Newcastle United v Aston Villa Post-Match Thread

[preston28]

I think we were unl,ucky to lose that one. Encouarging thing for me is that the performances are (slowly) improving.  I was a little baffled by the substitution of N'Zogbia.

[Olof's Beard]

Heskey played wide left, not down the middle and kept possession higher up the pitch.  Unfortunately, Albrighton and Agbonlahor were not available today but N'Zogbia was not having a good half and looked knackered.

[villadelph]

I think we were unl,ucky to lose that one. Encouarging thing for me is that the performances are (slowly) improving.  I was a little baffled by the substitution of N'Zogbia.

I was surprised we didn't see Charlie's grumpy face.. I guess he's used to McLeish by now

[not3bad]

We nearly got a point, not a bad result for an Alex McLeish side.

:-)

I defended Alan Hutton after the QPR game, but his role in Newcastle's second was terrible.  From what I saw he just stood off their attackers in the fear that he'd give away a free kick.  How did he get the idea he was a defender?!  How did anyone else accept that idea?!

Robbie Keane should be kept until the end of the season.  I'd be happy if he was made captain.

Gary Gardner's gonna be a player, but we all knew that.

[saunders_heroes]

Apart from the defence (yet again) I thought we performed well, playing some really good attacking football. Someone earlier in the thread we played 'hoof football'. That's just absolute nonsense.

[preston28]

I think we were unl,ucky to lose that one. Encouarging thing for me is that the performances are (slowly) improving.  I was a little baffled by the substitution of N'Zogbia.

I was surprised we didn't see Charlie's grumpy face.. I guess he's used to McLeish by now

A mate of mine who is a season ticket holder at the Toon text me saying the Newcastle supporters on the whole thought the sunstitution of N'Zogbia strange. 

[Stu]

I'm sure I've just seen Villa play some good football in that match and create some good chances, but you'd never know it from the reaction most people.

Why can't you point out the good bits as much as you do the bad bits???

Because the bad bits cost us the game. They outweigh the good and the result is all that matters.

Exactly. The results at the end of the season don't read: Newcastle 2 Aston Villa 1 (but Villa had some good bits).

So because there were a few more bad moments than good then you deem the good not worthy of mentioning? Almost as bizarre as Heskey coming on that is.

But you said that folk weren't pointing out the good bits as much as the bad bits. I'd say that's because the bad bits cost us. Your Heskey point proves it, that was a crap sub and a lot of people think it may have cost us.

OK, maybe I should've made it clearer that I didn't think a lot of people made any points about our good play.

As for you continuation on this, the result reads: Newcastle 2 Aston Villa 1, so then why discuss it further? Presumably there's no need for a post-match thread?

Are you saying that we can't moan about stuff being crap? If you disagree with me on the good point v bad points, then a post match discussion is exactly the place to talk about it isn't it?

[Legion]

Match highlights

[SteveD]

* Bent had enough chances first half to win the game and we were worth at least a point.
* We gave away the ball too much, esp the likes of Clark and Cuellar
* The Zog does not seem to last 90 mins so using Heskey made sense, and we were more of a threat afterwards.
* Hutton wasn't too bad
* But for their keeper we would have won handsomely

[villadelph]

Apart from the defence (yet again) I thought we performed well, playing some really good attacking football. Someone earlier in the thread we played 'hoof football'. That's just absolute nonsense.

You obviously didn't watch the game. Our back four and especially Given must have given it a boot at least 25 times today. How many times did we efficiently pass out of the back and create a build-up, which ultimately led to an opportunity? I would say 4 or 5.. and that's being nice.

[E I Adio]

Although I'm no fan, I thought Heskey did OK when he came on, although he was of course no substitute for an on-form N'Zogbia. Unfortunately, he was having a difficult time getting robbed of the ball too easily.

My biggest annoyance was that after the break the defence got sloppy and marking became very lax. There was no close man marking, everyone was laying off the opposing players giving them opportunities that they really shouldn't have had. When Cisse scored there wasn't a defender within 5 yards of him in any direction. It was almost as if they had already settled for the draw. We could and should have won that game if we could have concentrated on our game for the whole 90 minutes.

[Somniloquism]

Apart from the defence (yet again) I thought we performed well, playing some really good attacking football. Someone earlier in the thread we played 'hoof football'. That's just absolute nonsense.

The first 20 mins of the second half we resorted to that.

[saunders_heroes]

Heskey getting slagged off as well. I thought he played well when he came on, won lots of headers and held the ball up well. I'm not a fan of his, but Newcastle's winner had nothing to do with him. In fact we could and should have scored  two or three goals while he was on the pitch.

[pauliewalnuts]

We keep having this discussion.

We play spells of good football, we defend poorly, and we don't win anything like enough games.

We were like this last season, except at the end, in the last few games, we turned it around.

Will we do that this season? I doubt it.

[hawkeye]

We had enough play and chances to win that. We have a defence that will give 2 goals away every game which means we wont win many.