In a somewhat amusing irony, a significant number of fans of a team with Joey Barton (most carded player the Premier League so far, jointly with teammate James Perch) seem a little concerned that poor Barton was bullied at Molineux yesterday.
In all seriousness, I am concerned to hear criticisms of my team’s play for a third game in a row, but am not concerned by their actual play. I don’t want to see bad tackles, but have no problem with tough tackles, of which there were plenty yesterday from both sides. I hope to see more finesse in future, but there will always be hard fought games like yesterday’s – it is, as a Newcastle fan pointed out on my verdict post this morning, a contact sport.
Assessing the question of whether Wolves deserve the stick objectively is made impossible by the early stage of the season and yesterday’s flood of yellow cards from Stuart Atwell. Unsurprisingly, the Fair Play table shows Wolves and Newcastle propping up the table (although notably with Newcastle at the bottom).
Yesterday there was more fight than finesse but, with the referee stopping the game (unnecessarily on the whole) every 2 minutes on average, it was always unlikely to be an exhibition of silky skills. Chris Hughton didn’t seem more concerned than I am, commenting in his post match interview: “It was a very competitive game, but it’s impossible to come here and not have that kind of game.”
In all fairness, there’s every sign that Barton himself is quite tough enough to handle a physical game (and I say that entirely on the basis of his play on the pitch, not his reputation off it) and bright enough not to complain too much.
What a joke your side is! Some of the worst tackles I have seen led by your disgrace of a captain! Weak effort! You are a Championship grade club fighting in a league too good for your club. Hope your disgrace of a side goes back to where you belong. Get out of a good league stop pulling it down to your disgraceful level!
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In all honesty, I wasn’t expecting the opposition to agree with me but I’m sure we can all be good friends
I don’t agree with you either, and worry about the sheltered like you’ve led if these are some of the worst tackles you’ve seen. Presumably you don’t watch your team that often?
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I was quite pleased with how we made sure we wasn’t bullied yesterday, in the past I think we have been ‘too nice’ by their own admission Newcastle bullied villa last week, we just made sure that wasn’t gonna be the case this week.
Fair play to our lads
I’m fed up of whinging Geordies already, if u turn with 2 thugs in the middle of the park then u should expect a battle!!!!
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Football not UFC, what are we supposed to do-not tackle! oh silly me it’s Newcastle the world of football,you can’t tackle them, it’s a tough league and you know the saying – “if you can’t stand the heat keep out of the kitchen”, that’s the trouble with jumped up has beens like you, any team willing to battle is seen has not good enough.
I have been to Newcastle many times and witnessed the Wolves kicked off the park! ask any boro or Sunderland fan about united! mind you know we are talking about football teams, my second word to you is …. OFF!
oh by the way how that dirty get Carrol stayed on the pitch is anyones guess,has for the ref-Newcastle fan was he?
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There was definitely persistant and targeted fouling on Joey Barton, sometimes not even trying to play the ball. The same rules apply to everyone, there’s no “except joey barton” and one of your lads should have been sent off for it. The way they were laughing at it on MoTD was appauling IMO, if it was against Torres or Rooney they would have been singing a different tune.
That said, the ref had a torrid time, and you should have got a penalty so at least he was consistently poor.
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@beatski: I agree that Barton was targetted (understandably – he’s been a good player for you this season and would have been looking to dominate in the midfield himself), but genuinely think with tough tackles rather than deliberate fouls.
Henry’s at the end looked worse in the replay that I saw at the time I admit, so I won’t argue with the card there. Still, I’d call it as over-enthusiastic more that deliberate.
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The fact is guys it was a very physical game from both sides both with bad challenges how Henry stayed on the pitch I will never know but all in all it just shows how competetive this league is and that every team needs to fight for every point.
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Firstly, I’m not a Newcastle fan, secondly, I’m no fan of Barton, but Wolves were disgraceful yesterday. Real anti football, showing a real lack of talent amongst the side. Hopefully Wolves will be relegated, there’s no place for a team like that in the Premiership.
