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The following article is excerpted from Adam Clery Football Column communication. To get my latest essays sent straight to your inbox, sign up by entering your email address in the box above.
Each edition offers an in-depth explanation of one of the week’s biggest tactical topics, as well as snippets of other curiosities I’ve discovered during recent matches. There’s even a Q&A section – your chance to have your say on any nonsense that’s been going on lately.
I’ve been asked to “say something” about Newcastle United for about six months, so here you are. My name is Adam Clery and I have a bad relationship with my football team.
My problem is that I hold tightly to two completely contradictory views. First of all, I don’t actually want Eddie Howe to stop being Newcastle United manager. I would give him the job until he is physically unable to continue. In 100 years I’ll be delighted to see a brain floating in a jar of formaldehyde on the touchline, Adidas-branded electrodes running wires to a printer that keeps spitting out a sheet of paper that says “4-3-3.”
The recurring, incredible joy he brought me during his tenure at the club meant his credit in the bank could never be fully spent. He could take us all the way to the National League North and I was still in the pub after the 0-0 scoreline at Scarborough Athletic saying, “Yeah, lads, but come on, that’s the guy who wins the trophy for us.”
But at the same time, I also think maybe his time at Newcastle is coming to an end.
I am not (yet) a sporting director and am not in any way responsible for the future fortunes of the club. I’m also not a season ticket holder who spends nearly a fortune on 19 non-consecutive afternoons and evenings a year, forever hoping that I’ll actually enjoy myself. But most importantly, I am not one of the “thousands” of people who invest huge sums of money to track teams across the country and the continent.
If I’m any of the above, I think a change needs to be made this summer. Given the obvious limitations of this season – with the same issues cropping up game after game – a change in management would be good for the club. In a season that can best be described as “frustrating,” it’s hard to escape the notion that much of said frustration stems directly from front office decisions and not from a machination of circumstances, as is often believed.
I can argue very strongly that a new coach will fix many of the issues that have arisen this season, while also wanting to have an actual handshake with anyone who hints at the idea. You can see my dilemma here.
So the question is: Newcastle United is a team that is and isn’t. By some measures they are the richest club in the world, but they are financially unable to attract any top transfer targets. They draw level with European champions Paris Saint-Germain in their own backyard this week, but they were unable to take the gloves off the Premier League bottom side the week before. They have pressed the most in the league this season (282), but have not scored a single goal as a result – just one all season, leaving them joint-bottom.
In one of Paris’ many bars this week on his way to the Parc des Princes, Sam Dalling – you know him as the star of The Guardian. football weekly Podcast, but I know he’s “Sam” – here’s the speculation: Newcastle’s next manager may not necessarily be as good as Eddie Howe, but he’ll at least be different, and that’s probably more important now.
This resonated with me for two reasons.
Firstly, the goal Newcastle conceded against Brighton earlier this season has left an indelible mark on my immortal soul because it showed exactly how to beat this team.
Newcastle adopt a 4-3-3 formation almost religiously. But instead of adopting a 4-4-2 formation without the ball, they flattened the midfield line and converted to a 4-5-1 formation. You can see it above, when it’s very, very deep, it’s very difficult to play. But when that’s not the case, the way it’s trained makes it so flawed that it can be seen from space.
Danny Welbeck hogged the centre-back’s attention there, but around him Brighton had no fewer than four players between the lines for the goal. If you can find any kind of pass through the gaps in midfield, you’ve succeeded – and you’re likely to outnumber Newcastle’s backline in the process.
Of course they did, with Danny Welbeck firing the ball into the net three seconds later.
Admittedly, it’s very strange for me to babble A goal dropped about four months agobut it always bothered me because you see this inflexible shape repeated in every game without any changes.
This was against Barcelona of all teams. Once again they tried to prevent any passes towards the middle of the pitch, but Barcelona found them time and time again. Not to make this too meta, but you’ll find that a lot of teams only play zone defense like this when they’re camped out on the edge of the zone. The further up the pitch they go, the more they start to switch to man-to-man tactics – something Newcastle are very good at when pressing but give up as soon as they retreat to the halfway line.
This means that if you look back at all the goals they have conceded this season, you will find that the exact defensive shape has been present in most teams.
Below, Aston Villa prepare with every player off the pitch, then work inside to find space for Buendia to shoot.
In this situation, only one side can be prepared for what the other side is going to do, and that’s not Newcastle. Which brings us back to our original point: there’s no guarantee that the new manager will implement a more effective off-the-ball strategy than Eddie Howe… but he will at least implement a different strategy – something the Premier League as a whole can’t currently plan for with relative ease.
Despite this, I deeply and truly hope that Eddie Howe remains the manager of Newcastle United next season. Things on the pitch desperately need to change, and there’s no reason to think he can’t really change that. But, like all toxic relationships, there comes a point when your friend puts his arms around you, looks pityingly in his eyes, and says, “Well, if he wanted to change, would he?”
So please, Eddie. For us?
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