Newcastle: A Mackam’s perspective
Daniel Hardy, a lifelong Sunderland fan, writes his perspective of Newcastle’s 2012/13 campaign.
As a Sunderland fan, it’s fairly hard to gauge our bitter rivals nowadays. Obviously, through the 2011/2012 season, Newcastle’s fifth place finish was met by all with a tinge of jealousy on Wearside. Through players such as Yohan Cabaye and Hatem Ben Arfa pulling Newcastle’s strings in midfield and Demba Ba and Papiss Cissé quite literally scoring when they wanted, our second favourite team had became quite a formidable force in English football again. In the summer transfer window, all appeared to be well as despite not making many signings the “barcodes” had held on to every one of their key players and even signed a few more to strengthen their relatively small squad. Vurnon Anita, the most noticeable one arriving from Ajax for £6.7 million.
Everyone in English football had their own opinion on whether the Geordies could do it again, and as a Mackem there was a large sense of deja vu as on the opening game of the season Demba Ba knocked in what was now becoming just another a casual “wonder goal”. The talk on Tyneside was that a fourth place finish was possible. Afterwards, the season never quite really got going. It’s understandable that there was a loss to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge around the corner and securing a further eight points from Aston Villa, Everton, Norwich and West Brom seemed about right for a team of Newcastle’s standard. Whilst in the League Cup, even the most optimistic of Geordies bemoaned an away draw at Manchester United, where a home win was expected and delivered by the champions of English football.
Alan Pardew had delivered a fine job at the club and was suitably rewarded with a new contract. Nevertheless, an eight year deal seemed to once again highlight Mike Ashley’s lack of understanding of modern day football. Perhaps Ashley regretted the decision fourteen league games, as after a further ten losses. Hopes of Champions League football had all but gone. Follow, this up with a dismal performance to Brighton from a second-string team and FA Cup hopes had also gone ensuring that all pre-season hope of European football had came to an abrupt early ending. In a desperate bid to save the season, Ashley spent a further £17 million, and with four wins out of six it looked to be that Graham Carr had done another fine job.
However, after beating Stoke, only two more wins were secured for the rest of the season. The Europa League proved to be a welcome break from domestic failings however a loss to Benfica ended hopes of a final chance for some silverware. For the rest of the season, Newcastle had a team that was too good to go down yet they took it all the way to the penultimate game of the season to secure safety. An all round embarrassing season after the success of the previous campaign. In comparison to last year, a strong Newcastle side that expected to at least be in mid-table security has to be seen as to have underperformed.
What went wrong then? Well from a Mackem view, Ashley’s decision to give Alan Pardew an eight year contract was a tad extravagant and in some games, for example the 4-3 loss to Man Utd, Newcastle’s fortune from the previous season seemed to have deserted them. Injuries to major players hit the Geordie’s at critical times. Demba Ba’s loss in January seemed to hinder despite the arrival of the half of France. The Europa League proved to be a hindrance and to put it quite simply the squad didn’t have enough depth to compete on so many fronts, especially showing at Brighton in the FA Cup.
Daniel Hardy (@_Daniel_Hardy_)
shifting the goalposts 