Newcastle 2 vs 1 Birmingham in 5 key points

07.05.11 – Saturday 3pm
Barclays Premier League

Newcastle 2
Ameobi 36 (pen)
S.Taylor 43

Birmingham 1
Bowyer 45
Ridgewell sent off 36

With two games still to go in their Premier League campaign, Newcastle mathematically sealed their Premier League survival with a 2-1 victory over Birmingham City in a dreary encounter at St James’ Park. The victory also completed a swift league double over the Blues following the 2-0 victory at St Andrews in mid-February.

After a quiet opening half hour, the game finally saw some action in the 36th minute when Liam Ridgewell handled the ball on the line with a penalty awarded for Newcastle and a red card for the Birmingham defender. Shola Ameobi converted the penalty (does he ever miss?) to put Newcastle 1-0 up and they were 2-0 up shortly after when Steven Taylor headed home a Joey Barton corner. The 10 men of Birmingham pulled a goal back just before half time through a deflected Lee Bowyer effort, after a mistake from Fabricio Coloccini, but there was to be no further goals in the second half as the game ended 2-1.

Here we take a look at the 5 key points from a Newcastle perspective:

1. Team selection and tactics

Newcastle manager Alan Pardew made 1 change to the starting line up that lost at Liverpool the previous weekend as Steven Taylor replaced the injured Mike Williamson. Birmingham manager Alex McCleish made 2 changes to the side that drew with Wolves as Keith Fahey replaced the suspended Craig Gardner and Jean Beausejour came in for Kevin Phillips, lining up on the left of a 5 man midfield with Lee Bowyer moving into the centre.

Newcastle lined up in their usual 4-4-2 formation and faced a Birmingham side who had switched to a defensive minded 4-5-1 formation. The central midfield trio of Bowyer, Barry Ferguson and Keith Fahey sat deep and were tasked with overcoming Newcastle’s central midfield pairing of Cheik Tiote and Kevin Nolan. Wide men Seb Larsson and Jean Beausejour dropped back to support their full backs and doubled up on the Newcastle wide men, while Cameron Jerome was given the thankless role of lone forward, as Birmingham primarily set up to prevent the attacking threat of their opponents. A plan which worked well in frustrating the home side up until the game’s first talking point in the 36th minute.

2. Red card disrupts Birmingham game plan

Up until the award of the penalty and the red card for Ridgewell, Newcastle had struggled to break Birmingham’s resistance and, other than Joey Barton, lacked any form of creative ingenuity in open play as they looked to find a way through their defensive minded opponents. The break they needed, however, came with the red card to Ridgewell and the award of the penalty, giving Newcastle a goal scoring opportunity and a man advantage for the best part of an hour. The Birmingham fans sang in self-pity, “we only get sh*t refs” but replays confirmed that Ridgewell handled the ball, not once, but twice, on the line and proved it was the right decision from referee Chris Foy.

S.Taylor: cheerleader and wind up merchant extraordinaire

Following the sending off, Birmingham switched to a 4-4-1 formation with Beausejour filling in for Ridgewell at left back and Lee Bowyer moving to left midfield. The Birmingham midfield 4 found it difficult man for man against their Newcastle counterparts and were unable to break up play as effectively, making only 3 interceptions when down to 10 men for the final 54 minutes compared to the 6 interceptions made in the 35 minutes before the sending off. Other than his part in chasing down the long ball for Birmingham’s goal, Cameron Jerone cut a lonely figure up front for Birmingham with little support from midfield as the Blues already minimal attacking threat dwindled.

3. Newcastle use their numerical advantage to control possession

As would perhaps be expected, Newcastle enjoyed more of the possession with their man advantage, but this also owed to the movement and passing accuracy of the Newcastle midfield, with Barton and Tiote particularly impressive in their ball retention. The pair constantly made themselves available for a pass and were exact in their disposal, in fact they made a combined 143 completed passes which was more than the 119 completed passes made by the Birmingham midfield 4.

