Diary of a Fan

Played 4. Points 1. Goals 0. Better form at a season's start that has seen managers leave. Why would Owen ever consider coming here?

The number of players to come out of this with much credit can be more or less counted on one hand. Given didn't do much wrong, Taylor continues to be one of the best players we have on the pitch, Parker is the best player we have and Shearer continues to forlornly try. Perhaps Luque can be added for his effort and having to toil through the whole 90 minutes. Dyer and Emre might be excused; we were actually playing OK when they went off, although that was in part thanks to the opposition's pedestrian pace---it wasn't like we looked the most inventive side in the world. The fact we lost Emre and Dyer midway through the first half must again ask question of the medical staff. Too often players supposedly return from injury only to not even last a half. Too often those injuries are occurring in the first place. Then again, questions could probably be asked of an awful lot of the back room staff.

So we did play well for spells in the first half of this game. Not to the extent of really testing Van der Sar's goal though. Having spent three games watching a lonely Shearer running hopelessly around in front of an over packed midfield it was a puzzle why Luque wasn't simply put up front right alongside him (perhaps that's partly my personal fondness for the 4-4-2 but surely it would have been better than what we got). There were moments when we threatened to threaten, and some of that team spirit seemed to have reappeared. We even gained a bit of confidence as the game went on. Then the midfielders started to drop like flies.

To be fair to the performance the shape of the midfield was changed by those injuries. We were a better side with Emre, Dyer and Bowyer than with Ameobi, Jenas and Faye. Come the second half though and Man U stepped it up, leaving us trailing in their desire and skill. It was beginning to feel like a matter of time but still it shouldn't have come as easily as it did. If we payed that much money for Boumsong and he was supposed to be that good for Rangers then it just goes to show how much easier things are in Scotland. Having begun to look fairly solid and trust worthy the defender again made claim to be a Bramble clone with some awful defending. Too many times for a "world class" player his lapses are costing us dearly. Rooney's desire to continue his fine record against us epitomised the difference in the second half but the ball should never have past the Frenchman.

And if Boumsong was guilty for the first he was doubly so for the second (all be it the match was effectively over anyway). Rooney's work ethic to win the ball in the right back position and eventually be breaking free down the right must be praised. But his final cross for van Nistelrooy effectively went through Boumsong's legs on its way.

If nothing could be taken from the Bolton game what can be taken from this? Well, the first half we did play a bit and were sharp to the tackle to prevent the opposition attacks building. As for actually scoring this season though, not a lot. We probably still need another striker (yes, Owen would be fantastic but realistically someone else). Yet that is by far not enough. You can have all the strikers in the world and they won't score unless the ball comes to them with a sight of goal. Somewhere we need to find an inventiveness and cutting edge that is very sadly lacking right now. And more sadly there's no where obvious it's going to appear from.

This could be just a blip. If we'd had this little run of games in the middle of the season it would have been disappointing but hardly a major crises to have us thinking about relegation (look at the table if that's not a thought). The start of the season sets the tone though. This tone is decidedly off key. There's an international break now. We need to regroup and come up with something more (like too up front strikers...), or we will be in danger of the fat lady singing.

(@17:08)

There seems to be very little, if not nothing, to take from this game. We were worse than bad. Bolton won this with ease, and could have done so without breaking into second gear. Whatever blossoming team spirit had at least been evident in the last couple of days seems to have become lost in a well of depressed lack of confidence and no self-belief. The problem is that, in part, such feelings are perfectly justified. There's no invention. There's still lonely Shearer. There's still a defence which at times is wobblier than jelly. And there's still little sign of any of it changing. All in all, why not be depressed?

Bring on Man Yoo. I'm sure they'll relish shipping the goals past us.

