Newcastle United (H) build up

[Langers]

Hopefully we start with a different attacking option on Tuesday.

Yeah - I love Dicko but he didn't look like scoring at all today. Very disappointing going forward. Didn't think it was a bad performance overall but just not enough where it matters. Bod to start on Tuesday.

The goal pissed me off. We can't do anything about dreadful officials (offside and finished by a player who shouldn't have been on the pitch) but we should be clearing that - something we CAN do something about. Just as annoyed with Wolves as the officials.

Ah well - we move on. At least we beat the Welsh.

 

[SSB]

Not sure why you've singled Edwards out for criticism - he has been no better or worse than anyone else.

In fact, not sure why you've been on a wind up throughout the game.

I'm not on a wind up at all. We were less than bang average as a whole team. Whether that was due to the team, individuals or management decisions it simply was a pretty poor showing.

 

[Langers]

I'm not on a wind up at all. We were less than bang average as a whole team. Whether that was due to the team, individuals or management decisions it simply was a pretty poor showing.

I didn't think it was that bad in all honesty. A bit toothless and we certainly didn't deserve to win but we've played far worse than that this season.

 

[SSB]

I didn't think it was that bad in all honesty. A bit toothless and we certainly didn't deserve to win but we've played far worse than that this season.

I guess I'm frustrated as these are supposedly the best team in the league and a little more fines and better tactical changes and we would have given them more of a game and probably come away more than nil points.

 

[Parkins left foot]

Was watching this + the England v Wales game for the first half (in the hall so rushing between rooms & didn't see the goal)

Not sure that we did that much wrong, just not enough right.

We are a mid table team & it showed tonight

 

[The Fish]

https://danwolves.wordpress.com/2017/02/10/match-preview-wolves-vs-newcastle-united/

That's a good preview, and much better than the usual fare I've seen from other sites, kudos.

That said, in your piece and frankly most other comments on the season, Newcastle get quite a bit of criticism for not running away with the league. To be fair, we're on course for a 100pt season and the only reason we don't look dominant at the top of the table is because Brighton are also having a terrific season.

Were you to remove Brighton from the equation; we're 1st, 7pts ahead of 3rd, and 13pts ahead of 6th, with the best attack, best defence and +21GD over the next best (Fulham).

It's like people expected Newcastle to go the season unbeaten, perhaps because of Benitez and the gross spend. In fact, we had to overhaul a squad with players capable of securing promotion at the first time of asking and that gross spend only equates to about £4m a player. Sure we signed loads, but we sold/released/loaned out almost an entire 1st team.

As it stands we're on course for automatic promotion, we have won 34 points on the road. We have more overall league wins (21) & more away league wins (11) than any other club in the top 4 English divisions this season. We've conceded an almost inconsequential 8 league goals (and only been behind for a grand total of 65 minutes) away from home. Last season away from home, we were only ahead for 92 minutes in total. This season, in the league, we've been behind for 217 minutes, from 2,700 minutes possible. That's 8%. We've only had to endure chasing a game for 8% of the season.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

That's a good preview, and much better than the usual fare I've seen from other sites, kudos.

That said, in your piece and frankly most other comments on the season, Newcastle get quite a bit of criticism for not running away with the league. To be fair, we're on course for a 100pt season and the only reason we don't look dominant at the top of the table is because Brighton are also having a terrific season.

Were you to remove Brighton from the equation; we're 1st, 7pts ahead of 3rd, and 13pts ahead of 6th, with the best attack, best defence and +21GD over the next best (Fulham).

It's like people expected Newcastle to go the season unbeaten, perhaps because of Benitez and the gross spend. In fact, we had to overhaul a squad with players capable of securing promotion at the first time of asking and that gross spend only equates to about £4m a player. Sure we signed loads, but we sold/released/loaned out almost an entire 1st team.

As it stands we're on course for automatic promotion, we have won 34 points on the road. We have more overall league wins (21) & more away league wins (11) than any other club in the top 4 English divisions this season. We've conceded an almost inconsequential 8 league goals (and only been behind for a grand total of 65 minutes) away from home. Last season away from home, we were only ahead for 92 minutes in total. This season, in the league, we've been behind for 217 minutes, from 2,700 minutes possible. That's 8%. We've only had to endure chasing a game for 8% of the season.

Thanks man, I appreciate it.

Those are some impressive stats and in that context my criticism does look a bit harsh. But like it or not, as Newcastle United you *are* held to higher standards while you're in this league, whether that's fair or not. From an outside perspective we would look upon it as you dropping points and losing to teams (including us) that you really shouldn't be losing to. We see a manager who has won the Champions League and managed some of the biggest clubs in the world...but he really isn't doing anything particularly special so far, at best it's a good Chris Hughton impression and I don't see Bayern knocking on his door any time soon. Obviously he will get the time while he is up your way and if Ashley plays ball we'll see what he can build in the coming years.

I'd also say the overhaul isn't realistically that big...Darlow, Lascelles, Dummett, Shelvey, Colback, Gouffran, Mitrovic all started on Saturday and you owned all of them last season. I dare say you weren't sorry to see most of the departed players go in any case.

