Sam has talked about Oba Martins and keeping a clean sheet on Sunday.
That could have been the story of the game against Man City last weekend.
Oba put us ahead with a wonderfully taken goal lose on the half hour mark and if we could have held on it was all 3 points in the bag.  But then the defense let us down with giving away 2 poor goals. That just cannot happen on Sunday.
Oba Martins – another goal tomorrow would be great
Sam has put a little pressure on Oba saying that he needs more goals from him. Oba gets himself so many chances with his quickness that one of these days he will score three or four, all in one game. He also scares the life out of defenders, particularly the big ones who may find it difficult to maneuver quickly.
Of course Oba is top scorer with 4 goals so that’s 21 goals Martins has scored for Newcastle and of course he got 17 goals last season. If Oba can get 20 or more this season that will make him one of the premierships better goalscorers.
Sam talked today about Martins:
“Oba played well at Manchester City last week, but scoring is still the most important thing to him and I have to say he took his goal well,”
But the bottom line is he does not score as many goals as he should. He does get the opportunities because he frightens the life out of defenders with his pace.”
The word for Everton is defense and for sure Sam doesn’t want to see any leftovers of the sloppy defensive play that cost us the game last Saturday at Manchester. This is key, because if we can get the defense sorted out, we can really start to win a few games, if only 1-0.
Sam continued:
“What we don’t want on Sunday is a repeat of the way we defended against Manchester City,” “Ten minutes of bad defending either side of the interval cost us the game after Oba had put us ahead with a good goal. “
Manchester City did not beat us – we instigated our own defeat, and I’m not having any of this against Everton.”
A clean sheet is what we will look for and one goal would then be all it would take. We would bank on Oba being on fire on Sunday. A 1-0 win would be just fine. After all that’s what Premiership champions Manchester United have achieved in all their last 6 games.
Comments welcome.
9 comments so far
Bill F
Oct 6, 2007 at 1:03 AM
Comment #1Where is everybody, has the world come to an end?
adam
Oct 6, 2007 at 4:28 AM
Comment #2sam doesnt say anything when owen misses his chances at goal and overall has a 10-1 chances to goals ratio. i think sam doesnt like oba which is ludacris because he is our best chance of getting a goal during the game. personally i hope owen goes and plays for england, scores a goal and comes back to newcaslte with sum sort of niggling injurey so that oba can stay in the team. its sad i know but thats the only way it seems that oba has a decent run in the team. the clean sheets will come.
Ed Harrison
Oct 6, 2007 at 8:55 AM
Comment #3adam – not sure that’s true about Sam not liking Oba – but he is top scorer – don’t forget he said Viduka needs more goals too – and he got a response!
Think its’ just Sam trying to get the very very best out of every player. When Oba gets the ball Sunday he’ll hear those little words – need more goals – shoot immediately and …. another goal.
Well I hope so anyway.
Agree about the clean sheets – the lads just need more time – also looks like Sam will bring in Edmilson in Jan – more competition in center of defense.
Bob
Oct 6, 2007 at 9:23 AM
Comment #4Bill – I suspect that, with the transfer window closing, it is not so interesting (we aren’t praying for news every single day!) – which is why everyone only turns up on matchdays now.
Adam:I seriously hope Sam isn’t trying to shut out Oba as well; why Sam dropped him for an unfit Owen is beyond me. Almost as if he is trying to make Owen look good and Oba look bad.
Oba DOES need more consistency and composure – but that will come through experience.
No-one can argue that, at 23, his ratio of 21 goals in 48 starts is pretty impressive. And most of those goals came in a p*** poor Newcastle team last year.
Espen
Oct 6, 2007 at 10:04 AM
Comment #5Its amazing that Oba is not considered a regular starter, he’s by far the most lively and creative striker at the club. Ask any Premiership defender who he’d fear more of our 4 strikers, I’m sure they would not go with Shola, Owen or Viduka. Martins is scaring them with his blistering pace, he simply has to play.
I agree with Big Sam that Oba is not the best of finishers yet, but with time that will come. His overall game is however so good that he has to play for Newcastle.
Lamesley Mag
Oct 6, 2007 at 10:22 AM
Comment #6We need a bigger squad at Newcastle and with Owen, Martins, Viduka, Smith (Ameobi) and Carrol we appear to have a decent set of attackers. We don’t have strength in depth in defence or midfield, but something BSA will work on by buying better players and selling several of the regular sick-notes such as Babayaro, Carr, Duff, Emre, Ameobi possibly Owen.
If we’re to improve our standing in the PL we need to but better players who are not injury prone.
Bob
Oct 6, 2007 at 12:16 PM
Comment #7Espen – totally agree. Alessandro Nesta used to say that Martins was the striker he most hated playing against – Martins was about 19 at the time!
JP from The Rock of Gibraltar!
Oct 6, 2007 at 4:25 PM
Comment #8Keep Martins in the first team!! The more he plays the likelier it is for him to score loads of great goals again, as he’s still building up his confidence under Owens shadow.
dan
Oct 6, 2007 at 5:48 PM
Comment #9Can’t help thinking this every time i see us play- ‘I would love to see us play owen and Martins up front together!’
We wouldn’t be able to thump the ball up to them, but imagine how frightening they would be together if we played them right.