Good or bad news for Newcastle? - Cup chaos and what it could mean
As the pictures and videos of the severe damage to AFC Wimbledon’s ground, the Cherry Red Records Stadium, appeared online on Monday morning, I’ll admit to feeling conflicted.
It was obvious that the cup game would be postponed, and two trains of thought entered my head:
- We need a confidence boost; Wimbledon could’ve offered an opportunity to kickstart goalscoring from misfiring strikers and coax performances from underperformers.
- A free week, Manchester City play on Tuesday, and we have the best Monday to Friday manager in the league. A sliver of hope.
With these thoughts in mind let’s examine if the postponement a good or a bad thing for United.
Confidence Boost
Pundits and football coaches all over the world tell us confidence is massive in football. If your team is confident, they can beat anyone. A dominant performance against Wimbledon, with a victory by a decent scoreline of 0-3 or 0-4, could’ve injected some much-needed positivity into the Newcastle United narrative.
It also could’ve allowed underused players to shake off the cobwebs, allowed a striker without competition to bag a couple of goals against lower league opposition, and others to turn their heads back the right way.
Scoring goals is easier when you’ve found the net recently and you would’ve fancied the lads to get on the scoresheet a few times against Wimbledon. There is obviously a huge gulf in quality from Premier League to League Two, and despite the concerns we’ve seen in the first six games of the season, you would’ve expected a comfortable win.
In fact, the last time United played League Two opposition they won 7-0 against Morecambe with a vastly inferior squad, and the worst manager in Premier League history at the helm. With an excellent coach and a squad with three or four genuinely world class footballers you should be able to do similar.
There’s a quote attributed to Bill Shankly: ‘A lot of football is in the mind. You must believe you are the best and then make sure that you are.’ I feel that a lot of perceived issues at the club are in the mentality of some of the players and the relationships behind the scenes. Stories broke Tuesday of Howe and Mitchell finally sitting down for a meeting of clear the air talks. If true, these must be considered positive. Even if things aren’t the way they are being portrayed in the press, perception literally informs reality, if the players need to be convinced that the project they signed up to is still ongoing then so be it, get it done. Hopefully these reported talks will go some way to sorting that out.
Addendum: Now the cup game has been switched to the 1st Oct, it has the potential to act as a pallet cleanser too, especially if it is a particularly bad result on Saturday.
A Free Week
The gaffer admitted in his Fulham post-match interview and press conference that he got his starting selection wrong. It’s clear from the performance deficiencies and the consistent chopping and changing of players, Eddie Howe doesn’t know his best starting eleven. The midfield is unbalanced and is failing to provide chances for Isak, and certain players need to be sat down on the bench to send a message that the standard of performances isn’t acceptable.
Howe will have the opportunity to pin the starting eleven for Saturday up on Tuesday morning and drill those players with defensive shape, set pieces and attacking moves all week. He needs to be bold, he needs be ruthless, and he needs to upset a few established ‘blue-chip’ players, as Bobby would call them, because some of them just haven’t pulled their weight so far this season.
Newcastle appointed a sports psychologist last year and it might be prudent to have the lads sit in with them this week to work through any issues to focus their minds on an extremely tough game. There is the opportunity for a mini reset with a free week too: add in more analysis sessions, train in the defensive 4-5-1 shape and 5-4-1 shape, one-on-one meetings with underperforming players, and with the leadership group.
Anthony Gordon has spoken in interviews about the visualisation techniques he uses that let him understand how and where he is going to perform on the pitch – these could be expanded to the underperforming lads.
Personally, I would love Howe to revert to the team that dismissed PSG 4-1 in the Champions League. The lads ‘roared’ to victory, as the BBC headline eloquently put it, and with the obvious provisos of injured and players who are no longer with us, an eleven of Pope, Trippier, Schar, Kelly, Hall, Longstaff, Bruno G., Tonali, Alimrón, Isak, Gordon.
If we were at our ‘intensity is our identity’ best, with Man City potentially lacking Rodri and De Bruyne through injury, you would give the lads a chance against them. But Saturday might be a game for a good performance over a result, like the game against them at St. James’ last season.
As the pundits say: ‘A week is a long time in football.’
