Hertha Berlin v Newcastle United

[OTF 7280]

Here's my analysis of the match - including the goal.

 

If I had to sum up Newcastle's performance in one word it would most certainly be: toothless.

 

We started the game with Ameobi and Alan Smith up front, and throughout the match neither of them ever looked dangerous. In fact the best chance that was fashioned for Ameobi came approximately 40 seconds into the game, with Milner working down the right side. I make it sound as though there are no positives to come from the match - though that is not the case. There was in fact some promising performances from quite a few of our players, however some typical Newcastle deficiencies plagued our chances of victory. The result, was a 1-0 win to Hertha, with their goal coming quite late in the second half - more about that later.

 

Before I go further this was the formation used to begin the game:

 

GK: Harper

RB: Geremi

CB: Taylor

CB: Cacapa

LB: N'Zogbia

RM: Milner

CM: Guthrie

CM: Butt

LM: Gutierrez

CF: Smith

CF: Ameobi

 

Onto the positives - most certainly our best player in the opening 20 minutes was Jonas Gutierrez. Not only did he look safe and assured on the ball, he also made some excellent incisive passing, and worked tremendously hard to cover plenty of ground in defense. In line with that, the opening 20 minutes of the game was probably Newcastle's strongest period overall. Gutierrez played on until around 70ish minutes when he was substituted for Enrique. He did in some ways fall off in the later stages of the game, however whenever he was called upon in attack of defense, he looked to be a highly capable player (including one break where Gutierrez defended as our last man). In addition he also looks to have a healthy turn of pace. The other new boy to feature in the match Danny Guthrie had a solid but unspectacular game. He was conservative and not-wasteful with the ball, forming a decent partnership with Nicky Butt. If anything the two of them played quite similarly, which may partly be a case of Butt's style rubbing off on the youngster. this was not necessarily a good thing though, because despite the fact that Butt too had a good honest game, we failed to see any sort of creativity come from the pair and consequently didn't really see any goal scoring chances (or half chances) created down the middle. The lack of pace, and attack mindedness from the pair also meant that in a counter-attacking situation we far too often missed our chance to take advantage of space, instead preferring to stick with short, safe passes that gave the Hertha Berlin defense plenty of time to get back in cover.

 

One particular statistic really tells the tale of where the majority of this match was played: Newcastle had 12 corners compared with just 3 for Hertha. A large part of the game was spent with Newcastle in Hertha's half trying to break down their stubborn defense. The fact that we earned so many corners is not a bad thing, but the fact that we failed to look dangerous on ANY of the 12 certainly is. Once again our toothless attack, in combination with our poor deliveries, made defending an easy task for our opponents. The inability to get in a good ball was not only an issue with dead ball situations, but also plagued our open play. Milner in particular was what I would call wasteful with a number of half openings that he had. Geremi too failed to get any really good balls into the box, though he was more accurate than Milner. Part of it may have come down to our ineffectual pairing up front of Ameobi and Smith. Smith in particular was virtually anonymous for large chunks of the game - and not because he wasn't working hard, more I suspect because he really has lost the strikers instinct.

 

In the second half Ameobi went off with some sort of injury (which didn't look too serious) and was replaced by Damien Duff. I didn't know what to think at this stage. A minute or so later I was impressed by Duff who showed a real positive spark, and really attacked the defense getting off a couple of decent shots for his efforts.

 

Tim Krul came on for Harper in the second half, and didn't really do anything wrong. Their goal came after Cacapa was stuck ball watching two attacking players. One made a nice run and the other passed nicely into his path. Krul came forward to force the Berlin player wide, however he couldn't stop the ball. A third Berlin player made a break into the box, and the Newcastle defense (namely Taylor) were more interested in defending the goal against the player who made the initial run into the box (despite him now being at quite a tight angle). Consequently an light chip into the path of the third Berlin player resulted in a simple headed finish into the open net. 1-0.

