NUFC boss on defensive after Toon drubbing

Mar 20 2011 by Mark Douglas, Sunday Sun

ALAN PARDEW defended his tactical calls after seeing Newcastle crushed by Stoke to raise the prospect of an end-of-season relegation fight.

Pardew opted for a 3-5-2 formation and drafted Sol Campbell back into the starting line-up at the Britannia but, with the veteran at fault for the first goal, the decision appeared to unravel.

The Toon boss admits he will “reflect” on the decisions he took but said they could not be written off as a total failure after his team performed well in the first half.

He said: “I am disappointed with the scoreline.

“I thought in the first half we were very unlucky to come in at one-nil down.

“I thought we had control of much of the tempo of the game. We deserved, perhaps, a goal at half-time but it did not come.

“Generally I was happy with the first half, but in the first five minutes of the second we just did not perform.

“We did not start, we put the ball at risk and even before Harps made an error we should have got rid of the ball and turned them around.

“I thought when we conceded the second we had a mountain to climb.

“The third goal for me, again we put the ball at risk.

“I did not think it was a free-kick but then that flashes in, suddenly the game is completely turned on its head. “Then it was a matter of seeing if we could manage a goal.

“The shape of the team we changed. That worked to some degrees, to others it did not work for us. We will have to reflect on that.”

Quizzed directly on the impact of Campbell, Pardew leapt to the defence of the veteran defender.

He added: “I changed the shape of the team and I have to accept that.”

“I don’t think Sol played poorly, he gave a good account of himself.”

There was also disappointment for Jose Enrique as he limped off early in the game – a blow after the player himself had said he would be fit to finish the game.

Pardew said: “We genuinely thought on Thursday Jose would not start, but he felt very, very confident he would be fine so we went with that.

“Sometimes you go with a player’s feelings if they think their injury is fine, but it just started to tighten up on him.

“We thought, without risking him, we had to take him off.

“Perhaps the only bonus for us was (Shane) Ferguson, who did very well when he came on.”

Meanwhile the Toon boss played down talk of a confrontation between Joey Barton and Stoke striker Ricardo Fuller, who appeared to kick the Newcastle midfielder late in the game after coming on as a second-half substitute.

That produced an angry - and justified - reaction from the provoked Scouser.

Pardew added: “I didn’t think there was a confrontation.

“Fuller just went up and kicked him when he came on! That was a fact.”