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Newcastle Fans Need To Smell The Coffee

12 years ago
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No need to press the panic button yet….just so long as we can put our best eleven on the pitch each week.

When I was young(er) I wouldn’t have a word said against any Newcastle player, they were all up there on a pedestal and I had an argument to defend every single one of them…no matter what reality told me.

On Saturday I thought the team actually did OK, they could have easily fallen apart after that dodgy penalty and the killer second on half-time. The fact that they actually were just about the better team in the second half tells you a lot about their character and ability. Where was the cavalry though coming off the bench? (Only Tiote and Shola were missing of the senior players and the mackem slayer isn’t exactly a game changer…unless we’re playing 5under1and)

I would say the test of the strength of your bench/squad is not that you have to expect the subs to be the equal of your first choice eleven. However, if you then imagine those subs starting instead of any of that first eleven you shouldn’t be worrying.

Alan Pardew largely answered that by ignoring the likes of Obertan and Gosling on Saturday when Newcastle needed fresh legs/ideas on trying to get back into the match, instead he brought on defenders Raylor and Perch, plus eventually Marveaux, to look after his players.

Hand on heart would you be happy to have Obertan, Williamson, Harper, Gosling and Ryan Taylor starting against Villa on Saturday? Marveaux still has it to prove and Perch has shown in some half dozen matches that he maybe has it in him to be a decent fringe player, who has done pretty well stepping in for Coloccini.

It is not character assassination, just saying that because they might be willing triers it isn’t necessarily enough. Keep them but bring in three of four players who can be rotated occasionally with what is clearly our first team.

Is there another team anywhere close to Newcastle, where 99% of fans agree on our best ten players with Simpson the best of the rest at right-back? Anita has come in and looks to have a good pedigree and we have younger players who could gradually develop but we need extra bodies now or else we could well lose key players who see Newcastle as lacking ambition and a double whammy of exposing younger players too early.

It’s not about throwing money at the problem, it is called sensible investment.

If you would like to feature like Sam on our/your website, get writing, ‘The Blog’ is where we profile contributions from anybody who has something to say. Send in your opinions/hopes/fears/articles and we’ll put them up on the website for everybody to enjoy.

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