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Souness:
The Case For Defence, But What About Attack? |
24th March 2005
By
Gosport Toon
It was a great surprise to many people, myself included, when Graeme
Souness was appointed as Manager of Newcastle United in September
2004.
The sacking of Sir Bobby appeared to be for two main reasons:
a) A poor run of results.
b) A lack of discipline within the first team squad.
The poor run of results was, in my opinion, caused by the lack of
discipline and a team that was too geared up to score goals and too
easy to score against. I think this situation was plain for most people
to see but surprisingly very little appeared to be done on the transfer
front to resolve the problem over the past few seasons.
Too many young players with great potential and too few established
players with experience of winning the big trophies. Maybe Sir Bobby
was more concerned about leaving a legacy for the next manager and
the club and not concerned about winning the silverware while he was
with us?
And it wasn't all the centre-back's fault as many would argue, with
a midfield at times of Solano, Dyer, Jenas and Robert the defence
were always going to be left too exposed. Especially away from home.
At home over a number of seasons, with the backing of a 52,000 crowd,
the points gathered managed to pull us up into a respectable league
position. Our away points tally would have had us struggling at the
bottom of the table.
Take this season for example. If the table were determined by the
number of home wins we'd be 8th, if it were based on the number of
away wins we'd be 4th from bottom. We've won only 2 away games all
season in the league with Palace 1, WBA 1 & Norwich 0 being worse
than us. Boro, Man City, Blackburn and Charlton have all won 4 away,
Spurs 5 and Bolton 6.
Take the 03/04 season over 38 matches:
| Team |
Home Points |
Away Points |
Diff Of |
| Arsenal |
49 |
41 |
8 |
| Chelsea |
40 |
39 |
1 |
| Man Utd |
40 |
35 |
5 |
| Liverpool |
34 |
26 |
8 |
| Newcastle |
38 |
18 |
20 |
On home form we would have been 2 points off runners up spot and 11
points off the title. As it turned out we were 23 points off runners
up spot and 34 points off the title.
So far this season, up to game 28, we have taken 13 points less away
from home than at home, identical to Liverpool. Where as Man Utd (29
games) have taken 5 less away, Arsenal (29 games) 3 less away and
Chelsea (28 games) have taken 5 points more away from home than at
home.
Both in season 03/04 and so far in 04/05 we have taken approx 32%
of our points from away matches whereas the top 3 are taking between
46-53% of their total points from away matches.
So Souness comes in and immediately makes central defenders, a left
back and a defensive midfield player the priority (in addition to
sorting out a few disciplinary/attitude problems).
He has also tried to distil in the players the gritty attitude he
displayed as a player when winning League Championships and European
Cups in a distinguished career in England, Italy and Scotland.
From a team that was conceding almost 2 goals per game earlier in
the season over the last 9 games we have conceded just under 0.8 goals
per game. It is now 18 matches since we conceded more than one goal
in a game which reflects how difficult we now are to beat.
We have also won a number of games 1-0, hardly ever heard of from
a Toon team! If we can continue along these lines then inevitably
we will move up the league into a more challenging position.
Only this season in the league we have been leading in no fewer than
10 matches and ended up drawing 8 and losing 2 of those games.
8 points instead of a potential 30, a loss of up to 22 points! If
we had won all of those games we would be on 60 points, 4 points behind
Arsenal with a game in hand and more importantly 9 points ahead of
5th place with a game in hand.
Now winning all of those games is a bit optimistic but having the
same away points tally as Everton shouldn't be beyond us. If we did
have the same away points as Everton we'd now be 3 points behind them
with a game in hand.
Hopefully Souness can complete his team/squad rebuilding in the summer
and I for one sincerely hope that Distin is captured at last. Despite
many Toon fans harbouring a grudge against him leaving the club. He's
a defender proven in the Premier League, good in the air, quick on
the ground and able to provide cover at left-back as well.
I think he would work well with Boumsong and it would allow us the
flexibility, if required, of either starting with or more likely moving
to a 3-5-2 when required with Titus making up a back 3.
Its also probably worth noting that on 13 occasions we have conceded
a goal within 11 minutes of scoring one and 4 were conceded within
4 minutes of scoring. Out of those 13 games we won only 4.
Do we sit back and allow teams to come at us after scoring or do we
relax too much? Do we have a game plan for when we take the lead?
I think we sit on our lead and we need to be aiming to score soon
after our first goal to try to get a 2 goal cushion while we have
the opposition on the back foot.
I am confident that Souness is more likely/capable of sorting out
our defence and our poor away form than any manager I can recall in
recent years and I look forward to him having a full season in 05/06
to get us back at least challenging for a Champions League spot if
not better.
We now need to look for a goalscoring midfielder who can tackle such
as Scholes at Man Utd, Lampard at Chelsea and Vieira at Arsenal. Maybe
Diop from Fulham could be the answer (replacing Nicky Butt), he's
settled into the Premiership very quickly in a team that is struggling
and has scored some cracking goals against top teams plus he is good
in the air.
It is important that the team has wide midfield men who track back
and do their fair share of defensive duties. Solano and Robert were
part of our defensive weakness in the past, both improved that aspect
of their game but not to the extent of players such as Duff, Giggs
and Beckham. Souness is obviously thinking along those lines with
his attempt to buy Luis Boa Morte.
Combined with a new quicker strike force for next season we may at
least prove to be serious challengers for the top honours next season.
I must have said that towards the end of every season for too many
years now... |
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