 

To rate the players:

 

Harper: 7/10 - Didn't have anything of that much importance to do. Made a couple of saves, but nothing that should have troubled a keeper of his quality.

 

Geremi: 6/10 - Was quite involved, and showed good initiative to get forward. Did ok in defense, as he wasn't really called on a great deal.

 

Taylor: 6/10 - Our best central defender (there was only two to choose from). Didn't do too much wrong, and broke down a couple of counter attacks.

 

Cacapa: 4/10 - Looks solid and decent in the first half, but really started to slow and his work rate dropped off significantly in the second half. I though Keegan could have brought on Bassong to replace him, but perhaps Keegan is working at bringing the Brazillian's fitness up after a lengthy period out last season.

 

N'Zogbia: 6.5/10 - Looked a lot more comfortable when he was released to play in the midfield once Enrique came on. In fact he linked up nicely with the Spaniard on two occasions. Likes to attack, but sometimes lacks quality on his final ball, or runs himself out of space and options.

 

Milner: 6/10 - Worked himself into space a few times, and made some good incisive runs. He needed an extra yard of pace on a few occasions to get by defenders, but didn't have it to call on. Solid and hardworking (goes without saying), but unfortunately was VERY wasteful with his final balls. The best bit of work that he did had him trick a defender out side before breaking into the box. Unfortunately there was no-one there for him to pass the ball to - though you can hardly blame him for that.

 

Guthrie: 7/10 - Covered ground quite nicely and was never wasteful with the ball. A good passer of the ball hopefully we'll see him up the ante in attack when he has some pacy skillful player to work with up front.

 

Butt: 7/10 - Typical Butt. Looks for the safe passing option in attack, and stifles the opposition players when defending. Worked hard to get in the head of the Berlin players, and did quite a good job of it.

 

Gutierrez: 7.5/10 - Our best player in the first half. Looked to be quality in both attack and defense. Worked hard, and managed to get in behind the oppositions defense at least once. Based off this performance it would be safe to say that he should be a very important player for us this year.

 

Smith: 3/10 - I don't doubt that he worked hard, but even still he was virtually anonymous out there. Figured most in trying to close down the pace for the oppositions defenders when they had the ball. Never popped up as an option when we were in attack. In the second half he dropped into a deeper role where he featured a little more, but was wasteful on more than one occasion. Has lost his way.

 

Ameobi: 5.5/10 - Awkward and SLOW, but he at least half-troubled the defense. It has to be said that the best thing he did all game was come off the field - because it allowed Damien Duff to come on, and he soon became our most potent attacking weapon.

 

Subs

Duff: 7.5/10 - Didn't have that much time on the field, but whilst he was out there he troubled defenders on numerous occasions, getting by their fullback more than once. Put in a couple of shots, that lacked the venom to beat the keeper.

 

Enrique: 6.5/10 - Not a lot of time on the field for Enrique, but in that time he made some decent runs forward and linked up with N'Zogbia nicely. Broke down one counter attack with a timely tackle. Only recall one of his long balls (his favourite play it seemed last season) which he over-hit.

 

Krul: 6/10 - Not to blame for the goal. Didn't do anything wrong, hard to judge a keeper with so little involvement.

[jaythesouthernmag 0]

Complete shower of shite. Yeah Owen, & Vid missing up front but that will be the case sometimes this season given their injury records. If we pencil in some of the others who were missing today it still doesnt instill much optimism.

 

We are crying out for a creative midfielder and Butt is on his last legs. Imagine we put out a team like that against ANY team in the prem we will get turned over

 

I know its pre-season and the games dont mean anything but we just look so poor. I really hope KK has a few things up his sleeve and we wont be seeing too much of Smith & Ameobi this season

 

Just shows how poor we are when Bolton stick 5 past Donny and we didnt even get a sniff of a goal

[Guest Stevie]

Whoever said they looked like they had no motivation had it spot on. The only word I would use to describe that is a disgrace, it reminded me of that time we lost 2-0 at Charlton and already had the trip to La Manga booked. Lack of motivation is one thing, being shite, is another, and we are. I honestly believe if everyone on TT was fit as fuck, we could get two more potent strikers than Smith and Ameobi, they are a disgrace. It was a pre-season friendly but it highlighted just how utterly pathetic we are. There is absolutely fuck all creativity, we need a ball playing midfield player its so fucking obvious. I'm sof cukin frustrated by that, if I wasn't such an easily taken in cunt, I'd get a refund on my ST.

