Toon throw it away at Fulham
NEWCASTLE United tumbled back down the Premier League table tonight after going down 2-1 to Fulham at Craven Cottage.
Defensive frailties cost United dearly during the game as a first half blunder from Cacapa let in Andy Johnson to open the scores and a rash challenge from Fabricio Coloccini allowed Danny Murphy to win the game from the spot.
Murphy's winner arrived after Shola Ameobi had equalised with Michael Owen's cameo appearance failing to inspire a Toon fightback.
United star Steven Taylor missed the game after a recurrence of a stomach injury sustained on England Under-21 duty with Cacapa taking his place in the heart of defence.
Michael Owen had to be content with a place on the bench as Joe Kinnear made no other changes to the side that beat Aston Villa 2-0.
The game kicked off to a crackling atmosphere with United well backed in the capital as the Toon Army anticipated a third successive win.
On a greasy pitch, due to the driving rain ahead of kick off, United sprayed the ball around in neat fashion to begin with but it was Fulham who had the first chance of the game.
With eight minutes played Andy Johnson broke free on the right and squared the ball for Jimmy Bullard who forced Shay Given to turn the ball round the post with low shot.
Newcastle responded a minute later when Joey Barton won the ball after a sliding tackle in the Fulham half before Oba Martins latched on to it and fired narrowly over the bar.
United were grateful to Jose Enrique on 18 minutes when Danny Murphy's corner found Zoltan Gera but his goalbound header was cleared by the Spaniard.
But there was no escape for Newcastle when Cacapa failed to deal with a Bullard left wing cross and headed the ball against the back of Coloccini on 23 minutes.
The ball then rolled invitingly for Johnson who had time and space to pick his spot and convert from close range to beat Given with a cool finish.
Nine minutes before the interval Martins carved a chance for the black and whites after poking the ball through Brede Hangeland's legs but just wide of Schwarzer's left hand post.
Two minutes later Newcastle threatened again when Ameobi laid the ball off to Duff who fired a shot that clipped the outside of the post with Schwarzer rooted to the spot.
United went in a goal down at the break but were handed a good chance to level at the start of the second period.
After winning a free-kick two minutes into the half Nicky Butt drilled the ball at goal 25 yards out but it was easy for Schwarzer.
With 50 minutes on the clock a Duff cross from the right found Butt but a towering header flashed wide of the upright.
But the scores were level three minutes before the hour mark.
Duff crossed in again from the right and after Martins and Butt had failed to get the ball under control Ameobi was on hand to lash home on the turn and make it 1-1 to send the travelling fans wild.
Just 60 seconds later and Fulham were rocking again as Barton cracked a low drive which Schwarzer had to tip round the post.
There was another chance soon after when Enrique clipped in a cross that Fulham could only half clear and this time Butt smashed it wide.
But just when Newcastle looked like they were in full control they pressed the self-destruct button.
Johnson broke free in the box and Coloccini upended him with ref Martin Atkinson pointing to the spot.
Danny Murphy stepped up from 12-yards and tucked it away comfortably and make it 2-1 to the home side on 66 minutes.
The Magpies continued to press the Fulham goal though and quickly created another chance when Barton crossed in from the left with Martins attempting an acrobatic attempt which had to be gathered by Schwarzer.
With 21 minutes left Newcastle introduced Owen to the action with Jonas retiring early after an afternoon in which he never really got started.
Martins tested Schwarzer again when he twisted inside and fired in an effort with the outside of his boot but the Aussie was equal to it.
Owen's first glimpse of goal was on 78 minutes when a left wing cross picked out the little striker in the middle but he misjudged it and fluffed his chance right front of the net.
That summed it all up for Newcastle after the Magpies had lost their focus just after turning the tide at Craven Cottage.
UNITED: Given, Beye, Enrique, Coloccini, Cacapa, Duff, Butt, Barton, Gutierrez (Owen 71), Martins, Ameobi.
FULHAM: Schwarzer, Konchesky, Pantsil, Hangeland, Johnson, Zamora (Nevland 74), Gera (Dempsey 64), Murphy (Baird 89), Hughes, Bullard, Davies.
Ref: Martin Atkinson
Crowd: 24, 740
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Lee Ryder - Proudly born and bred on Tyneside, the Chronicle's chief sports writer has followed the fortunes of the club over the last three decades as a Toon fan and football writer.
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This guy should never wear a Newcastle shirt again. Her's Boumsong and Bramble combined. Gave up the first, constantly strayed out of position poutting poressure on Coloccini, and caused the penalty by completely losing Johnson at the edge oif the box. Unbelievable that Bassong wasn't given a chance instead of Taylor.
Cacapa made Bramble and Boumsong look good. What the hell was he doing out there? However his lousy display made me realise how good Coloccini is.
