Newcastle 1-1 Aston Villa - 8 Things We Learned From Villa Draw
2. 4-4-2 Doesn't Work
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It might work for some teams, but the old 4-4-2 system only works if you have the personnel to match the system, and at the minute Newcastle simply don't. That doesn't mean they aren't good enough, it's simply a matter of playing them in positions that maximise their worth to the team, like playing Jonas Gutierrez more centrally where he looks twice the player than out wide where he seems to run into brick walls, or playing Ben Arfa in a freer role further up the pitch. Both of those examples point towards a 4-3-3 system, and indeed it is that formation which best suits what Alan Pardew has to call upon in terms of player talent. Demba Ba and Papiss Cisse plainly cannot play together as a flat forward two, and though he might not enjoy it, Ba is more valuable to the team further out wide as part of a forward three that also includes Hatem Ben Arfa, with Cisse at the point of the arrow. It is that formation that brought so many good performances at the tail-end of last season, and the decision to drop it despite the presence of exactly the same squad members is just baffling. In 4-4-2 Newcastle look too flat, and suffer when the opposition flood the midfield, or sit back, and it is no coincidence that Newcastle's last three second halves, for which Pardew changed the formation to something closer to 4-3-3, lead to better results than the first halves.