Its disappointing to see McCarth, a manager I previously liked, thinking two wrongs make a right. What a fool. Fair play to Barton for not losing his cool.
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What a joke wolves are telling us to get back
In to championship where we belong
I think it’s the other way round
What has your club achieved over tha last thirty years.
Answer nowt
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@Woody: let’s not get into a ‘my cup’s bigger than yours’ argument. Neither club has a very glorious recent history, and I hope both have a brighter future.
Pretty sure it’s a Newcastle fan wishing Wolves back in the Championship anyway.
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I am a newcastle fan and given my way, Barton would never have been signed in the first place/sold or contract cancelled once he ended up in prison, however I thought the manner in which he was targetted yesterday was fairly shameful. As much as I think Barton is far from being a good lad, both the blatant and let’s not deny it, violent manner the wolves players dealt with him was totally uncalled for. Worse than that though as Beatski mentioned was the MOTD coverage of it. Shearer’s disdain for Barton is hardly a secret but condoning the sort of tackles clearly not aiming for the ball and if mistimed or misplaced could break bones or end careers is pretty disgraceful. I feel the game and the attitude it was played in would be received far differently if it had been anyone else apart from Barton (except maybe Robbie Savage) or Barton had been seriously injured which he so easily could have been
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I’d never want to see a Wolves player setting out to injure another – and it doesn’t matter who that is, but I’d still call them as tough tackles (very badly executed at times) not deliberate fouls. MOTD saw them the same way or I’d hope couldn’t have found it funny, but agree it was inappropriate whatever.
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being physical is all well and good if thats what your being through out the game but just being physical on one man who you know have a reputation of boiling over is not. It was clear Mick “the stroke” McCarthy had told the players to try and tip Joey over the edge in a bid to see him sent off. Which did not work!!!
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If a player’s got a weakness, it’s there to exploit, as long as the intention is to play fair (if tough). As it happens, Barton coped with the attention admirably.
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I thought the match was just a very competive match, and Wolves only targeted Barton because he is the easiest to piss off. Barton handled it great, but i don’t think any of the challenges were trying to hurt Barton, they just went in with a lot more force than normal. What annoyed me now living in the midlands is that I go on Facebook to see Wolves fans saying that the ref was biased to Newcastle and we are cheaters. I had to laugh but if the ref was biased he could have easily sent off a few of Wolves players. Yes, it should have been a penalty, but Mick McCarthey said at the time he wasn’t sure, so what if the ref ws, he can’t give it unless he was 100% sure, so I want to know do you Wolves fans agree the ref was biased?
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Ref was completely hopeless but can’t say he was deliberately biased. Got it wrong many times, but I’ll put that down to rank incompetence.
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I’m a Newcastle fan and was at the match (amongst wolves supporters in Billy right stand) and just have 2 things to say.
1. WWW is a thoughtful blogger prepared to balance territorial dogma (supporting your club) with real facts (Barton was nailed). N1 – better than some of the blinkered views on some nufc blogs I look at.
2. I desperately didn’t want Barton at my club. But I found myself proud to point to his behaviour yesterday as an example to my son (14 and at the game with me) of how he should handle himself when being targeted on the pitch. Composed yet unprotected by the ref.
And my son said – yes – they tried to rough us up. But we were rough back.
In summary a game reflecting life. Well done both teams.
And HWTL – you are truly born again.
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Cheers for the comments. I find myself agreeing
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Fair play to the last two coments from Newcastle fans that seem to have actually understood what they watched & have the ability to comunicate it, the bottom line is that the ref was awful all round with needless bookings for both sides he got most of the key decisions wrong, and was not upto the task of reffing a game of this nature & as such should be relieved of his prem league duties
A draw on the overall balance of play was just about the right result
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Amusing indeed, but not as you intend it.
Newcastle fans and the local radio coverage were astonished at the crude rough house tactics of Wolves – targetting Barton and Carroll in paticular it seems. Your keeper was even claiming fouls on him when Carroll was nowhere near !