(@17:08)

There seems to be something about Jenas and red cards at the moment. Having been the victim of a very poor sending off decision last week he was the player "fouled" to send West Ham down to ten men. The referee's only excuse can be that Konchesky's foot came over the ball as he played it but it didn't exactly contact Jenas. If this sort of thing is going to be deemed a foul, let alone a red card (although to be fair having decided it's a foul, Jenas was clean through so it must be red), then we may as well give up now, for the art of defending will become impossible. Nobody wants to see players deliberately endangered but officials have to come to remember that there is an inevitable unavoidable risk in a contact sport. Red cards used to be the domain of the actually mallicous or badly dangerous. Now they seem to be dished out for anything which has the potential to hurt the opposing player. May as well send off every player as soon as they come on then; it's part of the game. Perhaps more worrying than the increasing wrong thinking in the heat of the moment by officials is their apparent reluctance to correct their mistake afterwards, or at least admit when they are wrong. Whilst Jenas's red was at least retrospectively reduced to a yellow (and there is of course an argument that that is still too much given that it isn't that insane a standpoint to say it wasn't a foul), Dermot Gallagher having seen the replay maintained that it was a foul. No, it wasn't. It was a bloody good tackle. And everyone on the pitch (other than the officials it seems) knew that.

Enough of the problems with the non-players. We have enough problems with those in the actual side. West Ham it should be remembered scraped into the Championship playoffs last season. We should beat them. Instead it never really looked likely. Whilst we had plenty of the ball, especially after the sending off, we did nothing much more than create pretty patterns as if to rival those formed by the lengthening shadows of the stand. There was, in fact, little threat of an end product. Where as last week Arsenal always looked likely to punish our numerical disadvantage, when it came to our turn we never appeared to have a cutting edge to take advantage. That we need a striker is becoming something of a desperate mantra (and even Shearer cannot continue to plough a loan furrow for much longer at his age). It is a truthful mantra but not the golden solution. Exactly when is the mythical striker going to do without support and supply? Some half decent pace up front and something more than a long ball into Shearer who has no one to give it to will help, but in a squad over heavy in midfielders there is a question as to which has the ability to pick locks. I've seen Beardsley having a kick about in the old gits masters and I say he'd do better than half this lot.

Talking of players past the golden days it says a lot about our inventiveness and desperation when the best we can muster in order to try and unlock the stubborn West Ham performance is to bring on Lee Clark. Now to me Clark will always be something of a legend (if for nothing else than the Geordie p*ssing on a mackem t-shirt incident when he was playing for the dark ones, having seemingly sold his soul). However, Clark is a player we let go way back because he simply isn't good enough. It's not like he's improved.

We need to sign a couple of strikers (yes, at least a couple---can we really expect Shearer to produce an injury free 38+ games at the sort of level needed). We need to find some inventiveness to produce chances for those strikers. It could just be everything else is gone so wrong, but at least I'm not bemoaning the defence too much (well, Taylor continues to be the best find we've had in years and Boumsong looks fairly solid. If only Babayaro could look like he was bothered and Carr had more talent). We need to beat average Championship teams, especially when they have less players than us and we're at home. Comparisons have inevitably been made between Souness's start to this season and that of Dalglish and Robson. The pressure possibly isn't that bad yet but he does need to produce something to prevent this season slipping from promised mediocrity to a relegation fight. There are still chances for a decent season but it really does require a lot of work, a bit of luck, and some transfers.

(@13:08)

A new season and already yet another London based robbery. We limp away with nothing when for a good part of the game a draw was the least we could expect. Thank you very much referee. Forced through circumstance (i.e. the complete lack of a partner for Shearer) to play with a midfield heavy formation the enforced option was actually working for us. Scott Parker buzzed through the midfield like a man urgent to prove what Chelsea had been missing. Emre continued to show good touches, Jenas, while still not showing anything that makes him the next great English midfielder the press would have us believe, was solid enough. Dyer and Bowyer continued their good preseason form. At the back the Taylor-Boumsong partnership actually looked vaguely solid (and can Bramble find his way in once fit?). The only real problem was a very lonely looking Shearer, doomed by lack of support. Still, the midfield did their best and we probably had the better opportunities.

Then came the intervention of Mr Bennett, a referee surely live in far too close proximity to Arsenal to be allowed to officiate such games in the first place? Urged to greater tackling effort moments before by his manager Jenas put in a robust, borderline yellow card challenge on Gilberto, who rolled around like he'd been caught in a bear trap (Jenas actually took the ball. This was a challenge that in the good old days before things became almost non-contact wouldn't even have been a foul. I still blame the 1994 world cup going to the US for this. There was far to much pampering of their non-contact ideas then which has simply continued). Television replays showed that Bennett couldn't even have had a clear view of the challenge yet he had no hesitation in producing a red card (without even consulting his assistant), a decision which clearly baffled both sides. His later, post-match, decision to change the card to yellow simply goes to show how poorly he understood what had happened in the first place. From that point on the shape of the game was, logically enough, much changed.

