Lady luck shines on Cisse! Newcastle 2-1 West Brom

Cisse and Co celebrate
Newcastle just about managed to grab three points against West Bromwich Albion this afternoon, but in truth we barely deserved the win.

The victory shouldn’t mask what was really an awful performance and also shouldn’t detract from the fact that West Brom did enough to deserve at least a share of the points on offer.

Mind you, I’m not overly fussed about what the opposition deserve or didn’t deserve. At the end of the day we got the three points thanks to a huge slice of fortune, which we haven’t really had this season. However I can still be critical even after victory and there are lots of areas that need improvement after this match. Once again we were poor in most areas of the pitch and something needs to change if we are to go on a run good results and push ourselves up the league.

Newcastle were the first to garner an effort on goal. Shola Ameobi found space on the inside left and fired in a cross for Demba Ba who headed narrowly over. It was a peach of a cross and Ba should have done a bit better with his chance.

Davide Santon was next to go close when he controlled the ball from a cleared corner and struck a low curling effort towards goal from fully 30-yards on to see Ben Foster on hand to palm away his drive for another corner.

However it was far from all Newcastle and West Brom managed to create their own chances. Graham Dorrans broke free from a Newcastle corner and started off a counter-attack. He fed the ball to Romelu Lukaku who forced a fine save from Tim Krul to deny the Belgian international.

Shola Ameobi fired high and wide on 32 minutes after some good work from Hatem Ben Arfa, but just three minutes he had a hand in the opening goal, flicking the ball on from a Tim Krul kick for Demba Ba who volleyed home past Ben Foster. Gareth McAuley probably should have done better but Ba was ideally placed to score his seventh goal in nine league starts.

The Baggies had the final chance of the half though, with Romelu Lukaku once again forcing a fine stop from Tim Krul. Barely deserved, he hosts went in at half-time with a slender advantage, and with signs that West Brom still posed a threat.

Half-time: Newcastle 1-0 West Brom

After a slow start to the second period those signs of life from West Brom came to the fore and they found themselves level. Zoltna Gera found space on the left and crossed for Lukaku who ghosted in between Davide Santon and Fabricio Coloccini to nod the visitors deservedly level.

The visitors continued to press and frustrate Newcastle and could have gone ahead through any one of three chances that fell the way of Markus Rosenborg although the Swede was unable to make the most of them.

Newcastle tried to carve out a winning goal but with so many players putting in lacklustre displays they were unable to find that killer pass or stumble upon that bit of luck that would see them grab a winner.

That was until it all seemed to late of course. With pretty much the final seconds of four minutes of added time being played Sammy Ameobi tried a speculative effort from 25-yards. I have no idea if it was on target or not but to me it didn’t look like it was going to be, until the ball ricocheted off Papiss Cisse into the Gallowgate net leaving Ben Foster with no chance of making the save.

That goal ended a goal drought for Cisse, who had failed to score a Premier League goal since the victory away at Stamford Bridge last season. Perhaps that was the bit of luck that he, and indeed Newcastle, needed?

Full-time: Newcastle 2-1 West Brom

Don’t let the win fool you. Most people won’t of course, but all I’m saying is that we got off lightly today. Yes sometimes you need a bit of luck and today we got that, but it’s the performance that was the most alarming thing about today.

Nothing seemed to work and nobody seemed to play with any urgency. That’s not to take anything away from West Brom who stifled us for the most part, but we really need to improve if we are going to kick on this season.

Howay the lads!

Newcastle: Tim Krul, Danny Simpson, Mike Williamson, Fabricio Coloccini, Davide Santon, Hatem Ben Arfa, Yohan Cabaye, James Perch, Jonas Gutierrez, Demba Ba, Shola Ameobi

Subs: Steve Harper, Steven Taylor, Shane Ferguson, Vurnon Anita, Gabriel Obertan, Sammy Ameobi, Papiss Cisse.

West Brom: Ben Foster, Gabriel Tamas, Gareth McAuley, Jonas Olsson, Liam Ridgewell, Youssouf Mulumbu, James Morrison, Peter Odemwingie, Zoltan Gera, Graham Dorrans, Romelu Lukaku.

Subs: Luke Daniels, Gonzalo Jara Reyes, Goran Popov, Yassine El Ghanassy, Markus Rosenberg, Shane Long, Marc-Antoine Fortune

Attendance: 49,731

About toonsy

A lifelong Newcastle fan and current webmaster of this very 'blog who has the sole aim of creating a place by Newcastle United fans, for Newcastle United fans.