You're going to go up anyway so that will be very much job done and then you can move on to your proper place of challenging the top six in the PL rather than messing around with rubbish like us

Best of luck and thanks again for giving the blog a read.

 

[The Fish]

Thanks man, I appreciate it.

Those are some impressive stats and in that context my criticism does look a bit harsh. But like it or not, as Newcastle United you *are* held to higher standards while you're in this league, whether that's fair or not. From an outside perspective we would look upon it as you dropping points and losing to teams (including us) that you really shouldn't be losing to. We see a manager who has won the Champions League and managed some of the biggest clubs in the world...but he really isn't doing anything particularly special so far, at best it's a good Chris Hughton impression and I don't see Bayern knocking on his door any time soon. Obviously he will get the time while he is up your way and if Ashley plays ball we'll see what he can build in the coming years.

I'd also say the overhaul isn't realistically that big...Darlow, Lascelles, Dummett, Shelvey, Colback, Gouffran, Mitrovic all started on Saturday and you owned all of them last season. I dare say you weren't sorry to see most of the departed players go in any case.

You're going to go up anyway so that will be very much job done and then you can move on to your proper place of challenging the top six in the PL rather than messing around with rubbish like us

Best of luck and thanks again for giving the blog a read.

We sold/released/loaned 19 players, and brought in 12. Yes the team that started against Wolves had some from last season, but we were missing a few 1st choice players.

Benitez has built a side that could challenge for the automatic spots and I maintain that no side, regardless of perceived size, would stroll this league. It's competitive and exhausting, there's a variety of tactics to face and when a "big" club does face the clubs like Rotherham or Burton they're not playing a normal league game, they all raise their game and it's up to us to meet or better that response.

I think we are held to a higher standard and that's fine, but some of the rhetoric in papers or twitter or wherever is that Benitez isn't doing a good job. Frankly there's not much more he can do beyond winning every game, which isn't realistic.

No worries, have you thought about promoting that blog, maybe writing broader opinion pieces? There's plenty of people who started a blog because they're passionate about football and have talent, who've gone on to earn real cash money dollars for their work. I know a couple myself.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

I wrote a series on 12 of our shittest ever signings pre-Christmas, that went down pretty well and got some decent audience numbers.

I don't know what I'm doing with it in fairness.

 

[pavlosmacwolf]

Audience numbers? DW you are better than that!

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Readership figures?

Reaction pieces always do well in terms of reach but I don't really have that much chance to write them before it's all old news. No-one's going to be that interested in reading a verdict on Sunday lunchtime on a game that happened on Saturday afternoon. Not these days anyway, everything's all instant. So unless I happen to be watching a Wolves game on TV at home on my own (which doesn't happen very often at all) then I can't really do much there. It worked for Blues away which I saw on a stream and managed to get a piece out by about 6pm - so you're giving a quick account of a game that not that many people will have seen - but for general home games no chance.

 

[Tony Towner]

Readership figures?

No-one's going to be that interested in reading a verdict on Sunday lunchtime on a game that happened on Saturday afternoon.

I think you are doing yourself a disservice. I agree nobody wants to read an out and out match report, I think with live Twitter updates during the game these are more or less dead anyway, but I would certainly read a reflective piece from you the day after the game.

 

[The Bear]

Yeah I think a reaction piece with a short summary of the game, and a look at how we approached it, verdict on team selection, etc would be worth reading.

 

[Lord Knows]

I think you are doing yourself a disservice. I agree nobody wants to read an out and out match report, I think with live Twitter updates during the game these are more or less dead anyway, but I would certainly read a reflective piece from you the day after the game.

Agree, A reflective piece thats prepared to be hard hitting asking the kind of questions the local newspaper or club media are frightened to ask of management, staff and player.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Food for thought certainly.

As I say I don't really know what I'm doing :icon_lol: Totally winged it since July. There's probably a ton of stuff I could do to make the site look nicer and be more accessible but I'm buggered if I know how to do it.

 

[The Fish]

Readership figures?

Reaction pieces always do well in terms of reach but I don't really have that much chance to write them before it's all old news. No-one's going to be that interested in reading a verdict on Sunday lunchtime on a game that happened on Saturday afternoon. Not these days anyway, everything's all instant. So unless I happen to be watching a Wolves game on TV at home on my own (which doesn't happen very often at all) then I can't really do much there. It worked for Blues away which I saw on a stream and managed to get a piece out by about 6pm - so you're giving a quick account of a game that not that many people will have seen - but for general home games no chance.

I think you'd be surprised. Most people do their blog reading on the Monday so as long as the piece isn't just a blow-by-blow and speaks more on selection, on intangibles, on social media reaction, on the post-match interviews. Give you time to look for stats that back up/refute claims like "We dominated them from the 1st minute". Challenge perceptions about fan-favourites/scapegoats, did Enobakhare actually do anything, or was it all for nought?

There's a few people on twitter you could talk to about your blog, @SebSB, @experimental361, @OmarChaudhuri off the top of my head.

To be honest, previews may be the best way to get clicks. You'll get both the Wolves fans, but also if you hashtag it correctly, you'll likely get all the content aggregators (Newshound etc.) sharing your link with the opposition. Submit them to the betting sites and you might even get some real cash money in return.

Good luck with it.