Was interested to see the player ratings for Newcastle players vs West Ham. As much as I appreciate effort put in about Newcastle, is there any point giving ratings if the match wasnt actually watched.....it described Lee having an average game in midfield- he actually played sweeper and had an outstanding game...ahem ;-)

------------------

Dear nb, I wrote the Newcastle player ratings vs West Ham (1-0), and am glad that you noticed this mistake because I did indeed watch the match, but since Robert Lee is usually considered a midfielder I described his contribution as "Lee: From the midfield, often helped with defensive duties - 6". I suppose this particular change that Bobby Robson introduced to his line up confused me, I apologise, as the official Newcastle website (http://www.nufc.co.uk/newindex.html) reveals:

"There was a full debut for new Chilean midfielder Clarence Acuna, and risking the Magpies down to the bare bones defensively, Robson employed Robert Lee as his sweeper in a 3-5-2 formation, that saw Noel Solano and fit again Andy Griffin patrol the flanks as wing-backs."

In fact, if you navigate to the that site's player profile for Lee, it reads:

"A powerful presence in midfield, and the springboard for so many good moves, he occupies a deeper role now than in his early days at Newcastle, when he scored regularly from an attacking midfield position."

I gave him an average rating (6), despite a relatively good performance, because he was involved in the goal against, as again the Newcastle website itself reports: "And the Croatian striker needed only two minutes to make his mark on the game when he picked up the ball on West Ham's right flank and drifted inside, before sliding a pass beyond Robert Lee for Kanoute to rifle beyond Given's reach at the near post."

Thank you very much for pointing this out; I have altered my description, but not rating, in the article as a result. Please do not hesitate to contact me or anyone else at SoccerAge.com should you have any more comments, questions, or suggestions in the future.

Best wishes, Mauro Lo Dico Data Archive Assistant maurold@soccerage.com _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com.

-- Anonymous, October 30, 2000

Answers

Decent of him to answer that sort of mail but the answer is mostly nonsense. Why quote the official site when he said he watched the match. Ah well i must be bored going on about this ;-)

-- Anonymous, October 30, 2000