Everton 3-0 Newcastle - The 'Index 6'

Writing about Newcastle used to be something I enjoyed doing. However, it seems so long since I could write anything positive, that it is quickly becoming an arduous chore. I am trying not to repeat myself over and over, but it is not easy when the same mistakes crop up every week. So here is my summary of what I learned from the wretched display at Goodison Park.

Newcastle’s tactics were mind-boggling!

We have been told for weeks by Steve McClaren – who is to football, what Alan Partridge is to radio – that we are looking to build a team around Aleksander Mitrovic. We brought in Andros Townsend to finally have someone who can take a full back on and whip in the types of crosses that will get the best out of the big Serbian, and provide him with the ammunition to start scoring goals on a consistent basis. So typically, in the nonsensical world of McClaren logic, in the first game for which Townsend is available…he drops Mitrovic from the starting XI. What’s more, he plays with Ayoze Perez up front on his own. Perez is never going to be able to play that role. I know it, you know it, heck…even Perez will know it! So why, therefore, does McClaren not know it?

I realise that Georginio Wijnaldum was meant to get up in support of him whenever he could, but that relies on Perez being able to hold the ball up long enough for him to get there. Anyone with half an ounce of common sense knows that Perez just does not have the physical presence to hold the ball up like that. He is a foil for a big, strong forward, basically the same type of player that they were willing to shell out a small fortune on in Saido Berahino. I’m sorry, but if I wasn’t so angry at the ineptitude of our head coach, I would have to laugh at it.

Even when Townsend got past the fullback who did he have to cross the ball to? The diminutive Spaniard who was always going to out-muscle and out-jump Phil Jagielka and Ramiro Mori – obviously! [Sarcasm]

When Mitrovic did come on, the very first cross that was put in for him almost (and should have) brought a goal, had it not been for another woeful finish from the Serbian…but I have covered that topic in almost every other article.

Newcastle can’t defend!

Everton’s first goal last night was ridiculous. It was literally like Keystone Cops defending. I have watched it a number of times now, and every time I do, I find myself shaking my head more and more. Jonjo Shelvey – who I thought was very average throughout – just stopped running and let Aaron Lennon go. Then, Wijnaldum literally stepped over the ball twice in about 3 seconds to allow the little winger to get his scuffed shot away. Comical stuff really. However, why was it being left to Wijnaldum to do the defending on the edge of our own box? The answer, of course, is because our defending is diabolical.

All season we have been poor. Chancel Mbemba and Daryl Janmaat are good players. Fabricio Coloccini has had a few decent performances recently – last night was definitely not one of them – and the world and its mother knows that we are lightweight at left back. As a unit, we are dreadful. We look vulnerable at EVERY corner and free kick in our defensive third. We constantly mismatch when it comes to marking for a set piece, often with their biggest threats being picked up by a midfielder or a full back when it is up to Coloccini and Co. to take up that responsibility. On some occasions we just don’t mark a player at all. When we clear the ball, we never seem to come out as a proper unit, which often leads to one player playing their forward onside when the ball inevitably comes back. I say inevitably, because we never seem to leave a player up the field as an outlet for when we clear it.

These are footballing basics, and it is criminal that a Premier League team cannot get these things right – not once, not occasionally, but week after week after week. Just quite what they work on in training is, frankly, beyond me.

Newcastle don’t have the appetite for the fight ahead

Newcastle play Mark Knopfler’s Local Hero as they warm up for every home game. And, just like Mark Knopfler, we are in Dire Straits!

Too many players, on the evidence of this abject performance, just do not look like they have the stomach for the perennial fight to stave off the threat of relegation. Only Rob Elliot – who I think will become our number one goalkeeper in the summer – can hold his head up and say he did not deserve to be on the losing side.

Moussa Sissoko has had some pretty poor games for Newcastle before, but his (non)performance against Everton was simply not acceptable of anyone wearing a black and white shirt with the Newcastle crest on it.

