After such a great victory, it's really not too wise to indulge too long on criticising the men on the field but this entry is more a reflection of a glaring problem Newcastle have in their team and that's the under-equipped left hand side. Dummett still looks incredibly vulnerable at full-back. He's a centre-half who because he has a left-foot and was born in town, the club have plonked him there to simultaneously solve the issue of a lack of local grit in the team and to save the investment on buying a new man. If he was born in another country and his name was more glamorous, there's no way Newcastle scouts would recommend him for their team... but here we are with an average player playing in an uncomfortable position that makes him sub-average. Picking up a knock in the second half, Dummett was brought off with Jack Colback covering. That may work ok for plugging gaps for 30 or so minutes in a game now and again but it's not a solution that should see out the rest of the reason. Newcastle desperately need a more comfortable left-back if they are going to be more balanced. They need a left-winger too but we'll talk more about that in the next entry... As one of my colleagues put it at WhatCulture.com recently, PSV's highly exciting, young left-back Jetro Willems has somewhat been openly flirting with Newcastle on Twitter and has seemingly become a fan with all the Dutch connections in our team. His good friend is Gigi Wijnaldum and they linked up so well together in the Eredivisie, it seems so obvious for Newcastle to drum up the cash to improve a weak position with some real quality. The window isn't over quite yet, so there's still hope it may happen.
Matt Holmes is the co-founder of What Culture, formerly known as Obsessed With Film. He has been blogging about pop culture and entertainment since 2006 and has written over 10,000 articles.