Considering the fact that Cacapa was constanly clueless and out of position, Coloccini did a decent job. We can't blame him for the penalty. There was nothing he could do with the mess Cacapa made.
When i saw Cacapa's name on the team sheet tonight, i knew it was over. Why did we let rozenhal leave instead of Cacapa??? At least Rozenhal looks a more decent cover and is more trustworthy than Cacapa. Come to think of it, anyone would be more trustworthy than Cacapa isn't it. I hope Newcastle learn from this lesson and this would be the last match Cacapa play for us.
ref Toon threw it away from benidormnorman: Whatever made JK pick Cacapa in the first place? He is useless, why did he not pick young Edgar to take the place of Taylor? I am sure he would have done a better job. Also why did JK not take Cacapa off after United equalised through Shola's offside goal, to accommodate Owen, because when they equalised that was the time to go all out on attack? By taking Jonas off the attacking football fizzled out. Jonas was the last person to be subsituted. Hopefully JK will get it right next week!-benidormnorman
A quick point on our performances away from home...I've lost count of the number of times we've performed in an abject way at the start of games, doing nothing productive until we inevitably go behind. Recently, away at Everton, we offered no threat going forward whatsoever for the first 20 mins, and as soon as Everton scored, we sparked into life and had a 5 min spell entrenched in their final third. We did the same yesterday. Nothing of any note going forward in the first half an hour, and as soon as we went 1-0 down, we suddenly increased the speed and purpose of our passing and got people making more runs from midfield. This problem has had me tearing my hair out for years!
If we're genuinely going to threaten the upper reaches of the league, we have to go away to the likes of Fulham and have a genuine attacking intent from the first whistle. Fulham were there for the taking yesterday, but we gave their players and supporters too much encouragement early on.
Remember Fulham, Sunderland, Derby, Wigan, Reading last season under Fat Sam? It was exactly the same...offer absolutely no threat until we absolutely have to. It has to change if we're going to finish anywhere other than mid-table mediocrity yet again.
It looks like the honeymoon's over for likeable Joe with my first harsh criticism's of him i.e. why take Spiderman off when he's the most influential player we've got? Why play Cacapa second half if not at all? Where was N'Zogbia for Duff who should've left the pitch before Spidey? Did JK not tell his defenders about Johnson's greatest abilitiy i.e. to buy penalties? I insist that his feet were both off the ground in flying mode just before he trailed his left leg into Collocini's. A very frustrating 'shot ourselves in the foot day' which puts us back in the clarty stuff. Now Wigan is AGAIN! a six pointer. Come on Joe, think hard about our best eleven, the fans all know and we don't see them every day, pull your finger out man.
Sorry to say JFK got it wrong yesterday in his team selction. Everyone can see he got it badly wrong in playing Cacapa in front of Bassong. Don't mind young defenders making mistakes but when you have expecriened ones making them you start to get concerned. I also hope JFK is not keeping faith Duff purely because of his Irish connections as Jonas, who didn't have his best game yesterday, is still more of a threat than Duff. Jonas needs games to get back to full fitness and should of stayed on instead of Duff. I am still not sure what Butt brings to the team and with us chasing the game in the last 15 minutes he should of been sacrificed for Guthrie.
Bring on Wigan next week and without Heskey, we have to be looking to get maximium points.
WE BLEW IT BIG STYLE, THE WHOLE TEAM WAS TO BLAME,
I THINK SOME OF THE PLAYERS WERE THINKING THIS WILL BE EASY TODAY AND JUST SAT BACK,
WE HAD THE CHANCE TO GIVE OURSELVES A BIG GAP,WITH THE WIGAN GAME COMING UP AND WE BLEW IT????????????????
For those of you complaining at JFK for playing Cacapa instead of Bassong...Bassong was injured and shouldn't even have travelled, which again takes us back to the old argument....WE ARE DESPERATELY SHORT OF PLAYERS AT THE BACK ( KK must be laughing at how right he was to raise this )
And I also think that JFK was right to take off Spiderman, he had what I would say was his worst game for us by far and was offering far less than Duff....and bad though Cacapa was, taking off a defender for Owen would have been suicide...our midfield wasn't good enough to protect a back 4 never mind exposing a back 3 !!
Jk is making the best of what player resources he has at his disposal. Bassong was carrying an injury so Cacapa was preferred in defence. Owen needed to come on earlier to be effective. Cannot understand why Nzog cant get a game. Why not play Duff flat out for 45 mins, then Nzog for 45?. If truth be known we still need a better defensive midfield player. Butt is past his best and makes mistakes which cost us goals. I doubt Guthrie is his long term replacement. Plus we need more height in the side I think, especially for away games. Shame Taylor was sidelined - he might have made the difference on the day, but our squad is painfully lacking strength in depth in somekey positions -like I say JK is doing his best with what he has got. PL is a bit strnage this season outside of top 4 any one of the other 16 teams can beat each other yet be nearer to relegation zone than champs league qualification!....