The final half hour of the game played out as if it were a training ground exercise of keep ball, the Birmingham players chased the Newcastle players in possession, with Newcastle adopting the motto that if your opponents don’t have the ball they can’t score. Although this was somewhat frustrating as a spectacle, with Newcastle passing up the chance to extend the scoring against numerically disadvantaged opponents, it at least shows that a lesson has been learned from January when Newcastle conceded last minute equalisers against sunderland and Tottenham when they pushed for another goal rather than consolidating their lead. Far better 3 points than 1.

4. Preciseness prevails in a dominant performance by Joey Barton

Variety: Barton’s 75 successful passes

After a disappointing run of games against Liverpool and Blackpool, Joey Barton returned to form with a man of the match display against Birmingham. Barton was involved in everything that was good about Newcastle’s play and acted as the playmaker, completing more passes (75) than any other player on the pitch. Barton also dictated the pace of play with his varied passing, altering his passes from short to long and from right to left while maintaining a level of accuracy that saw him achieve a 86% pass success rate.

Barton set up 6 goal scoring opportunities and also played a part in both goals, with the corner that lead to Newcastle winning their penalty and the assist for Steven Taylor’s goal – another corner whipped into a similar area for the centre back to head home. A combination of poor delivery and the lack of an imposing forward man has seen Newcastle score only 2 goals from set pieces since the sale of Andy Carroll in January, compared to the 14 before Carroll was sold, and it was pleasing to see improved delivery from Barton and aerial prowess from his teammates as Newcastle added another 2 goals from set piece situations.

5. Ben Foster helps keeps the score line down with a superb goalkeeping display

Newcastle shots on target: White – goals. Blue – Foster's many saves.

As Edwin Van Der Sar nears retirement this summer, leaving Sir Alex Ferguson with the unenviable task of finding a replacement, his previous understudy Ben Foster put on a shot stopping display which may have left Fergie regretting his decision to sell at the beginning of the season.

Foster was in excellent form and helped keep the score line down with a couple of world class saves in the first half, from Nolan and Lovenkrands, while being only fingertips away from saving the Ameobi penalty. Foster made 7 saves in total and in a game in which Newcastle had 10 shots on target to Birmingham’s 1 shot on target, The Blues can be thankful to their goalkeeper for helping to keep the numbers down in the goals against column.

At the end of the day…

In what was hardly the most convincing of performances against a side with 10 men for the majority of the game, Newcastle did just enough to gain the 3 points that will ensure Premier League football at St James’ Park for another season.

To comfortably achieve survival with 2 games still to play is an achievement which few would have predicted at the start of the season. Eulogies will come later but for now a small squad of players deserve credit for their dedication and allegiance to the Black and White cause, especially in recent weeks when some have looked visibly exhausted but unable to be rested such is the small size of the squad and the injury situation. Well done to all who have played their part.

Now the club knows which division they will be playing in they can turn their attention to building for next season, identifying key areas for improvement and bringing in the necessary players to improve the squad. Against Birmingham, although not to the detriment of the result, the same inadequacies were evident, particularly up front where Newcastle again looked ineffectual and is an area which must be targeted for improvement. The next few months will tell us just how much of the £35 million raised from the Andy Carroll sale will be used for transfers and just how shrewd Alan Pardew is in the transfer market.

The result took Newcastle up to 10^th position in the League, although they dropped to 11^th position when Stoke beat Arsenal on Sunday to move ahead of them. On 44 points, Newcastle sit a point behind 10^th placed Fulham and ahead of sunderland on goal difference. Getting into the top 10 and finishing as the top North East team ensures there are still targets to play for in the remaining couple of games, beginning with next Sunday’s trip to Stamford Bridge to face Chelsea before the final game at home to West Brom the following weekend.

In what is always a difficult fixture, Tiote is likely to miss the game over suspension concerns (currently on 14 bookings, he would receive a 3 match ban if booked for the 15th time this season), and with no let up on the injury front, Newcastle may well be hoping that Manchester United can pick up a point against Blackburn on Saturday which would secure the league title and leave Chelsea with nothing to play for. And Newcastle in for less of a hiding than usual…Here’s hoping.