Newcastle: 7 Problems Pardew Still Needs To Fix Before QPR

4. Full-back Positioning

Newcastle have been lucky in the past few games that nobody has really tried to get around the back of the full-backs. Teams have found that going through the middle - whether through an attacking midfield pair (as Liverpool tried) or off a big striker (as West Brom did) - simply doesn't work with Mehdi Abeid and Jack Colback playing so deep. Sooner or later though, opponents are going to do their homework and realise that Janmaat's high starting position (remember he used to be a wing-back) and Paul Dummett's positional naivety (he's a centre-half) mean running around the full-backs, or dropping the ball behind them will pay dividends. Even against Liverpool, the only thing that worked for the Reds was Steven Gerrard's long cross-field balls that dropped behind the full-backs, and though Liverpool didn't do anything with it, it showed Newcastle's weakness. Janmaat and Dummett (assuming he's still first choice left-back) need to work more on their positional sense, before opponents cotton on that that is where they're going to profit most.