Whitbread: Norwich v. Newcastle: 12/10 {R}

Zak did have some fault on Demba Ba's goal. It was a lovely ball played slightly diagonally over the top, mind you, but Ba got in between the CB's. Ba was coming off Zak's left shoulder and ran right across him. Zak saw it late, tried to shift him off to the other CB but the defender was too high. Ba finished fairly easily. Fault was equally split on this one. Other than that Zak was error free. He looked very comfortable and didn't have any errant passes out of the back. Not an earth shattering performance but decent. I'd rate him somewhere between 5 and 5.5.

 

Totally slipped my mind. I watched the game live but then watched a replay of the 2nd half on FSC. Originally I didn't think it was Zak. But here's a run down of the play. Zak was forced to dribble on the left hand side at the half-way line. The Newastle player closed him down, he turned to shield the ball, eventually found space to turn towards the attacking end but sadly it was right into the opponent caughing the ball up eventually leading to Ba's 2nd goal. Definitely at fault for the turnover. However two teammates just stood there and never gave him a proper passing lane. If they move Zak can make a pass and danger is avoided. Zak, though, has to recognize that a spilt second earlier, too.