Demolition DERBY
The talking’s over, but who will still be standing after BigSamand Rafa clash?
SAM ALLARDYCE has an idea of how he would combat a Newcastle opponent reinvigorated by one of the world’s most decorated managers and inspired by an enthusiastic home crowd.
‘I would have talked my opposing player out of having a good game. I would not have physically had to challenge them,’ said the former Sunderland defender and now boss, offering his take on how to emerge victorious in today’s Tyne-Wear derby, the biggest in the history of the fixture. ‘I would have said, “Have you read the hospital menu?”.’
The Royal Victoria Infirmary is a goal-kick away from St James’ Park and, for Allardyce and Rafa Benitez, this derby certainly comes with a health warning.
Benitez has spent the past week attempting to diagnose his team’s ills. All casual days off between now and the end of the season have been scrapped — only post-match rest days are prescribed — and he has ordered double training sessions this week. He knows, however, that their chances of survival are hindered by a squad whose make-up is perhaps best suited to a 1-8-1 formation, such is their dearth of quality in defence and attack.
‘We are not scoring goals and we are conceding a lot of goals, so we have problems everywhere,’ said Benitez, returning a brutally honest assessment after just seven days in the job. ‘When you have a team at the bottom of the table you know something is wrong. It could be the mentality, it could be the confidence. They have quality, the team has some good players.’
Benitez is right, quality does reside among his number. For 45 minutes at the Stadium of Light in October, Steve McClaren’s Newcastle toyed with their hosts. But when they failed to score and had captain Fabricio Coloccini sent off in first-half stoppage time after giving away a penalty, luck was suddenly with the Black Cats.
Allardyce enjoyed his first victory as Sunderland boss that day and, despite previous talk of intimidation tactics, he knows the importance of keeping 11 men on the park this afternoon.
‘You can’t go around going through people and giving them reducers and making them know they’re in a game like they used to in the old days,’ he said. ‘Now, if you dare go down that route you end up with the worst thing ever and that is losing a player.
‘You have to control emotion. If you lose that emotional control and just go tearing around like a lunatic thinking, “I’m going to dribble past eight players, take a corner and run in the box and head it in myself”, you’ll never win with Roy of the Rovers.’ If only Benitez could call on Roy Race. Instead, he has comic- strip villain Aleksandar Mitrovic, the £13million striker whose name has troubled the referee’s notebook as many times as it has the scoresheet this season.
The Serbian, who has scored five goals this campaign, has been the subject of Benitez’s special attention in recent days.
‘When I was watching games on the TV I could see that he has great potential,’ he said. ‘After training with him, he’s working very hard. He can score goals. He knows what he has to do and we are trying to tell the people around him what he’s capable of doing, so they can try to help him.’
Goals have long since been a problem for this Newcastle team. They have not scored against Sunderland at St James’ Park for four years and, following the 3-0 collapse on Wearside in the autumn, have now lost a record six straight derbies.
Benitez concedes it would be a ‘disaster’ to lose a seventh. They would, however, be losing far more than another match against their regional rivals — for with the surrender of their top-flight status also goes Benitez.
Allardyce knows the home fans will be motivated by that fear. ‘There will be an effect because of Rafa,’ he said. ‘The fans will stay with the team longer than they would have done [with McClaren].
‘They can be the extra man if we let them get that high-pitch level of enthusiasm they show when their team is playing well. Your team can find that intimidating.’
And that is what today’s contest will come down to — the team who holds their nerve amid unprecedented levels of noise, anxiety and partisan passion.
It is the Demolition Derby where the bold and the brave will be rewarded, where an inescapable pressure will reveal which of these teams — as Allardyce likes to put it — has the ‘balls’ for the fight. Were he still a player, Allardyce would trade insults and threats in a bid to gain the advantage. ‘I’d love to play in this derby,’ he added.
He and Benitez can only hope that their players share the same passion and desire.
When you are at the bottom you know something is wrong - Benitez