Barton’s behaviour to the Neaderthal Wolves tactics, no doubt from that arch tactician (snigger) McCarthy.
But the really “amusing” thing was Wolves fans screaing in fury if there was a foul actually GIVEN on Barton – as if it’s not allowed !
The ref was labelled a cowardly joke by the north-east coverage on all 3 covering the game. Malcolm McDonald thought a couple of Wolves players couldn’t have complained if they’d been shown reds. And SHOULD have been.
Its not often the home team has SEVEN bookings from a poor homer ref, and the away team less.
That says something.
It’ll be interesting in the return. A few scores to settle no doubt, and for once, the fans will be BEHIND Barton doing so.
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By the way, I’d like to compliment you on the blog, and the attitude.
Refreshing.
As another lad says, some of the Newcastle sites are awful (the self-praising tosspots of Newcastle Online for one) But some are very good.
And the spite and – gotta be said – baffling HATRED directed at Newcastle by some is absolutely mind boggling. Orchastrated by the NUFC-hating rags, it’s affected rival fans far more than we’d expeceted. The shameful (I still can’t understand this) CELEBRATIONS of Villa and Everton fans in paticular when we went down had us wondering “What the hell for ? We’ve won nothing for 50+ years, and they celebrate as if it’s their derby rivals going down instead of them ?”
We took great pleasure out of paying Villa and their fair weather fans back last week.
We’ve a few more to do !
We’ve had ONE season out of the Prem, yet the media and rival fans act as if we’ve been gone for 30 years. (One moron rag writer Mike Dennis petulantly did a report on us claiming we were “disloyal” (and many rival fans went with it, showing their gullibility) after a 44,000 average in the Championship after they ranted we would desert – he claims that we wanted Hughton out – we have said nothing of the sort, its a pack of bull created by the rags.
So you see why we are more than a bit angry and bitter.
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the ref was ok, the idea that wolves liked the violence on show is akin to what arsenal complain about a lot… your just useless you really are haha. f ill pop in your town with me top on, look for it joppadoni… try to hit me like you hit joey, ill buy you a big mac x
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@Phil K: Interesting what you say as I think Wolves fans tend to see more prejudice towards NUFC than against.
Agree that the ref was weak as well as incompetent but not that Wolves deserved more (or as much) punishment than they got. Also thought it was poor how Atwell backed down when shown obvious disrespect – especially from Newcastle players (Barton refused to come to him for a booking and Nolan refused to come back from a free kick – ref blew his whistle about 10 times then backed down)
@joppadoni: I’d reply to you if I knew what the heck you were talking about.
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Atwell was atrocious yesterday, on eof the most incompetent refereeing displays that I have witnessed in a long time. The match was physical and competitive, and probably the draw was the right result.Having said that the penalty was stone cold in real time and blatantly obvious on the cameras.A competent ref would have seen it and if converted the match essentially over -as Mick called it, so in some respects the Geordies can be regarded as lucky. That physical nature of the match was what MOTD emphasised upon, no doubt Mick had told Karl Henry to look after Barton which he duly did. That this thug/criminal is still be allowed to play football for a living is a matter for conjecture, I certainly wouldn’t want to be associated with a team that employed him. To emphasise how incompetent Atwell was – in the first 1o-15 minutes he had blown up 7 times for fouls -all apparently committed by Wolves and none by Newcastle. Certainly many of these 7 could have gone either way, this with how he missed the Jarvis penalty could leave you to think he had been born in Newcastle! To leave the Geordies on a positive note in Carroll I believe we have seen an England centre forward for the future, he gave Villa a torrid time and looks the part – him and Rooney together could be the England of the future.
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Tough tackling / it’s a physical game / no shrinking violet…whichever way you look at it Mick McArthy was a tough player and clearly had a plan especially for Joey (get him sent off). Shame it didn’t work eh, I applaud Joey for keeping his cool, I wonder how any of the prem’s best would have coped…Lampard, Gerrard, Fabregas, Scholes. Quite simply the ref would have put a stop to it…for the big names. Joey comes with a reputation and that will never change, all he can do is keep cool, play well and influence games in the right way….like he did with another great free kick. Unlucky Mick, maybe think of something else for the SJP return bout.
