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A woeful Newcastle scraped a narrow 2-1 victory at home against Watford courtesy of an impressive brace from an increasingly prolific Obafemi Martins.
What do you think about the match? Why are Newcastle unable to sustain a higher level of play when faced with smaller clubs? Who was awful yesterday? What do you think of Obafemi Martins? So many questions, so little time… have YOUR say.
posted by A.K. Dholakia
December 17, 2006 @ 7:54 am
Previous Post: Referee News: Atkinson Again
Next Post: How To Score Past Newcastle: Part 18 Of A Plausible 38
I dont agree with the point about lower opposition. I think its more to do with us playing at home. I think weve got the best away fans in the country, but probably the worst home fans, demanding success yesterday and booing our own players. The atmosphere at st james’ isnt what it used to be and I think it affects the players and the way they perform. We showed against Blackburn, Chelsea, Arsenal and Co that were a very good team when we have the fans willing us on the whole way and not getting on their backs at every oppurtunity. I was impressed with Martins, Butt, Milner and Emre yesterday, and they as well as Dyer and Sibierski are the players that are doing it for us game after game now, the Butt and Emre partnership works quite well and as big as fan I am of Scott Parker, I think its a bad idea to change a winning formula.
Again yesterday I thought Babayaro was poor, jumping into tackles when even a schoolboy would know to stay on his feet, no one else really jumps out as having a bad game.
I dont think we were bad yesterday, I just think we were forced into a style of play against a team who play ugly football, we got the result with no further injuries. No harm done.
I think their goal was harsh on us, the way their players surrounded Given so he couldnt make a save could have been a free kick.
Comment by Michael December 17, 2006 @ 9:11 am
Three points, Two more goals for Oba, Some good displays, only Babayaro was poor. Watford are long ball merchents who scrap for everything and most teams will struggle to look good against them. Well done lads now turn over Chelsea on Wednesday
Comment by jay the southern mag December 17, 2006 @ 12:15 pm
Our team is a bit short on height and muscle, which played right into Watford’s very direct and very physical approach… but we battled on and won the game. Why is it when Chelsea play poorly and win it shows how good they are, but when we play poorly and win we’re crap?
Comment by Mr Black December 17, 2006 @ 12:24 pm
Same old story from our point of view…good performance and some decent chances created but we let a point at worse slip away at the death again.
Great ground and good trip despite the train home being really late but the atmosphere wasn’t as loud as I thought it might be.
Newcastle fans generally said nice things about us afterwards but then suppose it’s easy when you win….
Comment by Mark December 17, 2006 @ 12:26 pm
Thanks for the article but to call Newcastle’s performance woeful is ridiculous. We weren’t great, granted, but we certianly weren’t woeful.
Comment by David Graham December 17, 2006 @ 5:44 pm
Woeful - Nah, not having that for a minute…
Fair enough we didn’t play well but woeful is overstepping the mark a bit. Woeful was Charlton, Sheff Utd etc, this was below par - AND WE WON…
Look, we are struggling to even put a side out at the minute and have been playing reasonably well in the last few weeks, if we get some players back from injury and some in come January I’ll be fairly confident of a decent 2nd half of the season.
But Woeful? Were you even present during the mid - late 80s?…
Comment by TSAH December 17, 2006 @ 9:04 pm
Not bad. James Milner and Oba Martins were the best players on the park. Glenn, please don’t sell milner, especially not to buy Viduka, sign my mum instead.
Milner will be one of the world’s best in a few years!!!
Comment by chris December 17, 2006 @ 9:24 pm
Watford were poor, it’s no surprise they’re bottom. The problem was for large spells of the match we weren’t much better.
We gave the ball away too cheaply too often, with Ramage, Huntington and Butt all hitting stray passes. Given’s kicking was poor as well. The second half was better the defence keeping the ball until there was a decent pass on.
I don’t think the diamond midfield worked very well as Dyer and Emre seemed to want to do the same thing and we suffered for lack of width on the left. I thought Rossi looked good on the left against chelsea and there’s Luque so we had options.
Taylor, Ramage and Huntington looked solid in defence but Babayaro still goes down far too early and could easily have given away a penalty.
But all in all, we didn’t play particularly well and still won which is pleasing. We’ve got a couple of players fit again which is nice.
Comment by Jangles December 18, 2006 @ 9:55 am
If you had been to Stamford Bridge on Wednesday, you would not be using words like woeful, kiddo.
Comment by SR December 18, 2006 @ 1:11 pm
Regarding Michael’s post about having the worst home fans, I sit in the East Stand and heard no booing at the game on Saturday. The booing against Babayaro in the last game was a bit out of order though.
And I don’t go along with your elitist views on those who don’t travel away. As someone who not long ago (pre mortgage and family) would hit well into double figures on away trips (by the way travelling away in the early eighties and mid 90’s wipes the floor in comparison to present in my opinion) your comments are a bit out of order.
There are plenty fans who are vocal but seeing as the place holds 52,000 you will find that people who like an atmosphere are dotted around all over. This is the same in every ground in the premier league and is not just an exclusive problem at SJP.
Bring on Spurs on Saturday, could be a cracking game.
Comment by Clarky December 18, 2006 @ 6:42 pm