And the Digital Carling Cup 2011 Winner is….

By: Daryl | March 1st, 2009

… revealed after the jump.

It’s the Toon Army!

Apologies for the suspense.

Yep, we beat Arsenal 3-2 at Wembley in front on 89,990. Apparently 10 people bought tickets but either couldn’t make it or found out how much hamburgers cost at Wembley (£5!).

Sucks for them, because they missed an excellent game (for neutrals and Newcastle fans anyway).

Let’s talk tactics: I’m still only halfway through reading the Tactical Theorems & Frameworks Bible, but did take on board a few things from the first 6 chapters.

Basically my team wasn’t all signing from the same hymn sheet. So I reigned my wingers attacking mentality back a little, from all our kamikaze to something a bit more respectable, and removed free roles for everyone except the attacking mid (previously had att mid and both wingers wandering all over the place like drunks after closing time).

Short slow passing all round is borderline silly with the pace of my attackers, so gone a bit more direct.

Also, lowered everyone’s creative freedom a bit, to make sure everyon stayed in position, and upped the defenders attacking mentality a bit, so that there’s a nice upward gradient in mentality from defence to attack. I realize that lest sentence only makes sense if you’ve read your TT&Fs.

Here’s how I went out to face the (table topping, I might add) Arsenal:

Carling Cup Final, Wembley vs Arseal W 3-2

- – - – - – - – Given – - – - – - -
Taylor – Rusol – Coloccini – Enrique
- – - – Skjelbred – - -Camacho- – - –
Jonas – - – Marquinhos – - – Arshavin
- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - –
- – - – - – - Bendtner – - – - – -

4-2-3-1 (cowardly version), width, normal defensive line, tight marking, playing offside, reasonable direct, reasonably quick passing

As for team selection. Mostly picks itself. Although I was tempted to stick with Marquinhos up front after what he did to Sampdoria. Then remembered that Kolo Toure is at least as fast as Marquinhos (both have about 16/17 for pace/acceleration) so went with trad. target man instead.

But not Lewandowski, who’s almost always first choice. I went with Mr. Pink Boots himself, Nicklas Bendtner. Here’s the logic: Yes, he’s inconsistent, yes, he has silly hair. But the upside to his obvious inconsistency is that he does the business in big games. And this is a cup final against the team that just sold him to me cheap. The kid had a point to prove, and I wanted to let him prove it by winning me a cup. Here’s what happened:

(And yes, I found the edit options on Windows Movie Maker. Just be thankful this vid is not made entirely made of star wipes)…

It all went a bit wrong when Walcott skinned Enrique and Denilson scored after 10 minutes. But as you can see above, Arshavin equalized straight from kick off with a sweet sweet strike from a quick Skjelbred pass.

The cherub-faced misogynist Russian had a fantastic game, scoring the second too. Great target man play from Bendner (instructed to make no forward runs) and great Gerrardesque diagonal ball from Jonas for the Arsh. Then looks like he fakes the keeper (still Almunia in 2011) like he’s going right but dribbles around him to the left and rolls it in.

Adedayor equalized from a quick free kick, but it’s Pink Boots himself that gets the winner against his old team – solid strike after an inspired Jonas run.

Even better, that’s exactly what I’d hoped for from Bendtner back when I signed him (read the last sentence of this post).

And that’s it. After 33 trophyless years, Newcastle finally have something to parade around the streets on an open top bus. I know it’s only the Carling Cup, but it’s better than only nothing.

I was genuinely ecstatic to win this tinpot trophy, but then read about Corey’s fantastic victory on FM Lyon Offside and remembered there’s still a very long way to go.