Many of Newcastle United supporters who can only watching the game on television broadcasting or listening to their radio coverage may have been wondering why Big Sam replacing Alan Smith at Stamford Bridge on Saturday night.
The fact is Smudger was suffering from severe concussion after his clash of heads with Abdoulaye Faye.
Sam Allardyce, confirmed on the official announcement today, said that the United skipper was not having any serious injury following the sickening clash, but Allardyce would have to wait until Monday to see if Smith will be fit to face Manchester City at St.James’ Park on Wednesday.
Alan Smith has been handed in the skipper’s arm band following the departure of Geremi next month for the African Cup of Nations.
On the game last Saturday where the Geordies were heading for a well-earned 1-1 draw, the officials failed to spot a blatant offside in the dying minutes which allowed Salomon Kalou to fire a close range winner for the Blues. That’s a cruel decision and also the alarm sign for the English FA to find the best way to prevent the same situation to happens again.
“It’s not a decision that can be judged in terms of ‘it was close’ it was just a major decision that went against us – a clear offside by two or three yards.” Allardyce said, “The ball hit Pizarro, I think it was, and dropped to a Chelsea player in an offside position who put it in the net.”
Without giving any side as to have the right decision and telling the truth, I personally thought we have to work on the way to make us comfortable in any games. We should be aware of this kind of ‘bad decidion’ and have to well prepared to avoid it. We need to play more harder and keep focus on the goals, so we will not have to complaining about any referee decision again.