Rafa Benitez
Newcastle United slumped to yet another defeat in the Premier League at St. James’s Park on Saturday. The 2-1 defeat came at the hands of Arsenal, marking their fourth loss in the first five league games so far. Rafael Benitez’s men currently languish in the relegation zone with only a solitary point which came in a 0-0 draw away at Cardiff City.
The Magpies seem to have developed a trend of losing games by a 2-1 scoreline. While Newcastle were quite impressive in their 2-1 loss against Tottenham Hotspur on opening day, the 2-1 defeats against Manchester City, Chelsea and Arsenal were lucky, given that the opposition had multiple chances to increase the margin.
To be fair, Newcastle have been dealt with a tough draw of fixtures. Not denying the fact that the Magpies have been up against top-class opponents but Benitez’s army hasn’t shown the intent to force a result.
With all due respect to the manager and the players, the brand of football at Tyneside has been rather one-dimensional and boring. At times, their ultra-defensive mode of play has cut a sorry figure among the spectators. Newcastle have often looked like a team that lacks the mentality to win games in the Premier League.
Here are three things that have gone wrong for Newcastle this season.
Newcastle were the underdogs in the clashes against Spurs, Chelsea, Manchester City and Arsenal. Tightening the defence is a ploy commonly used by mid-table managers in these situations. Rafael Benitez followed the same footsteps and went in with a five-man defence against Chelsea and City.
Despite losing by a respectable margin in both the games, Newcastle did not have too many positives to take from their showings. Truth be told, it was like only one team was making an attempt to win the game while the other was just making an effort to deny them three points.
Newcastle did not make any attempt to win the ball and hit the opposition on the break. The play was entirely confined to their own half and the game against Chelsea was arguably the dullest and the most boring exhibition of a negative brand of football.
A glance at the match facts reveals that Newcastle had only 21% of possession against City and 19% of possession against Chelsea. The Magpies managed 2 shots on goal against City and another 2 against Chelsea. These facts are enough to highlight the pathetic state of Newcastle’s performances in the attacking third.
Newcastle have often dropped deep and invited pressure, providing the opposition with the freedom to attack with greater intensity. They haven’t pressed high enough to win the ball in the midfield and even when they won the ball back, they failed to build something meaningful.
At times, Kennedy and Matt Ritchie have shown bursts of energy down the flanks and have supplied good deliveries into the box but the forwards haven’t made the most of those chances. The link-up play in the final third has been poor and Joselu has found himself isolated more often than not.
This is something the manager can hardly be blamed for. The club don’t have adequate funds to bring in some exciting talents. Furthermore, Newcastle made a huge mistake by letting Aleksandar Mitrovic depart the club permanently and join Fulham in the summer.
Newcastle signed some really good players in Federico Fernandez and Fabian Schar but did not do enough to bolster their attacking resources. Although Benitez did everything in his power to bring in attacking reinforcements, they were not enough to add spark to a rather tame attack.
