Baby Steps

By: Daryl | January 25th, 2009

Managing: Newcastle
Date: April 23rd 2010
Progress: 5th after 33 games.

So, in my last post, I threatened the switch to 4-4-1-1.

And with the whole operation struggling for goals I went ahead and did it for what was a damn big game against European spot rivals Spurs.

With The Pog back from injury, here’s what it looked like:

The wingers still have instructions to go all out and attack, but they’re starting position is a little deeper. So in that sense it’s a bit more defensive, which turned out to be a good thing against Spurs (who had a combo of Modric, Bentley and Lennon playing out wide). On the other hand the attacking mid (in this case Dzagoev) is further forward and actually more like a second striker than anything else.

vs Spurs (home) W 2-1
And it worked, but it required a bit of tinkering. Neither Dzagoev nor Marquinhos did much of anything first half, so I gave them a telling off and had them switch positions at H/T. And I think I may have found a magic combo with Pog and Marquinhos. Here’s the first goal:

Rusol clears, target man Pog (instructed to “hold the ball up”) knocks down for Marquinhos and runs, Marq plays him through. Most miraculously, Pog doesn’t wack the ball as hard as he can and hope for the best, he places it inside the near post. Maybe he’s ill? I don’t care, great goal.

Pog went on to miss another penalty (forgot to take him off spot-kick duty, but definitely remembered after the game) but score a late second, which turned out to be the winner (Spurs big Russian Pav got a 92nd min consolation).

vs Portsmouth (home) W 4-2
A bit hairy, with Pompey equalizing twice. But goals from Coloccini (top man is centre mid as well as at the back) Marquinhos (first goal for Newcastle, another top game in the attacking mid position) John Fleck (on as a sub, rolled home the winner) and – of course – The “back in form” Pog were enough for an exciting 4-2 win.

Nothing especially special about Marquinhos goal (although it’s a nice enough passing move and I love his airplane celebration) but thought I’d share it with everyone in a baby’s first steps kind of way:

vs Man City (home) D 1-1
I’ve long been tortured by Man City and all their money. Going into this game I was in fifth, they were in sixth. So this was very much a do not lose situation. And my cause wasn’t helped by Steven Taylor getting food poisoned the day before (his mum underooked the salmon apparently). It’s usually Robinho that gets me with his pace, so I decided to take measures and go with a sweeper. Like so:

The defence was instructed to play deep, with Coloccini shadowing Robinho and Rusol sweeping.

Sounded good in theory, and worked a couple of times – when Robinho got away from Colo, Rusol was there with a tackle. But we were clearly playing too deep and inviting too much pressure. And then in the 21st minute, Rusol (who’s been in great form btw) did this:

To be fair, that’s a great header to beet a keeper of Given’s quality from there. But what was he thinking?

So, change of plan. The sweeper system went out the window (still had Colo marking and Rusol free, which seemed to work) in favour a flat back four playimng high up the field and catching Robinho offside (which was surprisingly easy).

Also switched at H/T to two up top (Pog and Marquinhos) and my constant pressure was rewarded in the 72nd when The Pog got on to a Belletti through ball, outmuscled his marker and – another miracle – struck it low into the corner. Great great result.

So now the table looks like this, with just five games to go:

Fourth place is a long shot, as usual, but there’s potential for me to finish in a Euro qualification position while Sunderland and ‘Boro both go down. I would be the undisputed king of the North-East.

This is what my last five games look like…

Chelsea might be tough (and Bolton are doing surprisingly well) but definitely points to be picked up there. The way I see it, I finished sixth last season, so fifth would at least be some progress. Baby steps.

Fourth can wait til next year.

Unless we take a big man-step and beat Chelsea…