Habib Beye Watch - Stoke

A suicidal team display in the second half means another two home points dropped with Stoke City the beneficiaries. After a good first half display, Newcastle failed to turn up at all in the second period and some questionable substitutions led to the Geordie faithful going home feeling less than happy with what they had witnessed.

The game started well for Newcastle with Stoke playing as expected, aiming long balls into the corner to gain throw-ins, free kicks or corners. Our defence coped easily with the threat having kept two consecutive clean sheets in the previous games. Going forward, Newcastle were getting joy on both wings, with both full backs being encouraged to join in the attacking play, Enrique was in particular being the catalyst for many of the early attacks.

N’Zogbia was first to have a real effort on goal when his rasping drive went narrowly over the crossbar, and it wasn’t long before Jonas’ mazy run from the right wing allowed him to pick out Owen’s run with a cute little through ball before Owen slotted into the corner from six yards. An excellent second goal was soon to follow. This time Geremi picked out Martins’ run out wide with a delightful fifty yard pass before Martins put a tremendous low cross that Owen slid in at the back post for, to get is second of the game. It looked as if Owen may have celebrated Oba style too but he was only teasing! At this point we were cruising and looked odds on to take a comfortable three points.

For Habib Beye, as with the rest of the team, it was a game of two halves: Beye had a very solid first half, but looked like a fish out of water in the second period.

The second half began with a change of personnel. The injured Guthrie was replaced by Taylor which meant we had no recognised central midfielders on the pitch. This also meant we had to disrupt our defence moving a right back into midfield to accommodate a centre back at right back, neither of which seemed comfortable playing in their new roles. Beye operated on the right of midfield as Jonas moved into the middle of the park. Now considering that Viduka was always likely to replace the dangerous Martins, wouldn’t it have been better to bring him on for Guthrie allowing a defence that hadn’t been breached for 2 and a half games to remain intact and enabling Martins to drop onto the right wing?

All attacking impetus was lost with only a low drive from Martins caused any trouble before he was replaced. The 11 on the pitch then sat back and invited Stoke to lump balls forward for 45 minutes and regularly had 11 men in the box meaning that when the ball was cleared it would just come back. This was the ideal scenario for Stoke as it fitted with their style to a tee and after Fullers run allowed Sidibe to score an easy goal from two yards it was inevitable that we were going to throw away our lead.

And eventually we did, With the help of some soft decisions from the linesman on the near side and a generous amount of injury time, former toon man Abdoula Faye found himself four yards out with the ball at his feet and smashed home the equaliser. Kinnear got sent off and the final whistle was met with boos from the disgruntled home fans. Points at Chelsea and Boro now wasted as another two home points are given away for free.

The Round-up:
The Mirror = 6
Sky Sports = 6
BBC Player Rater = 6.18