159 thoughts on “Lady luck shines on Cisse! Newcastle 2-1 West Brom

  1. @Richietoon-138: As I said I based my statement on the our flavour thus far this season not just seven minutes of the game.

    @Newkie:-134: How about Fergie, Bigirimana, Campbell, Marvaeux, Abeid, Amalfitano etc… What of them? This is the same team from last season. The players I have mentioned have different styles and attributes.

    We are more fortunate than a lot of teams in that we have Europa and points in the bag to be able to fiddle around. Pardew is just not inventive and is still more concerned about trying to force Ba and Cisse .

    Also Pardew’s tactics and team selection is just illogical. We played a higher line against Lukaku’s pace and we all know it is text book to play deeper when up against a pacey striker. We must notforget that Lukaku had 3 glorious one on one chances and were spared only by his wastefulness. Those were clear warning to our high line approach Pardew did not take notice.

    Pardew’s tactics are 3 and 3 only: Ba, Cisse and fingers crossed.

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  2. MDS…good stuff then….but what will happen to Warren Barton 😯 😆
    Do NBC broadcast sports events online live too?, There’s a thing called expatshield which allows you to stream via a server in another country i’e Uk so you can watch MOTD etc, but you can also route it via a US server, so maybe if they broadcast online it’s possible to watch them via that?…..not that I’d ever do such a thing :mrgreen:

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  3. Michael…Well I couldn’t and can’t see the point of that attitude, but we’ll agree to disagree 😉

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  4. Richie @ 152 (in case you are still on this thread) I read that NBC is still determining who will be their broadcasters. The general feeling is that they want to stick with an indigenous voice rather than get Americans talking over the game. But, that’s still not 100% determined. But I concur with MDS. I am very excited about this, especially the prospect of finally seeing more games in HD. Right now they pipe the HD feed into a non-HD channel on FoxSoccer. It’s serves its purpose but sucks overall. ESPN shows one match a week, and it’s in HD and is fantastic to watch. I am just curious to see how it does and really hope they are successful with it.

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  5. Riche- I’m not sure that they show much on-line currently but I expect them to since the FSC on-line thing was/is a huge success. I did read this, and the last line suggests an online presence:

    The NBC Sports Group will also produce comprehensive shoulder programming around its live-event coverage of the Premier League, including pre- and post-match shows, as well as highlight and weekly wrap-up programs. It is also developing a package to make sure the most avid fans have access to every Premier League match.”

    As for good old Warren, I hope they find a home for him. He’s our biggest supporter over here and, to be fair, his analysis is usually quite good

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  6. Michael- I see. So what you’re calling for is for our fringe players to be played ahead of players like Ben Arfa and Ameobi? You want, what, Campbell, Amalfitano and Marveux played ahead of Ben Arfa? Sorry, how much have you seen of Campbell exactly, or are you going off some match reports in the reserve games? Amalfitano? Aye he showed some spark in pre season and Europe, but didn’t show much hunger in his last outing. Same goes for Marveux.

    Where exactly would you have shane in a 4-3-3, up left in place of Benny? Or up right, he’s not an inverted winger, he’s a crosser. And considering Ameobi assisted and put a cross in, are you actually saying he played so poorly he should not have played? 😕

    Bigi-yes, he’s looked good, but Perch was universally called for in place of Tiote, Abeid-again, how much have you seen of him exactly-enough to pick him over our DMs in Jonas and Perch 😕

    If you’re talking about subs well, Sammeobi and Cisse combined for our winner. Obertan? He was one of our best players in Europe-don’t you think it would have been harsh not to give him the run out? Both Sammeobi and Obertan are also more direct than fergie, who rarely attempts a shot, and in the end that’s what won it for us.

    Then you say he’s attempting to force Cisse and Ba to play together…even though they only spent 10mins on the pitch together, interesting…as for the high line, WBA are probably one of the best passing sides in the league, for their level they are the best for incisive passing and moving around opponents. If we don’t play a high line our midfield becomes even more isolated and they will totally dominate possession-bearing in mind people keep complaining of the distance between our midfield and our strikers we’d have 3 isolated groups which WBA could cut through or bypass at will, sorry but it’s not as simple as “don’t play this high line and we’ll play much better”

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  7. NorCal…good stuff for you US fans then 😀

    MDS…fingers crossed with the online thing then and for Barton :mrgreen:

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