Newport match report

I was interested to read the match report by Mark Vickery on the Newport forum which I thought was very fair and provided a good analysis of the game. He concluded with a Strategic Management style SWOT analysis of their opponents:

“Strengths — central defenders were proficient in the air and breaking up play. they some capability to pass and constructed some decent low moves but very little end product.

Weaknesses — both full backs offered little from crosses and the midfield was quite lightweight and small. They lacked cutting edge final third and majority of moves were devoid of tempo

Opportunities — never really changed their tact. Made efforts to work space and find the extra man but run out of ideas and missing quality

Threats — Hanson and Payne offered aerial threat inside box, El Mizouni shots from distance. Waterfall aerial threat set pieces”.

I thought his summary of the weaknesses was spot on. I think most of us agree that the full backs will improve with time. But the other two issues need addressing. We need a bigger presence in central midfield. Coke would fit the bill if he can be signed after all. Otherwise, there must be a strong case for including Spokes. As regards the lack of tempo up front, the painfully slow build up on Saturday was obvious. The cop-out ball to a heavily marked winger was all too evident. We really must get the ball and players into the box at pace if we’re going to end the goal drought.

Quoted from joe56

I was interested to read the match report by Mark Vickery on the Newport forum which I thought was very fair and provided a good analysis of the game. He concluded with a Strategic Management style SWOT analysis of their opponents:

“Strengths — central defenders were proficient in the air and breaking up play. they some capability to pass and constructed some decent low moves but very little end product.

Weaknesses — both full backs offered little from crosses and the midfield was quite lightweight and small. They lacked cutting edge final third and majority of moves were devoid of tempo

Opportunities — never really changed their tact. Made efforts to work space and find the extra man but run out of ideas and missing quality

Threats — Hanson and Payne offered aerial threat inside box, El Mizouni shots from distance. Waterfall aerial threat set pieces”.

I thought his summary of the weaknesses was spot on. I think most of us agree that the full backs will improve with time. But the other two issues need addressing. We need a bigger presence in central midfield. Coke would fit the bill if he can be signed after all. Otherwise, there must be a strong case for including Spokes. As regards the lack of tempo up front, the painfully slow build up on Saturday was obvious. The cop-out ball to a heavily marked winger was all too evident. We really must get the ball and players into the box at pace if we’re going to end the goal drought.

Lightweight in midfield, have you seen the size of Matete?..
Apart from that I agree with this analysis of where we are right now.

According to his bio on the internet, he’s just short of 5’9”. Not exactly huge! I was thinking of a 6 footer to make his presence felt.

Quoted from joe56

According to his bio on the internet, he’s just short of 5’9”. Not exactly huge! I was thinking of a 6 footer to make his presence felt.

I agree we are short of height in our midfield, but generally your more influential midfielders are shorter with a low centre of gravity, Matete is a big lad physically, that's why I said we're not lightweight, could always bang Bunney in there to make up the height tho..🤣🤣🤣

Fair enough. I take your point although I think a bit of height wouldn’t go amiss.

I honestly think we are just lacking confidence. Take bunney for example his passing was awful. But is it because he isnt very good or nervous at being caught on the ball. Which he was a couple of times. Players are human  and nerves play a massive part when you are up against it. Hopefully we will get a good solid 2-0 morale boosting win sooner rather than later
Then kick on

Quoted from Norseman

I honestly think we are just lacking confidence. Take bunney for example his passing was awful. But is it because he isnt very good or nervous at being caught on the ball. Which he was a couple of times. Players are human  and nerves play a massive part when you are up against it. Hopefully we will get a good solid 2-0 morale boosting win sooner rather than later
Then kick on

Why should Bunney be lacking in confidence? He's only just got here. Surely he should be thinking along the lines of "I'll sort them out", "I'll show them what I can do". Quite a few players went backwards under IH, but I'd like to think every player when they turn up on their first day has confidence in their own ability (at least until they become disillusioned).

I thought our full backs were our weakest link by some way on Saturday. [edit - lol, i took so long to hit post on this, finally others have said the same thing]. I'm really surprised I've not seen anyone else mention Bunney's performance. It was one of the worst debuts I have seen. Not making any kind of judgement on him medium term - not sure if he was nervous, not fit, carrying a problem, but almost every touch was nervous/poor and got us into trouble. Hewitt was better than that, but a not good enough on Saturday.
The El Mizouni shots from distance were a real frustration (Matete and others were really were not happy either). We finally worked into a good position on a couple of occasions, with a chance to actually cause issues, and he snatched at 1 shot and sent one way over, from the edge of the box. If he hits the target, and creates rebounds or corners, thats something, but his shots were woeful, making it look like really poor decision making.