[Fop 1]

It's still pre-season, but what worries me is that there was only one formation that really worked last season (and that relied on very specific players being fit). As of this moment I'm not sure that we have the players for anything else to really work this season.

 

Having said that there are at least 4 of our, arguably, vital players from last season missing from that squad.

[Jusoda Kid 1]

After watching that last night we need 2 full time strikers, two CB & two Creative midfielders, minimum. Owen and Viduka are far to injury prone so imo that only leaves us with Martins as a recognised striker as Smith and Shithead can't be classed as strikers.

 

 

Pull your finger out KK otherwise were fucked.

[Park Life 71]

Whoever said they looked like they had no motivation had it spot on. The only word I would use to describe that is a disgrace, it reminded me of that time we lost 2-0 at Charlton and already had the trip to La Manga booked. Lack of motivation is one thing, being shite, is another, and we are. I honestly believe if everyone on TT was fit as fuck, we could get two more potent strikers than Smith and Ameobi, they are a disgrace. It was a pre-season friendly but it highlighted just how utterly pathetic we are. There is absolutely fuck all creativity, we need a ball playing midfield player its so fucking obvious. I'm sof cukin frustrated by that, if I wasn't such an easily taken in cunt, I'd get a refund on my ST.

 

I've been saying that for 3 years now.

 

A lot of people take jibes at that, but a player of that kind will win you games - end of story.

[Fop 1]

Whoever said they looked like they had no motivation had it spot on. The only word I would use to describe that is a disgrace, it reminded me of that time we lost 2-0 at Charlton and already had the trip to La Manga booked. Lack of motivation is one thing, being shite, is another, and we are. I honestly believe if everyone on TT was fit as fuck, we could get two more potent strikers than Smith and Ameobi, they are a disgrace. It was a pre-season friendly but it highlighted just how utterly pathetic we are. There is absolutely fuck all creativity, we need a ball playing midfield player its so fucking obvious. I'm sof cukin frustrated by that, if I wasn't such an easily taken in cunt, I'd get a refund on my ST.

 

I've been saying that for 3 years now.

 

A lot of people take jibes at that, but a player of that kind will win you games - end of story.

 

 

 

Yup, it's getting plain stupid now, 3 (or is it 4?) seasons we've been sorely lacking there.

 

 

 

 

I suppose it wouldn't matter if we had amazing quality on the wings quite so much, and basically I think that is what Keegan's Owen/Viduka/Martins-3-4 formation was getting around last season. You don't need as much midfield creativity and attacking quality with that, but we don't even have the players to play that with a couple of specific injuries.

[NJS 4375]

To be fair Kev has gone after Modric and Aimar which suggests he realises the need for a playmaker.

 

Just have to hope we can find one.

Edited August 2, 2008 by NJS

[Ketsbaia 0]

I'd be tempted to go for Turan again but i'd love us to try and break the bank at get an established, top notch playmaker.

Edited August 2, 2008 by Ketsbaia

[Fop 1]

To be fair Kev has gone after Modric and Aimar which suggests he realises the need for a playmaker.

 

Just have to hope we can find one.

 

Yeah I'm sure he does, but the problem comes back to if we can't get a good enough one for whatever reason.

 

 

It's great getting in cover for other positions and (hopefully) a good CB/RB, but although that might help us to avoid losing it's not going to help us win, and we just don't have decent cover for Owen/Viduka/Martins if that is who we have to play together again (drop Smith or Ameobi into that 3, or heaven forbid both, and it quickly becomes ).