran's spot in the lineup vulnerable. However, the 4-2-3-1 formation is one way Pardew will likely screw up Saturday. It has not worked for two and a half years and shows no sign of anything but unadulterated tedium under the Newcastle manager. 

But the way he will most likely let the three points slip through his hands is with plain and simple complacency. It is my expectation that Palace will show no desire whatsoever to attack. At home against weak opposition, a win is a necessity. It will be imperative for Newcastle to score the first goal, but it's also vital that Pardew reacts quickly to substitutions made by his opposite number. In the past, Newcastle has been exposed by inferior sides that turned around the match in the second half. Two recent examples of this:

January 20, 2013: Newcastle 1, Reading 2.

Newcastle controlled the opening 45 minutes, but only managed one goal. Brian McDermott introduced Adam Le Fondre, who promptly scored two goals for Reading in the second half en route to the victory. 

January 4, 2014: Newcastle 1, Cardiff 2.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s first match as Cardiff boss. (Look, new manager bump!) Newcastle scored the first goal, but the introduction of Craig Noone and Fraizer Campbell knocked the Magpies out of the FA Cup. Not that they wanted to be there anyway.

In both instances, Newcastle dominated play only to be undone in the last stages of the match. Pardew needs the three points heading into the international break, and must formulate a plan to score early and often against a team that does not need a reason to believe it can win.

 Predicted post-match Chronicle headline

If Pardew sticks with the 4-2-3-1, which he will, then the fans will be in for a long afternoon. Palace will concede possession and dare the Magpies to create a chance against a parked bus. Rivière will be stranded on his own up front, to the frustration of the home crowd. However, after many excruciating minutes of anticipation, Newcastle will take home the three points on a last-gasp de Jong winner from just outside the box.  The screamer will cascade relief onto the paying crowd and prompt the Chronicle on Sunday to lead with the headline:

Late de Jong strike leaves Pardew feeling (clap clap) "Glad All Over"

Three Points: Villa 0-0 NUFC...The Drought Continues

Newcastle didn't do its North American fans any favors on Saturday. It's one thing to go scoreless in a normal match. But firing blanks during the dreaded early start time (7:45 am on the East Coast, 4:45 out west) should be a prescription medication for insomnia. Nonetheless, here's a slightly drowsy take on the draw against Villa:

Déjà vu all over again: Saturday's failure to score brings back plenty of memories from last season. What it all means depends on your level of optimism. On the good end, Newcastle started off 2013-14 exactly the same way - getting shut out in a loss to Manchester City, then following it up with a scoreless draw. It clearly was not the kiss of death, as the club rebounded to climb within sight of the Champions League places by the turn of the year. If you're more inclined to panic, Newcastle has scored fewer goals in calendar year 2014 than any club in England, and there isn't a proven goalscorer in the current squad.

Cry me a Rivière: Once again, Newcastle's lone starting striker found himself under a lot of pressure, without many looks at goal. He worked hard, moving from side to side to receive the ball, and brought other players into the attack well. But Emmanuel Rivière's critics have one more match to point to, after he managed just one relatively tame shot in his 77 minutes of work. Those critics can also point to the contribution of Ayoze Pérez, who has managed to get a good look at goal in each of his two cameo appearances thus far. Not that it's time to swap strikers just yet, but it's definitely food for thought.

Double Dutch: Daryl Janmaat may well have been the man of the match, combining solid defensive work with two near-misses aimed at the Villa net. Besides taking up Mathieu Debuchy's position in the side, Janmaat also seems to have become the surprise set piece threat that Debuchy turned into last season. It hasn't happened often in recent years, but Newcastle finally seems to have found a suitable replacement for one of its departed stars.

Janmaat's countryman, Siem de Jong, demonstrated in his 20-minute appearance why hope may still remain for the club to figure things out from an attacking sense. He managed only seven touches in that time, but one of those was an opportunistic pounce on a loose ball which turned into a shot on goal - exactly the sort of thing he became known for at Ajax. Newcastle's pattern of play was actually pretty attractive on the whole, and it dominated possession against Villa, but someone needs to be able to make things happen inside the box. It's too soon to say for sure that de Jong is that player, but he looked to be exactly the instinctual presence that the club thought it was buying this summer.

Three Points: NUFC 0-2 Man City

Three quick takes on what I'm calling another Tyneside revival of Les Misérables as the hands of Manchester City. Without further ado, and without the presence of Hatem Ben Arfa, aka Prisoner 24601...

I Dreamed A Dream: After being dismantled over and over again in this matchup, it was at least encouraging to see Newcastle keep it competitive. But like poor Fantine, for whom "life has killed the dream I dreamed," every Newcastle fan sensed the inevitable result after a handful of squandered chances in the second half. The one that may have proven most costly was the poorly timed flub by Yoan Gouffran, who found himself all alone at the far post after a Jack Colback corner, but couldn't control the ball well enough to poke it past Joe Hart and even the match at 1-1 a few minutes after halftime.

On My Own: Emmanuel Rivière often looked every bit as forlorn as Éponine as she pined in vain for Marius. It took death for her to get the support she craved, but for Rivière, it never came at all. It's hard to evaluate Rivière (3 shots, 0 on target, 14-20 passing) other than to say what's already been said: as a lone striker, he can threaten defenders more with his speed and power than Papiss Cissé, and did so at times yesterday. But when Newcastle did have a decent chunk of possession around the penalty area, he looked out of sync with the midfielders behind him. Sometimes a cross would be delayed because Rivière was standing offside. Or he'd make a different run than the midfielder was expecting, resulting in an easy turnover. Siem de Jong will eventually give Rivière some help with his trailing runs into the box. But for now, the burden is all on the ex-Monaco man to make the most of what little service he does get.

Bring Him Home: My thoughts on the Colback signing are now on the record. I think Alan Pardew will wrongly regard Colback as an automatic starter, when he's probably better suited to be a backup option. Nonetheless, in Colback's return to his hometown club, it was hard to fault his performance (38-42 passing, 2 tackles, 5 interceptions) in place of the injured Cheick Tioté. He manned the barricade whenever City made its relatively rare forays into the final third, doing an admirable job to break up the play and launch the counterattack. As a third midfielder, there are far worse choices (see last season's Dan Gosling experience).

On The Air: 48 Points And Other Ambitions

It's time for the IWIWAG official preseason podcast, as Phil, Matt and Bob use Alan Pardew's 48-point plan for success as a springboard to explore potential dreams and nightmares of the coming campaign. Who will explode? Who will implode? Who will sail and who will derail? Plus: How did we wind up with guys who aren't French? Click below to listen, or visit our iTunes and Stitcher sites to scratch your downloading itch. Howay.

I Wish I Was A Geordie 8-14-14

On The Air: Ben Arfa And Other Hot Dogs

With a sizzling summer transfer season getting ready to come off the grill, the IWIWAG blogsters end their midsummer radio silence with a spirited if more-than-typically tangential look at the remade NUFC squad and where the leftovers fit in (including the manager). Is Aarons all that? Will Riviére flow? Did we sign the right Remy? Including the joys of overpayment and unprofessionalism. Plus: Phil ketches up with Ben Arfa. Click below to listen, or visit our iTunes and Stitcher pages to download and replay on your favorite device.

 

I Wish I Was A Geordie 8-4-2014