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I honestly do not think Barton deserved any of his three yellow cards so far this season. The problem yesterday was the referee. He should have booked Henry early on and warned him he would be off if he did it again. Same with any other player tackling hard. I have only heard terrible things about this referee and was not shocked to see him ruin another spectacle.
I like Mick McCarthy ever since he was a pundit on the 1999 Copa America. He identified Barton as being the only player who can pass ball in our midfield and made sure he was nullified.
Some of the posts between our fans have been embarrassing. We played most of last season the way Wolves did yesterday. The referee failed both teams.
Good luck for the rest of the season lads and lasses!
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@Lacedaemonian: Agree wholeheartedly (though don’t know about his previous yellows), and think it’s probably time to move on now.
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geordie jobless scum having a whinge don’t see that every day !!!! @!@
Great blog for a bloody great team
WE ARE WOLVES
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Wolves will be found out this season if they keep up those tactics.
Blatant targeting of Joey Barton was pathetic and obvious for all to see but whether they were trying to physically injure him is open to debate.
Mick McCarthy should be ashamed of himself and his team, an embarrassment to the Premier League.
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I thought that the biggest outrage yesterday was Barton being booked for absolutely nowt after receiving all those crunching tackles.
The ref was a total tosser.
Enjoyed the game though, it was a bit of a throwback to the days of Chopper Harris, Norman Hunter and co.
Nice to see blokes from both sides getting stuck in without too much whinging.
Cant imagine what Wenger will say if Wolves or Newcastle get stuck into Arsenal like they did with each other.
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@Roscoe: Makes perfect sense to target him (fairly). And in fairness, we will always get in the opposition’s face but tend to get more of a chance to pass the ball around too.
@Bert: yep, I though of what poor Wenger would make of it too. I imaging he’s locked in a darkened room already, just to think of anything like that going on near his players.
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@www
The are reports on so many websites and in so many newspapers (non newcastle) about how Barton was UNFAIRLY treated.
The only people believing that it was ‘just tough tackling’ are the wolves fans.
Ironic eh.
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@Roscoe: I was there and I stand by my opinion, partial or otherwise. I saw lots of neutral reports making a lot of the referee, but not so much about Wolves being unfair. (perhaps I’m reading the wrong sites!)
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@www
http://threeandin.com/2010/08/29/its-fun-to-kick-joey-barton/
http://soccerlens.com/wolves-treatment-of-joey-barton/53567/
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Fair cop, there’s a couple there. Still strongly disagree that there was bad intent.
Moving on now…tomorrow I shall blog about flower arranging, which should suit everyone who doesn’t like tackling.
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Ha ha what goes around comes around so stop moaning . Henry will give it Barton at your place aswell and Nolan and smith and any other of your chav thugs who want it.
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Yeah whatever mate… It’s blatant to everyone except wolves fans, funny that!
Good luck for the rest of the season, see you for a thrashing at St James’s! (hope u haven’t been docked points for unsporting play by then)
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Soon see which team was out of order, when the fa hand out the fine for wolves not controling there players.
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Prob get fined for 7 yellows but doesn’t mean the ref was right.
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Roscoe, You weren’t whining last week when u lot got stuck into villa then put 6 past them.
But this week coz we wouldn’t roll over for ya were the dirtiest team in the league, yet u turn up with likes of smith, Barton, Nolan, Carroll etc, expect to turn up and stroll off with 3 points, we ain’t all pussy’s like villa.