Arsenal spent the rest of the game trying to break down a spirited and plucky rear guard action. One of the positives we can take from this game is that the spirit evident in the hopeless situation against Deportivo was once again showing through. Indeed, the entire game had been played with a team spirit remarkable give our past problems. That was not to save us though as eventually the referee intervened once more to award a penalty. N'Zogbia's defending in the box may have been a little inexperienced, and ultimately costly, but any touch to Llundberg certainly wasn't as great as first appeared.

The penalty dispatched we at least tried to get forward, though with Shearer's earlier withdrawal we were doing so without a striker. Inevitably all the attempt allowed was for Arsenal to produce a characteristic quick break and place an unfair reflection on the scoreline.

At least Arsenal are out the way now and we can look forward to the opening home game. The team actually seem to be working together, with something resembling pride. It's almost as if they care. There are still big gaps in need of plugging though. The lack of anybody alongside Shearer cannot continue if we are to have hope of winning many games.

(@14:08)

No european action this season then, as in the end the defensive frailties noted last game (and for too many seasons if truth be told) continue to haunt us. On another night we might have came closer but a short period interspersed with half time left little hope remaining. In the end this wasn't to be a magical night, though at least we showed some commitment and looked like we cared.

The match started off well enough, if quietly enough. We looked sharper and fitter than last week, and were able to pass the ball around. That isn't to say was actually got anywhere with it. Shearer still cut a desperately lonely figure at the front, despite the best efforts of Bowyer and co to link up with him. Indeed it was indicative of the lack of real threat that the only notable chance fell to Deportivo, the ball being blazed over our bar from inside the six yard box.

If the game needed anything it was a sense of urgency and fire, which is just what it got thanks to Deportivo's keeper. Throughout the two ties Deportivo's players had been more than happy to roll around collecting grass stains at the slightest provocation and the keeper (who otherwise had good came making a number of fine saves) proved he was quite prepared to do likewise. After a typically robust, but fair, Shearer challenge he for some reason felt the need to lie on the ground and clutch his head. Other players for some reason also felt the need to get involved and things descended into an uncoreographed shoving match spilling over to the bench. This at least had the effect that everyone was suddenly "up for it" and gave the game more of the feel of a premiership tie than a continental stroll. Shortly after came what was possibly our best move of the night, the ball coming down the right, for once with real width, and Milner poking home the cross to give us a position which would see us through.

If we'd held that position until half time things may have been different. But this is Newcastle and we are easily capable of destroying ourselves. The defence went to sleep to allow a ball to drop over them. Given, possibly not believing his eyes and unwilling to accept no defender was around, reacted a little slowly and the ball was easily lifted over him into the waiting net. Cue half time and a team talk which must have said a lot about just get another goal and take it from there.

The opening of the second half did bring another goal, but at the end which left us a mountain to climb. Elliot somehow managed to get the ball under his feet whilst heading back towards his own goal, before playing a suicidally weak backpass under no real pressure. With Given stranded Carr made a valiant effort to prevent the inevitable but was overwhelmed by the numbers queuing up to score.

Suddenly finding ourselves needing three goals it became an impossible task, but not one that wasn't met with a certain degree of enthusiasm. The introduction of Ameobi eventually created more of a threat, not least because it gave Shearer someone to work alongside. We actually proposed some threat to the opposition goal, with their keeper producing two or three fine saves to prevent any thought of a come back.

In the end though it's goodbye to europe for this season. That may be no bad thing given the tiny squad size at the moment but it surely makes it harder to recruit the players we still need to replenish that squad. Still sorely evident is the requirement for some quality support for Shearer. The defence, as always, is still a concern and the midfield, whilst having some talented players, is still lacking in anything resembling natural width. Souness says at least three more players are needed. It's arguable the count should be more like five or six.

There were some positives to come from the game. The spirit and effort was good, even when facing the insurmountable deficit. Whilst the likes of Elliot clearly aren't good enough Taylor continues to grow in stature. Parker put in a solid debut but was eclipsed somewhat by man of the match Emre, who if he can keep up that form is sure to be a fine acquisition. It's a cliche to say we can concentrate on the league, but that's precisely what we can do. This is a rebuilding time, but we have to rebuild quickly and decisively. Let's hope we do.

(@09:08)