Football Re-Heated: Newcastle
Vs Arsenal – 5th February 2011 – Barclays Premier League
We’re back with another Football Re-Heated, as I stick
another match in the microwave for a review. Not literally of course. I don’t
have a microwave. Not since The Great Plastic Tupperware Chilli Explosion of
2008.
Anyway, enough tired gags, to the review-mobile!
Back-story
This is a somewhat infamous match from 3 seasons back. Newcastle at the time were
having a less than glamorous season in the Premiership. Things had only been
compounded by the shock sale of Andy Carrol to Liverpool
for 35 Million. Carrol had been the team’s main goal getter. Not only was
Carrol sold so close to the end of the transfer window that beleaguered manager
Alan “Glasgow Kiss” Pardew had no time to replace him, but there was a genuine
fear amongst the Geordie fan base that the money wouldn’t be put back into
the club at all. This was the first match at St James Park since Carrol had
flown the magpies coup (Sorry, too delicious a pun to avoid) and the atmosphere
was frosty to Mike Ashley and co to say the least.
Meanwhile, Arsenal were in the midst of a hot streak. They
had reached the League Cup Final and were ready to face off with Barcelona in the
Champions League. On top of that they were also still firmly in the title hunt.
During the summer they’d managed to retain the services of club captain Cesc
Fabregas and young players like Theo Walcott and Jack Wilshire were starting to
come into their own. Things were looking bright for the Gunners while things
couldn’t have been darker for the Toon Army.
This is the official club release I’m watching. I’m not sure
who is providing commentary as the commentators names are never shown. Picture
quality and sound are fine.
01: Steve Harper
12: Danny Simpson
06: Mike Williamson
02: Fabricio Coloccini
03: Jose Enrique
07: Joey Barton
04: Kevin Nolan (Captain)
24: Cheick Tiote
18: Jonas Gutierrez
20: Leon Best
11: Peter Lovenkrands
Arsenal Starting Line-Up
53: Wojech Szczesny
03: Bacary Sagna
06: Laurent Koscielny
20: Johan Djourou
22: Gael Clichy
02: Abou Diaby
19: Jack Wilshire
14: Theo Walcott
04: Cesc Fabregas (Captain)
23: Andrei Arshavin
10: Robin van Persie
This is the third meeting between the teams so far in the
season. Newcastle won at the Emirates, a result
of a Carrol goal, while Arsenal defeated Newcastle
in a League Cup Fixture.
Your referee is Phil Dowd.
First Half
Arsenal waste no time absolutely cleaving Newcastle apart with some incisive passing. A
through ball is played to Walcott, who out runs Coloccini and slots the ball
calmly past Harper and Arsenal are 1-0 within the first minute! Oh dear, this
could be a long 90 minutes for Newcastle .
Arsenal keep up the pressure and a couple of minutes later
Fabregas wins a soft free kick down the left hand side of the field, about 15
yards from the edge of the box. Arshavin plays a beauty of a ball into the box
and Djourou gets a looping header over a helpless Harper into the goal. Nolan
and Williamson were no where to be seen there. 3 minutes gone and it’s 2-0 to
The Gunners. Good grief.
Despite going 2 down so quickly, Newcastle are surprisingly calm. Of course,
it could be that they’re more in shock than anything else, Arsenal have
completely cut them to pieces in a matter of minutes. The Arsenal players pass
the ball amongst themselves without too much trouble and look comfortable. Newcastle enjoy the odd
short burst of possession but nothing comes of it.
Arsenal then make things even worse for their accommodating
hosts by scoring a third. The movement starts in their own half with Szczesny.
He passes it to Koscielny who starts moving it down field. After a series of
passes it ends up with Walcott on the right wing who crosses it in to RVP in
the box who tucks it away with absolute ease. Sublime finishing from the
Dutchman there. Milhouse’s uncle might not approve of him, but he scored a
cracking goal just then! The destruction of Newcastle
here has almost been effortless from Arsenal.
Again though, Newcastle
resist the urge to start panicking. They are struggling but you can see that
they’re trying to formulate a considered response to this. They’re not backing
away to maintain a respectable score and they’re not making mad forays down the
pitch either. They’re trying to hold on to some form of composure and play
themselves out of danger.