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first off, “world wide wolfie” lmao!!!!! walk 5 blocks from your own ground and nobody will know who the wolves are lol!!!! the wolves our about as world wide as the womens professional soccer league here in the states lol… as for the rugby team yall put on the pitch yesterday, thats embarrasing!! if i was a wolves fan i would def not tell anybody after that performance. yall looked like u-12 juvenile felon squad out there. your team is full of a bunch of clod kicking criminals. all yall do is kick clods and make attrocious tackles to break the flow of the game. good news is, yall might finish top half in the championship next season lol…
howay the lads!!!!!
nufc for life
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Your thug henry will be leaving st james in the back of a ambulance which will save your club his return ticket on national express.
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roscoe,
yall do have the dirtiest team in the league and yall are a bunch of pussies lol. when you come to sjp we are gonna throw yall a beating on and off the pitch….we are newcastle united one of the biggest clubs in the world with a rich footballing tradition. you are a wolves, a punk ass tiny club with no tradition. cant wait til yall bitches come to sjp….hwtl and fuck the coyotes
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Stop drinking lads, your embarrassing yourselves. Shame after so many reasonable toon fans willing to have a discussion. “You’re the dirtiest team in the league so we’ll beat you all up”. Funny if it wasn’t so sad. And don’t even get be started on measuring the size of your club.
Official warning they’ll be no more abusive comments posted here from either side. Bored of it.
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yanktoon etc
‘a punk ass club with no tradition’ – how pig ignorant can you get………unbelievable!
Try doing some research – (if you can read) – and learn what a real club with real tradition is actually all about.
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im not drinking lol, yet, read my first comment it was reasonable, but your mate roscoe decided to run his grill and now hes getting return fire. always thought highly of wolves until yesterday. thought yall were a solid club that was building the right way to become a solid prem league club. heard good things about wolves supporters too. but, i now have learned both are gaarbage….
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Apologies to www, but these whinging Geordies are doing my nut in, listening to them it’s hard to believe they have more cards than anyone else in the league.
They all wear halos!!!!
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@grace: yep, angels all, clearly.
@NCFCELITE: think we’ve established we disagree
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@yanktoonthing: Roscoe is a Newcastle fan, so you’re thinking of someone else!
And nope, your first post wasn’t reasonable. Wolves have a fantastic tradition. We’ve struggled in the last 20 years, no doubt, but I don’t think Newcastle fans should be throwing stones in that area.
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World Wide Wolfie your team went way beyond the bounds of acceptable behaver on the pitch yesterday.I have 2 words to say to you wolves fans spec savers
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worldwidewolfie,
on further review i was a bit harsh and disrespectful. i apoligise. in my defense i was worked up over roscoe. i stated in my other comments that until yesterday i thought highly of your club and fans. i stand by my comments about your sides actions on the field. as for your supporters, i cant say anything bad yall are defending your club through hell and highwater like any supporter should. i respect getting stuck in and playing physical but thats not what happened yesterday. there was blatent attempts to burt barton and then your manager who i previously respected started trash talking him in the tunnel. thats not football and surely you lads know that. now im sorry for using abusive language on your blog but not for defending my club and its players as i suspect your not sorry for doing the same. however i will not say im sorry to roscoe. lastly we will see at sjp how this story ends. good day
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@yanktoonsoljah: fair enough and I’ve no problem with you sticking up for your team. Looking forward to a feisty and, I hope, fair, return match.
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sorry roscoe, misread, its grace that had me worked up
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www,
aye, thank you for understanding, and i look forward to the return fixture as well. good luck to yall the rest of the year, especially against sunderland…lol
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No worries – we’ll beat them easy
Good luck for the rest of the season (with one exception).
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lol, aye, you beat sunderland and ill be a wolves fan for a day lol.
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Barton has copped a yellow card for his first foul in each match so far. He is getting a bad time from refs but he has to man up and deal with it.
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Atwell lost it in the first 5 minutes. Doyle, clattered twice. Fouls on Wolves players, waved on time after time. Newcastle getting free kicks every 15 seconds and giving Wolves NOTHING! That set the tone of the game.
7 tackles on Barton over 90 minutes! Shock! Horror!
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Barton also left his foot in on Van Damme, foricing him off with an injury. Not surprisingly, missed by Atwell.
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