We’ve had better football teams over the years, but there is much to admire about this team. We struggled in the 1st half. Imho, this was once again largely down to our apparent inability to deal with the opposition playing an extra man in midfield.

Perch and Guthrie tended to move towards the same man, and where frequently passed around, leaving large gaps in front of the back four.

I had confidence Alan Pardew would sort this out at Half-Time, and he appeared to do so simply by telling Perch to stop chasing around the pitch and hold his position in front of the back four.

Villa created too many half chances for comfort, and Krul was kept fairly busy, dealing with pretty well everything thrown at him superbly. As usual, Simpson was awful, including on their goal when he did not get tight enough to Insomnia.

Santon was again decent going forward, and rather suspect defensively. He and Jonas are forming a useful partnership, but being right-footed they both slow progress by constantly needing to bring the ball onto the right foot.

Colo was less effective than normal, seemed rather hesitant, and made a number of unusual errors.

We were much brighter in the 2nd half with Obertan occasionally threatening down the right, Jonas working incredibly hard up and down the left, Guthrie working his nuts off in the provider role, and Cisse and Ba’s movement causing Villa problems. What a joy to have two mobile forwards!

After a tough night on Wednesday, we tired towards the end and let them come on to us; however, we saw it out. It would have been criminal if Cisse had been denied the winner after that phenomenal strike and a hugely encouraging debut.

Alan Pardew told Ba to drop deeper to assist, but as v Spurs last week he showed he is incapable of doing that effectively. At half time Pardew took off Best and replaced him with Hatem Ben Arfa in a further effort solve this problem.

While not entirely successful, this did improve matters as one of Wigan’s midfield three had to pick up Ben Arfa as he was playing deep, giving Cabaye & Tiote a little more time and space. He is still rather off the pace, and gave the ball away too often, but his presence was a threat that Wigan couldn’t ignore.

Despite getting more of a grip in midfield, we still weren’t creating clearcut chances and Wigan’s defenders were dominating Ba, now playing up front on his own. So, Shola was brought on for Ba.

Unfortunately, this Shola was ‘regular Shola’ rather than the ‘super-Shola’ that came on last week. Nevertheless, he was more of a physical threat than Ba had been.

Pardew’s final move was to mercifully replace Obertan with Marveaux. The former’s confidence visibly drained away today as he turned over possession time and time again, and he was starting to get stick from the crowd.

Marveaux showed some nice touches, linking well with Ben Arfa and Cabaye, and played the ball square for Cabaye to strike a gem from the edge of the area into the far top corner.

Not a great performance, but not a bad one either imho. Wigan deserve a lot of credit, and were certainly the better team in the 1st half. They worked hard to stop us playing if rather over-physically at times.

I thought Pardew’s changes were well thought out and each one brought about improvements. However, it seems to me we’ve reached the point where some reassessment is needed.

Two big strikers and only two in central midfield will not always work in the Premier League. Cabaye & Tiote are bearing too much of the workload in this formation and will eventually run out of steam (or get injured).

Krul made one excellent save early on, and was then largely unemployed. I don’t know what Alan Pardew said to Simpson at the break, but he had a barn-storming 2nd half. Top man for me once again was Colo, although Steven Taylor also did well.

The spirit in the squad appears to have survived the loss of Andy Carroll, Kevin Nolan, Joey Barton and Jose Enrique. This was my major concern, and to be honest speaks volumes for the way Alan Pardew is doing the job. In the light of this, the replacement of Nolan by Cabaye is now looking like a sensible move for the long term.

Losing Jose Enrique and Joey Barton were perhaps inevitable, although I’m not convinced. I still believe both players could have been retained under diffferent circumstances. Hopefully, Santon will prove an adequate replacement for Jose, and a combination of Hatem Ben Arfa, Gabriel Obertan or Sylvain Marveaux for Barton.

I actually believe we should have replaced Carroll with another highly promising young striker, and had that opportunity with either Connor Whickham or Shane Long. Hopefully, Sameobi will prove to be a better prospect than either of them.

So, where does all that leave us? Yet again, the squad looks very fragile. If we manage to avoid injuries – a helluva big “if” for the Toon – we could still do ok. However, if we pick up a number of injuries I fear we’ll struggle, possibly badly.

I guess the objective now is to maintain the early momentum until January when we will have another opportunity to boost the playing resources, although the January window usually provides a difficult market.

Given where we are today I’d settle for mid-table obscurity, and perhaps a decent Cup run.

“That’s not to say their business has been disastrous. In fact, in certain areas it has been rather good, but mistakes have been made and, perhaps worse still, there has been a startling lack of ambition shown given the position of strength they were in when the window opened.”

In my honest opinion, with all my respect to Luke’s opinion, I don’t think he (or any one of us) knows very well all the works that (possibly) have been made by United’s scout and managing director Derek Llambias.

People (United’s fans) keep asking about the £35m from the sale of Andy Carroll to Liverpool and how we “should” spend it to get the player with “highest” price as that’s the way to get quality player these days.

Although I’m not saying that was not true, but I don’t think that’s the only way to do it. We still (hopefully) can get “quality” players even though he’s not in the ridiculous expensive amount of money.

I also don’t agree with Luke on his further statement, “Newcastle lost sight of what was so badly needed, even though manager Alan Pardew rarely let up in his highlighting of the issue.”

I think, what so badly needed by Newcastle is a fullback, and we have got one player to fill in that position. And how about a new striker? I don’t think we are in desperate to get the replacement of Andy Carroll because we still have “enough” backups.

This type of press statements are a deadly poison for us, the Toon Army, if we cannot filter it well and think about what should probably is the truth of things in the real world, not in their office keyboards or even as tiny as their smart pad.

Lastly, Luke also mentioned:

“Yet, as every Newcastle supporters knows, Newcastle’s squad has lost its two top goalscorers from last season – Carroll and Nolan – it’s spiky motivational force – Barton – and it’s flying left-back – Enrique. These are gaps that have been filled, but we have no idea how successfully.”

True, we have no idea how successfully the replacements are, but I also would like to ask if we get those high price big name players, with a quality that some Toon fans are wanted, are they also can guarantee a success?

You decide!

We have lost Kevin Nolan, Joey Barton and, er, Wayne Routledge from midfield. Both the first two had plus and minus points, but we have brought in younger players with more to prove. Routledge delivered nowt. Obviously the jury is still out, but Cabaye and Obertan look like they can contribute a lot, and Marveaux looks promising. Overall – neutral.

In defence, we have lost Enrique, and gained Santon. I haven’t seen a lot of Santon, so can’t really comment, other than he appears to have potential (as did Enrique when we signed him). On the positive side, I hope he doesn’t fanny around in/near his own PA.

In goal, we have one of the best up-and-coming keepers in the league. Had things moved on a year, I think Tim Krul could have been a natural successor to his compatriot at OT. We may be lucky that they spent so much on a young La Liga ‘keeper with no PL experience. I’m glad that Harper is still here, but bringing in Elliot allows us some progression when Harper leaves. From what I have seen, Forster lacked the temperament (and ability!) when it matters. He may do well in Scotland. Neutral.

So, overall, I’m disappointed that we have not adequately replaced Andy Carroll, but I still maintain what I said at the time – it was too good a financial deal to turn down. However, I do agree that we had plenty of time to find a replacement.

I can’t be @rsed to trawl to see which other strikers have moved, but I think we were too tight in our valuations and willingness to pay “the going wage”.

Howay the Lads!