Newcastle 0-2 Wolves - Match Reaction

Newcastle came back down to earth with a bump at St James’ Park on Saturday.

The defeat was, to be frank, comprehensive. The visitors simply appeared to want it more than Rafa Benitez’s men did.

Newcastle have an opportunity to exact revenge quickly enough – playing host again to Wolves in the EFL Cup on Tuesday night – but, as I am sure most fans would agree, I would have traded a potential victory in the cup-tie this week for three points against them at the weekend.

Benitez has been the greatest piece of business Newcastle United have done in recent memory. Convincing him to stay following relegation was the single biggest coup – in footballing terms – of the summer. I believe in him, the board-room believes in him, and most importantly, the players believe in him.

However, it would be remiss of me not to question his decision to rotate the team so drastically on Saturday from the one that demolished Queens Park Rangers in the Capital last Tuesday.

I am not a manager, and I am not privy to everything that goes on behind the scenes, but I have always been brought up by the motto “if it isn’t broken – don’t fix it”.

I understand that managers always want to protect their players from burn-out, and fatigue, but having only played a handful of games at the beginning of a season, I refuse to believe that professional athletes, that get paid to play the game that we love (and in many Sunday League cases – pay for), can be fatigued or too tired to play two games in a week.

Squad rotation has always been a divisive subject. Some people agree with it, while others would never accept it.

I, personally, am not against it… especially in the latter stages of a season, when fatigue CAN be a genuine reason.

But if you have just destroyed a supposed promotion rival on their own ground six-nil, and virtually strolled through the game, with confidence sky-high, whether it is two games in a week, or two games in two days, why would you want to change it?

It would have seemed to make more sense to keep the same eleven in the team for Saturday, and then rotate for the cup game.

Now I know three changes doesn’t sound like a lot, and managers play different formations for home and away games, but the three changes, in my opinion, were very influential in Saturday’s result.

The one change I could genuinely foresee was Dwight Gayle coming in for Yoan Gouffran. However, I would always advocate playing a 4-4-2 system at home, and I would have had both Gayle and Mitrovic in attack together.

Chancel Mbemba, despite finishing the game with an 85% passing success rate, did not have the type of performance we have come to expect from him. His own goal basically summed up his performance.

The player that, for me, the jury is still out on, is Mohamed Diame. I see a lot of similarities between him and the now departed Moussa Sissoko.

It is not just his footballing style that is like his predecessor, but he seems to disappear in games at times, and when he is on the ball, he invariably seems to make bad decisions.

Of course, it may be that he is still finding his feet at the club, and maybe Rafa has not quite discovered his best position yet, so I think he deserves the benefit of any doubt.

One defeat, of course, is not the end of the world, and having had such a good run of wins, there is no need to panic.

As I said earlier, I am not the manager, and Rafa knows what he is doing. I am not having a go at him, I am merely giving my opinion and – as a journalist – I would not be doing my job properly if I did not do so… even if it is questioning something that I do not particularly agree with.

So let’s hope that whatever team we put out, we get through to the next round of the cup on Tuesday, and pick up another three points at Aston Villa on Saturday, and silence those once-gloating, condescending fans of theirs.