Townsend, I can have some sympathy with. He hasn’t played a Premier League game for months, and still had to put a full 90 minute shift in amongst a group of players that he is still getting to know. Shelvey was awful. Wijnaldum was never a threat going forward because of Newcastle’s inability to keep the ball. Likewise Perez, who was expected to transform himself into Alan Shearer with the role he was expected to perform. Defensively, Coloccini didn’t look interested, Janmaat, as ever, did his best to make up for the shambles around him, Mbemba was unfortunate with his injury, as was Dummett, but as for their replacements? Rolando Aarons is not a full back…and it showed. His tackle for the penalty was naïve in the extreme, and as for Jamaal Lascelles…I think the idiocy of getting sent off in the last minute of stoppage time, for a penalty challenge that he should never have made speaks for itself.

The simple fact is, we need everyone to show that the shirt means something to them every week. Last night, it appeared that some may have already thrown the towel in.

Newcastle are every team on a bad run’s best friend

Any team that is on a dismal run should look on their fixture list for when they play Newcastle. We are so powder-puff these days, that we could halt anybody’s slump. Whether it is a striker that hasn’t scored for weeks, a team that hasn’t won a home game for a month or two, or a defence that hasn’t kept a clean sheet for goodness knows how long.

We should be looking at these poor runs that our opponents are on and take them as a positive for us. We should be looking to exploit their weaknesses and downward spiralling confidence and making the most of it. But not Newcastle. We are, as I have said, the saviour for any poor run. So much so that I bet a certain Alan Pardew is mortified when he looked through his fixture list and realised that Crystal Palace don’t visit St James’ Park until the last day of April.

Newcastle do not deserve their fans!

Not a lot to write here, because it has been said many times before, and by better journalists than me, but Newcastle United do not deserve the support they get. The lack of atmosphere at Goodison Park was eerie at times. The only noise (as ever) was coming from the away corner. Of course, better sides than Newcastle would have capitalised on the nerves and tension that was pouring out from three and a half sides of the ground.

The fans give their backing to the players unconditionally. The away fans particularly take time off work, spend their wages, and endure arduous journeys here, there and everywhere at often ridiculous times thanks to Sky, BT and the Premier League fixture planner. I still remember setting off for Southend at 4am on a New Year’s Day for a noon kick-off, only to be thumped 4-0; driving to Southampton for a 7:45 kick off on a Tuesday night, only to see a 1-0 lead turn into a 2-1 defeat; or on a coach to West Ham for a midweek game, only for it to be postponed as we got into the ground for a burst pipe, and return to the coach to find a window had been put out by Hammers fans (not a pleasant journey home in February). The point is, through thick and thin, the fans will be there. The least they can expect is for a team to appreciate them and at least try.

At Everton, the fans gave the players 100%. Can those players really say the same?

Newcastle are going down

All season I have tried to stay positive. At first I justified our position by a tough opening set of fixtures coupled with a group of players that were still largely getting to know each other. Then I tried to think it was just a confidence thing, and that given a bit more time, we would find our form and start to pull away from trouble. However, my optimism has fritted away, and I am left with an overwhelming feeling that we are simply not good enough to stay up.

In order to stay up we need three teams to be worse than us. After the ridiculous tactics implemented by McClaren, the inability to score goals, the ineptitude of our defending and a confidence that is lower than a snakes belly, I cannot believe that there can possibly be three worse.

Aston Villa, I would say, are one team that seem to be. Sunderland, one would hope, are another. But if you look at the rest, it is hard to say that we are better than any of them.

On paper, undoubtedly we are better than Norwich, Watford, West Brom, Bournemouth, Swansea and even Crystal Palace. But names on paper don’t win games. The truth is, that these teams all look as though they are capable of scraping out a result. Salvaging a crucial point from a game where they deserve nothing. Meanwhile, we just seem to find different ways to lose games.

The most worrying fact of all, in my opinion, is that Steve McClaren keeps trying to tell me that we were unlucky, we deserved more from games, and that he can’t fault the players. Meanwhile, my eyes tell me a far different story.

I hate saying this, but for the first time this season, I honestly think we will be relegated.

I hope the players can go out, prove me wrong, and give me an opportunity to write some nice things about them.