Bonny Donny? – Doncaster v Newcastle United match preview.
Posted on March 22nd, 2010 | 106 Comments |
Granted we haven’t been losing away from home but we have had a fair few draws on the road in recent weeks. At this stage of the season, it’s imperative that these draws turn into wins for Newcastle to fulfil the Championship winners title that has been thrust upon them in recent weeks.
Doncaster are unbeaten in six matches, having won three of them, and are a team that like to play football. There is no doubt O’Dricoll’s charges will be seeking the scalp of Newcastle United in front of their home fans, many of which wouldn’t have seen the Toon in competitive action as we visit them in a league game for the first time in 63 years.
Manager Sean O’Driscoll has The Rovers perched just outside the play-off places with the aim of sneaking into that elusive 6th position. It won’t be an easy game, but these are games we simply have to win, sentiments our Argentinian winger, Jonas Gutierrez shares:
“We were pleased to pick up a point at Bristol, but now we want to get all three points against Doncaster.”
“We want to pick up where we left off at Bristol and get the points we need to secure promotion.”
Moving on to team news, the home side welcome back Billy Sharp, after he sat out the weekend match against Sheffield United as part of a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ of his loan move from The Blades. Gareth Roberts is Doncaster’s only injury concern but could feature if his hamstring strain recovers in time. That should leave the home team lining up like:
Doncaster: Sullivan, O’Connor, Roberts, Chambers, Martis, Wilson, Oster, Woods, Coppinger, Emmanuel-Thomas, Sharp.
Injuries galore as far as Newcastle are concerned, especially defensively. Fitz Hall misses out after limping out of the game against Bristol City with a hamstring strain, Steven Taylor is still out of action and Mike Williamson still has a broken hand although could be called back into action early as an emergency. Joey Barton makes the first team squad for the first time since September, but is likely to be named as just a substitute. Shola Ameobi, Peter Lovenkrands and Alan Smith are all ruled out but should be back for the Nottingham Forest game next Monday.
Again it is up for debate whether manager Chris Hughton will play 4-5-1 or 4-4-2. I’d go with the latter again as we saw at the weekend just how much our wingers can influnce the game. Mike Williamson will probably be rested or possibly named as a substitute only to be called upon if Fabricio Coloccini or Tamas Kadar fall foul of our currrent injury curse. The only other debate is who will start up front? Again I think it will be Leon Best who partners Andy Carroll in attack which would make us look something like:
Newcastle Utd: Harper, Simpson, Coloccini, Kadar, Enrique, Routledge, Nolan, Guthrie, Gutierrez, Carroll, Best.
The Keepmoat will be packed to the rafters for this match and will include 3,200 travelling fans. Let’s hope this time we can head back up the A1 with three points in the bag before our crunch game with Nottingham Forest next week. The lads have shown in recent weeks that they are hard to beat and have a steely resolve that us fans haven’t seen from any Newcastle players for a long time.
Howay the lads!
Venue: Keepmoat Stadium.
Date: Tuesday, 23rd March, 2010.
Time: 7:45 pm.
NUFCBlog Author: toonsy
toonsy has written 643 articles on this blog.
We so have to win this game.
Howaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!