Yesterday morning I woke up with a tremendous warm feeling of contentment.
Almost immediately a number of great moments from Sunday came flooding back to me. Adam Johnson burying a penalty on the stroke of half-time sending the fans delirious before running the length of the pitch to taunt the Newcastle supporters. Billy Jones turning in following an exquisite overhead kick from Yann M’Vila. Kaboul winning two block tackles on the edge of the area before eventually delivering an inch-perfect cross for Steven Fletcher to convert at the back post and wrap the game up.
Not to mention the entire stadium belting out a hair-raising rendition of wise men say followed by the celebrations that went on well into the night on Wearside.
However, after logging on to my twitter account, it suddenly dawned on me that these moments were a mere irrelevance. After all Newcastle had won the highly prestigious corner count, as well as storming in victory in the shots on target cup. Possibly most sickeningly they had dominated that all-important possession.
Naturally, these revelations were crushing to me. Not only do we not have an airport or boast Ant and Dec as famous fans, or even have any famous nine shirts but we had achieved a false victory.
I felt embarrassed that I had dared celebrate at all and regretted not applauding Newcastle’s team of superstars off the field after delivering a mesmerizing masterclass in pointless, impotent passing football.
Now, I had no preconceptions of Newcastle fans displaying much magnanimity or dignity in defeat and perhaps we should be grateful that no horses or phone boxes were harmed as a result of Sunday, but the reaction has been nothing short of embarrassing.
In the 21st century, statistical analysis is an inescapable aspect of the game. It is used in everything from match preparation to player recruitment and phrases such a Moneyball and Soccernomics have become a part of the modern fans vocabulary. But in the wake of Sunday’s game the use of them has been misleading in the extreme.
Gary Lineker got the ball rolling on twitter by claiming “3-0 to Sunderland if ever a scoreline didn’t tell a story.”
Now it is perfectly reasonable to say Newcastle controlled the first half, they looked comfortable on the ball and enjoyed plenty of possession inside Sunderland’s half. Their passing was crisp and confident, they were first to every second ball and for a neutral they must have looked pleasing on the eye.
It is also true that they had more shots on goal. However, what the statistics do not tell is how toothless Newcastle were in the final third. The way the performance has been talked about on twitter you could be forgiven for thinking that Sunderland were cut open at will and Pantilimon produced a string of impressive saves as well as much rattling of the upright.
But simply was not the case, Sunderland’s game plan was obvious, sit in, allow Newcastle to have possession in the middle of the park then try and break them. This did not work in the first period, but the Tynesider’s were still restricted to shots from range and half chances.
Pantilimon did well to tip over a Wijnaldum free kick, although even that may have been going over. But other than that Newcastle’s attempts were tame and easily saved by the Sunderland keeper.
In fact, it wasn’t until the second half that they had a gilt-edged opportunity when the ball fell to Mitrovic in space inside the penalty area, but Pantilimon produced a fine save to deny the Russian.
Therefore, any claims that Newcastle “controlled” or “dominated” the game is entirely false. Just a week previously Tyneside was rejoicing a 6-2 home victory over Norwich, where obviously they were just “clinical” by scoring six goals from six shots on target.
In that game, Norwich had more shots, more shots on target, and actually had more possession, but thanks to a great individual display from Wijinaldum and good counter-attacking football they ran out convincing winners.
Another prominent argument on social media is that Sunderland were “gifted the win” by the referee after he awarded a penalty in the dying seconds of first half stoppage time.
Even the most ardent Sunderland fan would probably agree that a sending off was harsh. But why give the referee a decision to make? If Coloccini had got goalside of Fletcher or subtly eased him out the way he would have allowed Rob Elliot to come out and gather the ball. His clumsy shoulder barge gave the referee little choice but to award the penalty and in the heat of the moment it is easy to see why he felt it was a goalscoring opportunity.
It is also easy to forget that Newcastle still had another half to get back into the game and had they equalized through Mitrovic they would have been right back in the game with momentum in their favour.
So what’s the conclusion to draw from this? Football isn’t fair. You can have all the possession and shots on target in the world but if you don’t take your chances, you can’t win games. Against Spurs and West Ham, Sunderland dominated large parts but couldn’t finish the game off, resulting in them dropping points. So for all the graphs and pie charts indicating that Newcastle were the better team, one statistic will always be the most important in football and this one was…..SUNDERLAND 3 (THREE) NEWCASTLE 0 (NIL).