Hi lee-Well we are famous for giving games away. Cacapa is one great slow fumbling softie-Colochini had his work cut out with this guy at the back- Any of the youngsters would I am sure have given a better account of themselves . Cacapa is Boumsong and Bramble in disguise. How could Joe even consider him -he should watch some earlier videos of this guy in a black and white shirt -these are not the only points he has cost us. There we are back in the mud again if we dont string a couple more wins together we are going to be in a dogfight. If joe ever gives Cacapa another game we have had it -he cost us the ponts yesterday -I can guess what Joe harvey would have said to him -just ask big John Mcgrath.
the main mickey mouse at toon is joe [the lip] kinnear
cacapa is rubbish. he's slow, short, old and inexperience (in this league i mean) yes i agree why not give edgar a chance? at the moment edgar and bassong are the future of our clubs defence (and the future of their country's defense as well), and what better time to blood them while taylor is out? god i hope coloccini doesn't get hurt or we are screwed.
So Joe Kinnear takes Jonas Gutierrez off and leaves Nicky (absolutely no skill) Butt on and he wonders why we lost the game? Fulham were there for the taking but a part of Newcastle’s midfield was a joke. They can blame the defence all they want or the forward line for that matter, but unless you get a midfield to use their control and set the tempo, all you can do is hope for a lucky break that might lead to a goal. By the way, the goal we did get was probably offside, so in reality we got beat 2 - 0. Why do you think Man. Utd. got rid of Butt years ago? He was past his best then, and he’s totally over the hill now. Danny Guthrie is twice the player Butt is at the moment with skill and youth on his side. Also remember, it was a fantastic late run & cutback from Gutierrez that gave Martins his second goal against Aston Villa, so why take him off? I’m losing faith in Joe’s team selection and his ability to recognize talent. If we can’t beat Fulham we deserve to be in the bottom three and like it or not, that too is reality.
We have not a hope in hell of winning a match or staying up while we continue to give penalties away - don't know whether anyone is aware but that was the SIXTH penalty we have conceded in TWELVE league games this season, five converted and Given saving one. Last season we were the LAST Premiership team to concede a penalty if my records are correct.
Cacapa should be the last central defender picked - he looked ok last season until we played Portsmouth at home and then I realised why he had been released by Lyon - too slow and no physical presence.
I bet young Bassong is feeling like a million dollars after his manager tells the world that he thinks Cacapa is a better player than him!
Am I still in the dark ages ? Surely we can find English defenders especially from the hotbed of football. Someone please tell me that we can find better defenders than Cacapa. Just how do these players find their way into a premier league team. This guy just did not have a clue.
Duff and Guitierez swapped wings to early and stayed on the wrong wings too long this cost the spider his place.
I can't believe we lost this game to the worst team in the league.
I am starting to get that tummy feeling again.
We are treading water until the sale, with our interim manager and inadequate squad of players.
If we don't get sold before the January window, we will be there or there abouts for relegation.
Ashley, why didn't you let Keegan have the three players he wanted? We would probably be talking about Europe now instead of scrapping for points to stave off relegation.
Look at Spurs now.
Come on lads we were terrible and we lose as a team and win as a team.
We should of won that game and fulham were smug after winning as they quite rightly could not belive there ruddy luck.
I wish the players would shut it when we win a game as its quite immature to get ahead of ourselves.
Yes now we have to win on sat and we should but you never know.
I think that JFK made a fool of himself as i could not see the foul and he was just covering himself as he could not say that cacapa made mistake after mistake.
He is good as a sub but i am not convinced by the whole team and even with owen in the team what do we do with martins, shola, Owen......
Plus now we could be in the crapper with the club not being sold.......
Its a mess and if Shearer come's back i will be more worried as he has not a clue man.
I honestly believe that we should have easily taken all 3 points at Fulham, and as everyone has mentioned, the dissapointing reality of it all is that we only have ourselves to blame! Team Selection was a handicap from the start, and with the substitutions it only made it more of an uphill battle for us. JK is trying, but just not hard enough. The premiership is ruthless, and tactical mistakes leads to defeat as we have seen time and time again. I truly hope that JK re-thinks his strategy very carefully for the Wigan match.
Quote a dilema for any manager, trying to get any consistency from this squad. We are very short on class and effort. Expect 3 or 4 to jump ship at Xmas and thats job done, Championship here we come.I am begining to think that relegation might be the final solution to all our problems. ASHLEY,THE BOARD,THE MANAGER & THE SQUAD are all pretty poor, not even average. Could be a lot of empty pockets at the end of the season. What will our value shrink to, as a Championship outfit.???