Arsenal continue to make attacks. Despite their relative
calmness, Newcastle
just don’t seem to have an answer to this. The Newcastle supporters are furious. You can
literally hear them fizzing in their seats, like an Alka-Seltzer in a glass of
water. Newcastle
attempt an attack but it ultimately comes to nothing, Lovenkrand's cross is cleared
without much bother. They have another chance from a Joey Barton corner but
Nolan isn’t able to put a decent header on it.
There’s still some spirit in this Newcastle side, that’s for sure. They’re
still willing to fight but normal service some resumes as Arsenal maintain
control with some lovely stuff. Wilshire
in particular performs some very tidy flicks and passes. It seems only a matter
of time before Arsenal score again and, indeed, with 26 minutes gone, the 4th
goal is tucked away in Harper’s goal. Sagna crosses the ball from the right and
RVP is there to bury the header. He was allowed just oodles of space for that. He
can’t believe his luck! The words “fish”, “shooting” and “barrel” come to mind
while watching the replay of that.
It’s at this time that some of the Newcastle support decide they’ve seen enough
and start making their way to the exits. There’s one lad in a blue top who is
pacing by the exit with a facial expression that is best described as a cross
between a burning rage and pure abject misery. He shakes his head in absolute
disbelief. Feel for him actually, we’ve all been there as a football supporter
at one time or another. That being said, despite a few supporters leaving,
there is by no means a mass exodus from the ground, which you could probably
justify in a situation like this.
The Newcastle
players still seem to have not got the memo though and they continue to hold
onto what’s left of their composure. They almost nick a goal in fact. Gutierrez
plays a nice cross into Best, who managers to get a touch on it but Clichy is able to block
it and send it out for a corner, which ultimately leads to nothing.
There’s a litany of crowd shots now as the DVD both
highlights The Gunners jauntiness and milks The Magpies misery. We also get a
shot of Faustino Asprilla sitting in the crowd as well. He must be wondering
what the heck is going on. The commentators have completely written Newcastle off here, and
can you blame them?
Second Half
No changes from Pardew as we start the second half. That’s
either a show of faith in his starting XI or an admission that he has no better
alternative on the bench. A vocal section of the Newcastle support kindly request Mike Ashley
thus remove himself from their club. They say it a little less politely of
course.
The sending off has fanned the wind very much towards Newcastle ’s sails. They
begin to mount a number of attacks as Arsenal seem to shrink under the new found
intensity of the contest. Tiote starts getting the better of things in the
Arsenal midfield. Arsenal’s response is to start sniding. Thus the diving and
the play acting begins. I can’t help but smile when Arsene Wenger complains
about gamesmanship, I really can’t. his lot dive so much sometimes you’d think
Tom Daley was going to be their new signing.
Tiote is running this in the middle of the park now as
Arsenal don’t seem to have an answer for him. Well, they don’t seem to have a legal answer for him anyway. Newcastle finally get the
crowd back into things as Simpson has a cracking shot that forces a save from
Szczesny. The resulting corner comes to nothing, but you can sense that the Newcastle players are
starting to believe they can pull one back. Newcastle are playing without fear, where as
Arsenal are more pensive.
On the hour mark, Arsenal eventually manage to compose
themselves and starting moving the ball around again, in an attempt to take the
slowly resurgent crowd out of things. The fizz of anger has now been replaced
by a buzz of hope. Despite getting a handle of things again, Arsenal make
little use of it and don’t look too bothered about getting a 5th
goal in.
Barton plays a good corner into the box and Best goes to
ground after a tangle with Koscielny and Dowd points to the penalty spot.
Pretty soft pen in all honesty. At worst they was a light push there. Still, as
a defender your job is to try and not give the attacker an excuse to go down,
and that didn’t happen here. Still, Arsenal can feel hard done by with that
one. Barton slots the penalty away and Newcastle
have a goal on the scoreboard with 22 minutes to go. Arsenals lack of composure
comes to the fore now as Szczesny refuses to give the ball back to Barton, at
which point he is promptly given a stiff lariat by Nolan. Amazingly, it’s
Szczesny who gets booked after that! Nolan somehow escapes without a caution. Madness!
Even Stan Hansen would have approved of that strike from Nolan, thus was the
velocity upon which he hit it.
