It should have been a relatively quite week this week, because of the midweek international farce; sorry I mean friendly, and the resultant effect on the fixtures list.  You’d have thought there’s no chance for us to hit the news once the fallout from Charlton was dealt with.
 

Another awful performance saw us throw away more points.  The 11th time we’ve thrown a lead this season as Paul Gilder at The Journal points out. (Article)  The Journal you’ll remember is the home of the Kieron Dyer Love-a-thon.  They loved his goal against Charlton.  Pity he doesn’t get more as Miles Starforth rightly asked in The Evening Chronicle (Article) Miles (who now owes me a pint) also caught on nicely to the constantly simmering atmosphere in St James’. (Article) It can’t be helping anyone but is it the fans that drive the team on, or do we simply reflect and pick up on what we are served up on the park?  Or is it a bit of both?  Either way it’s like a morgue at St James’ and The Mirror’s Simon Bird says it all with the last paragraph in his Charlton match report (Article).  

Add to that comment the opening paragraph from Ben Findon in The Telegraph (Article) and I think you have the mood and performances at St James’ in a nutshell.

And so what do we do to take the heat off the squad whilst we have a time to reflect and look to build for what Alan Shearer rightly describes as the most important 2 games of our season? (Article)  Take the squad off on a jolly to Dubai of course! (Article).

Many will certainly question the value of such a trip.  My worry was the Leicester trip to La Manga type disaster that it could have been.  Thankfully it hasn’t however that didn’t stop Justine Smith, The Mirror and their infamous “club insider” trying to make it one.  (Article)  The hard working lads at nufc.com delivered the best counter to this, picking the holes in the story until it looks like the half-baked attempt at shite stirring it is.  Then again we make ourselves such easy targets, who can blame them for having a go at an easy story?

The midweek internationals saw Craig Bellamy rear his ugly head, and open his mouth again. Playing up front for Wales he cracked in 2 goals against Hungary (Article) with no little help from the tracksuit bottomed Gabor Kiraly (I don’t trust goalies in jogging bottoms myself. It’s just not right).  Afterwards he said that the goals were aimed at his critics. (Article)  However I find his comment that all he wanted to do was to go out and play football a strange one.  Was that what he wanted to do when he was threatening to feign injury?  I also had to smile at his revelation of having a Celtic supporting past.  I wonder what he’d have said had he gone to the other side of Glasgow?

Bellamy does bring me nicely to this week’s main talking point.  Tactics.   It’s the reason we fell apart so publicly and is constantly debated on the terraces.  Who should play where and in what formation?  Souness claims they should be “intelligent” (Article) Hmm.  Sven Goran Ericsson has come under fire for his tactics in the Holland farce in midweek (even from Gary Lineker (Article), especially for asking Palace centre forward Andy Johnson to play wide right.  At least he just did what he was told I suppose. 

It seems that everyone is so desperate to try and emulate Jose Mourinho’s successful system that won Porto the Champions’ league and looks set to take the title to West London.  Luke Edwards at The Journal tried very hard to canvas for a return to wingers at Newcastle (Article).  I can see what he is trying to say but he then shoots himself in the foot when he lists the “wingers” in the Premiership and FA Cup winning sides of the last decade.  Sylvan Wiltord?  Didn’t he leave Arsenal because he wasn’t happy out wide and considered himself a centre forward?  Jordi Cryuff?  Well his dad was a winger I suppose.  Ray Parlour?  Come on man he is not and never was a “winger.”  Ole-Gunnar Solskjaer?  Another centre forward doing a job out wide.  Poyet and DiMatteo?  Wingers?  Andy Hinchcliffe?  A left back who could occasionally operate in midfield.  Like Mark Stimpson, only better. 

I think the point that Mr Edwards is trying to make is that all of the sides that have actually won something over the last decade have played a variant of the 4-4-2 formation, wingers or not.  In fact I’d expand that even further and say most of the successful sides of the last 30 years have done so, but they don’t always employ wingers.  Look at the all conquering Milan of the 80’s and 90’s who played a 4 man midfield but used what was termed the “shifting square” to cover the pitch dependent on where the ball was.  Compare that with the Brazil World Cup ‘94 side whose width came from full backs Cafu and Leonardo (Keegan loved his elbow) with Dunga dropping in from midfield to cover. And compare that again to the Man U side that we presented the title to, playing Beckham and Giggs in a much more traditional way.  I’d even go so far as to include Alf Ramsey’s “wingless wonders” in this debate.  Often quoted as being a 4-3-3, many tactical observers now suggest this was actually an early dalliance with the so-called “diamond system” and is, therefore, just another way of playing 4-4-2.  Whilst many would say it is all about the players and not the system, I think it is all about both.  We need square pegs in square holes.
 

NM

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