Kinnear's caution pays off with emphatic win

Dec 15 2008 by Stuart Rayner, The Journal

AS well as lifting them out of the relegation zone, interim manager Joe Kinnear believes Newcastle United’s first away win in the Premier League this season was vindication for their safety-first policy.

The Magpies beat Portsmouth 3-0 yesterday to end a run of four consecutive draws.

It was their fourth clean sheet in their last seven matches and at times they erred on the side of caution, but it paid dividends when Michael Owen, Obafemi Martins and Danny Guthrie found the net. With six draws from their previous ten games under Kinnear, United’s habit of consistently claiming solitary points was being called into question in some quarters, but the manager felt those questions were emphatically answered at Fratton Park.

“I’m delighted,” he said. “People are harping on week in, week out that we haven’t been winning away, so it puts that record straight.

“We’re hard to beat away from home first and foremost and then it’s a case of taking what we can and creating opportunities at the other end. We’ve got that mentality into the players now. We’ve been getting a bit of criticism recently because we’ve had so many draws but the

philosophy ain’t going to change.” With two of the Premier League’s most dangerous strikers – Owen and Martins now have 13 league goals between them this season – defence has been Kinnear’s top priority since taking temporary control of a team engulfed in a relegation battle.

“When I came they were lacking in confidence and direction and they probably didn’t work as hard as I do at coaching on defensive situations,” he explained. “We normally have four days a week working on the defence because I believe it’s the most important part of football.

“It’s always difficult to teach strikers to score goals – they either have it or they haven’t – whereas defensively you need to work on that as a unit day in, day out. I know people were saying we were getting too many draws for the position we were in but if you look at the teams we’ve been playing, they’ve been decent results.”

Kinnear viewed it as one of the club’s best away performances under his management, though he valued the 0-0 at Stamford Bridge even more highly. And the uncharacteristic ability to grind out results such as the one at Chelsea is slowly dragging United towards safety.

“In our last three away games we’ve claimed clean sheets,” he pointed out. “When I took the job we were 10 points behind Blackburn, 10 behind Man City. We’ve gradually got ourselves up and running and now we’re a few points in front of those teams and very close to the rest. I don’t know many teams who come here and win by three goals.”

Kinnear’s opposite number Tony Adams admitted his team contributed to their own downfall.

Newcastle’s first two goals came from moves which started with Portsmouth in possession. “I didn’t think it was our day,” he said.

“We made mistakes and gave them goals and you don’t win games making mistakes.

“The first goal (Owen’s) was very important either way.

“Jay (Jermain Defoe) on another day would have got a hat-trick. I’d have been delighted to walk away with a very boring 0-0 but we gave them goals.

“Credit to them, they came out to do a job and did it very well. They were difficult to break down and they’ve got talented players.

“But we still had a good enough team to win the game. It’s a fine line this season. We could quite easily go to St James’s and beat them (by) three.”