Buoyed by the crowd, Newcastle
continue to attack and it pays dividends. Set pieces are the area where they
cause Arsenal the most issues. Williamson gets a good header from a Barton
corner which forces a save from Szczesny. Newcastle
then have a goal disallowed. The linesman raises his flag but Leon Best was
most certainly onside.
Arsenal are on the back foot now as the momentum has swung
to the side of Newcastle .
Enrique plays a peach of a cross down the left to Best, who manages to control
it and slot it past Szczesny to make it 4-2. Wenger is starting to sweat now!
The supporters are starting to believe and it has
transferred down to the players. Best has played very well in this second half,
as have Barton and Nolan. Nile Ranger comes on as a sub for Newcaste and forces
Szczesny into another save. The crowd is very much back in this now, as are Newcastle .
Arsenal are completely penned in and don’t seem to have a
plan for changing that. The home crowd are certainly playing their part now and
Dowd is starting to dance to their tune. Indeed, he gives Newcastle another penalty, this one even more
questionable than the first one. Barton plays a fine free kick from almost the
half way line. Williamson jumps for it and then goes to ground into the general
vicinity of substitute Rosicky and Dowd incredibly points to the spot once
more. If that penalty was any softer, you could use it to stuff teddy bears!
Barton buries his 2nd penalty of the day and it’s now 4-3. St James
is rocking now and the Toon Army smell blood in the water!
Final Whistle Thoughts
I’m not sure if this is an amazing Newcastle comeback or a sickening Arsenal
capitulation. Could it possibly be both? Now, you can argue that the two
penalties that Arsenal conceded were soft, but do you chalk that down to
Arsenal getting screwed over or do you chalk it down to them being tactically
defeated?
The red card, despite being soft as the contents of a Wagon
Wheel™, was a red card. He shoved Barton, and then Nolan, in full view of the
referee. Dowd had no choice really. That being said, Dowd had a pretty poor
game in all honesty. How Nolan avoided even so much a booking for the Szczesny
incident is inexplicable and the 2nd penalty was questionable to say
the least.
Dowd does deserve credit for trying to let the match flow as
best he could, but it’s understandable why Wenger waits to chew his ear off
after the final whistle. So Arsenal do have a relatively solid argument that
poor reffing was linked with the result. However, that seems to almost let them
off the hook. In the second half, they were truly uninspired and it seemed
somewhat poetic justice that Newcastle
were able to find their way back into it.
The attitude shown from the Newcastle players should be commended in my
opinion. They never accepted the defeat and they didn’t make the mistake that a
lot of teams who go down by a large margin do. They had their plan and they
stuck to it. They didn’t park the bus to stem the tide of goals and they didn’t
send 10 players up the pitch at once for a desperate attempt at clawing the
game back.
They sat back, regained their bearings and then set about
looking to sneak just the one goal in. Getting that goal got the crowd back
onside and once the crowd was behind them it made their job a lot easier. Not
only did it seem to gee them up but it also seemed to cow the Arsenal players
and influence Dowd in his decisions.
The Newcastle
support were just excellent here. They were justifiably furious in the first
half and if there was ever a week where St James could empty at half time, it
would be this one. However, most of them stayed and they were integral to the Newcastle fight back in
the second half.
One thing is for sure, this is an entertaining 90 minutes.
Arsenal play some excellent football in the first half and the comeback in the
second half is gripping viewing. The atmosphere alone makes this worth watching
the once, even if you just watch the last half an hour.
The official NUFC release of the DVD has two post-match
interviews. One from Pardew and one from Barton. Neither interview is overly exciting
or enlightening but it’s still nice that they’ve been included.
So overall, it’s a recommend tape. I’ll post the Amazon link
below. I had a quick peruse of Youtube and couldn’t find any decent highlight
packages but I did find the Soccer Saturday updates for the match on the day.
That itself does prove some entertaining viewing.
Anyway, thanks for reading. As always, got a match you want
reviewed? Leave a comment below and if I have it I’ll add it to my “to review”
pile
Until next time,
Peace Out
Soccer Saturday Highlights
Amazon link to the match
Alright Mikey, always enjoyed your comments on GoT, now will enjoy your blog!
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