It is a popular mantra among some top managers, whether they have been sacked and are sitting in a comfortable chair in a television studio or are still working at the coal face, that tactics don’t matter, players do.
They might well be right. Only the most foolish of Newcastle supporters would argue that the Magpies have a better first team squad than Manchester United, so perhaps Glenn Roeder was right to change his tactics and adopt a 4-5-1 formation which, ultimately, looked as though it had been designed with a damage limitation exercise in mind.
Few expected Newcastle to get anything out of the trip to Old Trafford at the weekend and Roeder was merely trying to make the best of what he had, but, for me, that is rather depressing.
As Sir Alex Ferguson said in his programme notes, the great thing about Newcastle is they only play with an attacking frame of mind, it is the reason they have been so admired through the years, even if it has not led to trophy success.
But there was little to admire about the way Newcastle approached the game on Sunday. Indeed, as I was writing my match report in the press room on Sunday evening I could not help but hear the pundits on MUTV talking about the game.
According, to Lou Macari and Paul Parker, Newcastle were the worst, most negative team they’d seen come to Old Trafford in recent years. In fact, as smug as they were at the Red Devils’ rampaging victory, Parker and Macari appeared to be genuinely upset at Newcastle’s approach to the game.
To be fair to Roeder, he was simply trying to be sensible and do the best he could with a team which, frankly, is nowhere near as good as Manchester United. Depressing enough considering it is only three or four years ago that Sir Bobby Robson’s side were viewed as genuine rivals to Ferguson’s outfit and a decade since Kevin Keegan allowed the title to slip through his fingers
However, there are those of us, with defeat always the most likely outcome at the so-called Theatre of Dreams, who would have liked Roeder to go for it, to dispense with the caution and the counter attacking and go for broke. It might just have shocked Manchester United and it would have been a hell of a lot more entertaining for those who travelled to watch the game.
It is, as far as I’m concerned, better to lose with style and panache than it is to lose with a whimper as Newcastle did on Sunday.
- Post to:
del.icio.us
Digg
Newsvine
Nowpublic
Reddit
« Previous | Home | Next »