Oh Newcastle!
29 October 2007
Reading 2 Newcastle United 1
We have started winning at home. Great. So, how come we cannot take this winning form to places like Derby and Reading. As was the case when we played against Derby, Reading had been leaking goals left, right and centre so surely the plan has to be to put pressure on and test their nerve. Am I being too simplistic or is there more to it?
Should we really have started with Geremi and Emre as our wide-ish midfield players? Football is all about opinion but in the first half Reading were always the more likely to come up trumps although it was early in the second half when they eventually went ahead through a fine strike from Kitson. It has to be said that it was very fortunate that Leroy Lita had left his shooting boots at home or Kitson's goal could have been Reading's third of the day.
The Toon defence did not look confident all day and found great difficulty in coping with the home side's route one style of play. The lack of understanding at the back was highlighted by a comic-cut moment when Cacapa slowly rolled the ball back past Given and almost into the net as misunderstanding reached new levels! Whether Shay does not speak Portuguese or French or Cacapa does not quite comprehend the Irish Brogue is debatable!
Chages were now forced upon us and Smith, N'zogbia and Milner all arrived and at last we put pressure on a fairly fragile defence, culminating in the equaliser, albeit from an own goal by the unfortunate Duberry.
So, from being outplayed and playing second fiddle, we now find ourselves with the upper hand and now there is only one team going to win. Or so we thought!! Steve Coppell introduced Shane Long and from the first ball into the box after his arrival he smacked in a deserved winner for the homesters. Not for the first time, a simple long punt into the box created havoc and with everybody going towards the ball it broke to Long who chested it down and fired home before any sort of challenge arrived. Enrique in particular must be disappointed when he sees the re-run because in the position he was in you would expect him to fling himself between ball and goal.
To get to where we want to be, simply winning at home is not enough. Okay we will lose away games but it is so much easier to digest if we have at least gone away looking to win the game.
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