It’s time to stop the anti Ameobi hysteria.
Posted on February 4th, 2012 | 69 Comments |
This comes after recent similar comments about his younger brother and teammate Sammy Ameobi on Twitter. However unlike the case of Ameobi jnr which just seemed to come out of the blue, the Shola case has come on the back of an existing campaign of vilification of the striker from some Newcastle United fans for what they perceive as poor performances. Whilst racism is undoubetedly an awful thing, some of the highly personal attacks which preceded this development have at times tried their hardest to stoop to the same level of nastiness without being overtly racist. Many other stories have already concentrated on the alleged verbal racist attacks though, so I will concentrate instead on the anti Ameobi hysteria which has quite possibly led us to this sad state of affairs. Some of them have been so venomous that sadly it was probably inevitable that it would spill over into racism eventually.
The absence of Newcastle United’s leading goalscorer this season, Demba Ba, has seen Ameobi lead the line in games against Fulham, Brighton (in the FA Cup) and most recently Blackburn Rovers. Whilst none of the performances in those three games could be described as “great” or “brilliant” they were hardly awful either, and certainly haven’t deserved the opprobrium heaped on him by the some of the more ill informed fans.
Poor Shola simply can’t win sometimes. In the Blackburn game he ran tirelessly for much of the game, often running back to do a shift in defence, yet was berated for some fans for being “lazy” because he looked somewhat tired towards the end. His deceptively languorous gait has undoubtedly played a part in similar critism of the player in the past, and of course, it is also a frequent epiphet used by racists towards black men. In the Sky Sports player ratings for that game, he was given a rating of 7 out of ten by the site, along with the comment “Ran himself into ground.” On the other hand fans of his own team gave him slightly over 4 out of ten and it was a fair bit lower than that at one stage. There were also numerous comments by fans on several websites berating his supposedly awful performance in the game.
Of course, first and foremost he he has been blamed for not scoring goals in any of those games while the highly prodigious Demba Ba has been away on international duty in the “Africa Cup of Nations”. However something which has been noticable in the above mentioned games have some strange and confusing tactics, things such as striker Leon Best operating way out on the left with usual left winger, Jonas Gutierrez, seemingly operating in a much freer and more central role, resulting in the side lacking much of a definable “shape”. There has also been no Cheick Tiote as well as one or two slightly lacklustre performances from Hatem Ben Arfa and even Yohan Cabaye in the midfield too. The resulting confusion in the midfield has left Ameobi looking somewhat isolated and lacking service on quite a few occaisions, with the team as a whole on the back foot, defending rather than attacking. Even in the 2-0 victory against Blackburn, the scoreline was highly deceptive, with Blackburn dominating the game in terms of possession, chances and the ball being in our half rather than theirs.
Looking at Ameobi’s long term record, many of his fiercest and nastiest critics seldom offer much in terms of informed criticism, and when they do it is often mistaken and ill informed, like the accusations of laziness I cited above. Instead there is much prating about his goal record (56 goals in 268 Newcastle United appearences) and the usual cliches involving such things as cow’s backsides, banjos etc. However they don’t mention that in all those matches, he has only played for the full 90 minutes only 83 times, spending much of his career in the shadow of more illustrious players such as Alan Shearer, Obafemi Martins and Michael Owen. Perhaps his best period at the club was his rare and shortlived period as a regular starter under Glen Roeder in the latter part of the 2005/6 season and the 2006/7 season. Though he missed many games through injury in those years (one thing which has been something of a bugbear in Ameobi’s career), in the games he did play, he scored 10 goals in 27 appearences, 10 in 25 in the Premiership alone.
Though it’s true that Ameobi certainly isn’t the world’s greatest striker by any means, and not even the greatest at Newcastle United at the moment, many other Newcastle United players who have been no better haven’t had put up with the same kind of treatment he has, and it really is time for some members of Newcastle United’s fanbase to step back from the ill informed hysteria and get behind him for a change.
ps In response to some misleading comments made about Ameobi’s goalscoring record I have checked his stats again and in his Newcastle United career he has scored a goal ever 270 minutes played which is once every three games in real terms. He has also provided three assists this season, and eighteen in his Newcastle United career. (source: transfermarkt)
Poll
NUFCBlog Author: workyticket
workyticket has written 1093 articles on this blog.
Great article, thanks…