Fair reflection and I mentioned in a post after the match that I believe we also lack pace in the centre up front which means defenders aren’t too concerned about a through ball and being left floundering as our centre forward speeds away. Whether a fully fit Payne has some speed over 20 yards I’m not sure which makes it a shame Vernam didn’t return to allow this threat to be established when he moves inside.

Still we are where we are and we have to basically improve the quality of our crossing and then get more men in and around the box to feed off knock downs and half hit clearances which is pretty much how Newport got their goal with 3 men and around the area the ball fell from the deflected shot. Unfortunately, the only one of the 3 who had any chance of being onside was the one who snapped up the opportunity.

Well Joe Waters was under 5ft 7 as I recall and was one of the best midfield players ever to wear the shirt.

fwiw i thought Hewitt had a damn good game at right back, although his crossing wasn't good enough.
Bunney and Idris were both disappointing - had been expecting better from the Ipswich lad, who's looked marginal in both game

I thought Bunney started ok, couple of nice passes early doors not just standard ones, and also played a couple of nice channel balls that we gained yardage on.
He got himself into a bit of a jumble on one occasion  and then never recovered. Clearly tired after only about 40 mins I thought.

Yet again though.....that's the third left back who has experienced the same thing, no real natural player in front of them making it harder for them.  El Mizouni certainly wasnt hugging the touchline that side and doesnt look a natural left winger or wide man to me.
Hurst didnt do Bunney any favours by leaving him on as long as he did when he was clearly flagging and with Habergham supposedly having a great delivery it may have been better to have him stretching the game wide left and peppering balls into the mixer.

Quoted from moosey_club

Yet again though.....that's the third left back who has experienced the same thing, no real natural player in front of them making it harder for them.  El Mizouni certainly wasnt hugging the touchline that side and doesnt look a natural left winger or wide man to me.

Hurst said in his post-match interview, when asked about substitutions, that he didnt want to change it and go to a straight 442 which would have matched them up in midfield after their reshuffle. And he said he stuck with our lopsided shape.

So it was the intention to have El Mizouni infield pretty much as a 3rd central midfielder. Something Hurst has done before (Nolan starting from the left, also remember Scott&Hurst playing a lopsided 433 with only one of the forwards wide (either Makofo or Coulson, with 2 central strikers).

I didn't think it was particularly obvious during the game that that was the plan. Like you say, El Mizouni certainly wasnt hugging the touchline, but I wouldnt have said he was playing centrally, at least until a point in the second half where he started to wander about a bit to get on the ball (which is actually when he looked better).

Quoted from moosey_club

Hurst didnt do Bunney any favours by leaving him on as long as he did when he was clearly flagging and with Habergham supposedly having a great delivery it may have been better to have him stretching the game wide left and peppering balls into the mixer.

2nd half should have been all about how many good crosses we could load into their box. With Hanson and Payne on, and them sitting deep enough to allow us to get forward enough into crossing positions plenty of times. It was clear Bunney and Hewitt couldn't have crossed a road. I'm sure Habergham could have managed 45 minutes to play the 2nd half and show us some of the good delivery he's meant to have.

Quoted from Tommy

Hurst said in his post-match interview, when asked about substitutions, that he didnt want to change it and go to a straight 442 which would have matched them up in midfield after their reshuffle. And he said he stuck with our lopsided shape.

So it was the intention to have El Mizouni infield pretty much as a 3rd central midfielder. Something Hurst has done before (Nolan starting from the left, also remember Scott&Hurst playing a lopsided 433 with only one of the forwards wide (either Makofo or Coulson, with 2 central strikers).

I didn't think it was particularly obvious during the game that that was the plan. Like you say, El Mizouni certainly wasnt hugging the touchline, but I wouldnt have said he was playing centrally, at least until a point in the second half where he started to wander about a bit to get on the ball (which is actually when he looked better).



2nd half should have been all about how many good crosses we could load into their box. With Hanson and Payne on, and them sitting deep enough to allow us to get forward enough into crossing positions plenty of times. It was clear Bunney and Hewitt couldn't have crossed a road. I'm sure Habergham could have managed 45 minutes to play the 2nd half and show us some of the good delivery he's meant to have.

i recognised the lopsided approach from his previous tenure but as nearly all advice from any manager, ex pro, pundit etc is when playing against ten men you need to stretch the game and move the ball quickly,  it was disappointing for us to pretty much do the opposite.

In my opinion Bunney was largely the only person on the left flank, as Idrs tended to be tucked inside and at points central.

I though Bunney was largely ok, which is fine for a first game back.

In midfield I think Idris and Matete would work well in tandem, and have Morais and Adams on the wings.

Bunney, Menayese, Waterfall and Hewitt is the most reliable at the moment.