Team Focus: Motivation the Key as Carver Fails to Arrest Newcastle Decline

It’s almost impossible not to look at John Carver and feel sad. He is a man disintegrating before the eyes of the world, a man who has woken to the realisation that he might be about to lead the club he keeps on reminding us he loves to relegation.
 
In January, Carver was still bright-eyed. He had unexpectedly been given a shot at his dream job and was revelling in it. During a defeat at Chelsea, Jose Mourinho in trying to return the ball to the pitch accidentally kicked it so it struck Carver on the backside. The two benches roared with laughter. This was fun. Mourinho hugged Carver and, told him that if his side kept playing like that he should get the job permanently. Carver gleefully relayed his words to his post-match press-conference.
 
That was his first game as manager. Newcastle had 27 points and lay 10th in the league. Of the six games that followed, Newcastle won two and drew two. They had 35 points and were 11th. Then the real rot set in, a run of eight straight defeats that is their worst run in almost 40 years. As performances have become increasingly sluggish and ill-disciplined, Carver has slowly lost the plot.

 
After the defeat at Sunderland, he admitted to being “embarrassed” by Newcastle’s performance and suggested half of his side had been terrified of the derby atmosphere. The defeat at Leicester on Saturday was a nadir: a 3-0 defeat and two men sent off. Carver’s claim that Mike Williamson had deliberately got himself sent off appears to have been some misguided attempt to provoke a reaction from his squad, but it suggested a man out of his depth, madly thrashing about.
 
The farce of the failure to appoint Steve McClaren has only destabilised Carver further and relegation, almost unthinkably, has become a possibility. Newcastle are fortunate in that their final three games are against West Brom, QPR and West Ham, two teams with nothing to play for and a side that is almost certain to go down, but they need somehow to rouse themselves to win at least one match. Saturday’s capitulation suggested there is little in the way of professional pride left.
 
What’s striking at first when comparing Carver’s reign with that of Alan Pardew, his predecessor, is how similar their stats are. Under Carver, Newcastle have had less of the ball – 45.5% to 48.7% under Pardew. The corollary of that has been that they’ve made more tackles and interceptions as they’ve sought to regain possession. They’ve had slightly fewer shots, a small differential that have led to a huge differential in goals scored. Even on Saturday, Newcastle managed a pass success rate of 75%, better than Leicester (who admittedly play a more direct style).

The biggest problem on Saturday, in fact, was that Newcastle won only 14 aerial duels while Leicester won 36 – as Carver said, if players aren’t even challenging for headers, it’s a sign of a complete lack of motivation: players effectively avoiding doing something that might cause them pain because they’ve given up on the club.
 
In terms of shots conceded, there’s even been a slight improvement, although the fact that Newcastle are conceding significantly more goals under Carver suggests that the type of chance conceded has changed. That may be a result of the other recent factor, which is the number of simple, individual errors Newcastle are making – an indication of the complete mental collapse the club seems to have suffered.
 
And that, really, is the big worry. This may not be a great side, but it was good enough for two thirds of the season to exist comfortably in mid-table. Since then, though, as everything has spiralled out of control, Newcastle have become a team who find ways to lose. Carver, struggling desperately, doesn’t seem to have the strength of personality or clarity of thought to arrest the decline.
 

Do you think Newcastle will be relegated this season? Let us know in the comments below