Despite hopes that our depleted squad could take all three points at St James Park last night a point, in the end, was fair enough against a Newcastle side that can now proudly say they are moulded in the image of Bolton. Not quite the halcyon days of Keegan and the attractive football his side played but certainly better than the craven performances they’ve been putting in of late. If that’s the kind of shit you’re into, like.
We had a great start when Adebayor chested down and volleyed home Eboue’s excellent cross but after that we really didn’t cause the Newcastle goal too many scares. I don’t want to put our lack of performance down entirely the players we had missing but without Cesc, Hleb and van Persie we were pretty bereft of any creativity while Flamini’s drive and energy in midfield was badly missed as both Diarra and more noticeably Gilberto struggled.
Their goal came when both Adebayor and Eduardo didn’t clear the ball out of defence and when Newcastle crossed the ball it fell to football’s worst actor, Steven Taylor, and his shot hit the post and went in. I suppose you can criticise and say they should have hoofed it upfield but we can’t have it both ways, can we? We can’t laud the team one minute for the precision passing, great football and howe well they play it out of defence then castigate them when that goes wrong. Yes, we could have cleared it but that’s not the way this team plays and this time we got caught out. I suppose a bit more experience will teach them when you just need to put your foot through the ball.
While we never really looked in danger of losing it we never much looked like winning it either. I don’t suppose we were helped by some questionable decisions by Mike Dean but then what does anyone expect from Mike Dean? It wasn’t a great performance by us, partly down to some players not really playing as well as they can and partly down to Newcastle getting tight and making it difficult for us to play football. Without the previously mentioned players we lacked the little bit of cuteness to cut their defence apart and Newcastle responded to the jeers of their fans and the stories in the press with a performance that will keep their manager in a job for a little while longer. Hopefully long enough for us to take them back to our place, bend them over and fucking stuff goals up their arse, the cunts.
One man who did stand out for us a bit was Manuel Almunia. I thought he had a very good game, his handling was very assured and he made a couple of good saves which is a couple more than Shay Given had to. However, a point away from home is not a bad result by any stretch of the imagination and this is not a disaster or anything like it. Despite headlines saying we’ve been ‘derailed’ we remain unbeaten and I can remember in the unbeaten season there were criticisms of the team for drawing too many games. Look how that turned out. While three points would have been lovely if you step back and look at the result and the circumstances this could prove to be a very good point at the end of the season.
Afterwards Arsense said that Newcastle ‘destroyed’ our game and conceded that Newcastle deserved a point, saying:
We had a great spirit and great resilience, but we did not create enough going forward tonight – we did not find our fluency. They fought for every ball, they were in a crisis. And that crisis made it difficult for us. We got a point that maybe we would not have got last year.
And the last bit of that is what we should be paying attention to. It strikes me that some people thought this was going to be a bit of a walkover for us, instead it’s proved to be a bit of a reality check. No bad thing in the great scheme of things.
I could comment on how Allardyce accused us of trying to con the referee but the fat man knows how to provide a soundbite that the press will pick up on and I have no faith whatsoever in Allardyce’s integrity or honesty so frankly his shite can go in one ear and out the other. We’ve heard it all before. Sagna’s booking was harsh, I thought, although he didn’t do himself any favours with the rolling around. A quiet word in his ear about that wouldn’t go amiss. Towards the end I thought Adebayor was deliberately fouled twice, the second being quite blatant but there you go. No point harping on about referee’s decisions when we didn’t really do enough ourselves.
Still though, it has reminded me how much I detest Allardyce, Alan Smith (who somehow escaped without a booking for scything down Gallas from behind), Joey Barton and provided me with a new figure of hate, the disgustingly square-headed James Milner. Just more to add to the list.
So it’s back home then another trip to the North-east to play Boro on Sunday. With any luck we’ll have Cesc, Hleb and Flamini NDP back which would make us a rather more difficult proposition for Gareth Southgate’s team.
Anyway, we’re still top of the league, we’re 4 points clear and while not winning is always disappointing and while not winning and Sam Allardyce saving his job is always disappointing and while not winning and Sam Allardyce saving his job and Alan Smith being in anyway satisified with a result is always disappointing it’s by no means the end of the world.
Stand by for Amy Lawrence on tomorrow’s Arsecast, I’ll talk to you on the blog then.
