Irons into the fire? Newcastle v Scunthorpe match preview.

Posted on March 17th, 2010 | 63 Comments |

Irons into the fire?
Irons into the fire?
This evening will see two United’s meet on the field at St James’ Park, with both United’s having their own very different reasons for taking the points with them.

Newcastle will be looking to extend their unbeaten home run and will want three points for themselves as they continue their push for the Premier League. In contrast, Scunthorpe will want the points to help them in an effort to avoid relegation back to League 1.

I’m sure I don’t need to remind any fans about what happened when we played at Scunthorpe’s Glanford Park back in October, but just in case I do have to remind anyone, we lost 2-1 that night and serious questions started to be asked of our credentials for playing in the Championship. Danny Guthrie, who started the game that night, remembers it well and claims that despite the loss it was the game that shaped our season.

“The Scunthorpe game at their place was a defining moment for us,” said Guthrie, “It proved to be a turning point.”

“We had a moment to ourselves in the dressing room and we just said to ourselves, “Right, this stops here”, because we were on a bit of a bad run. It did stop, and we went on a seven or eight-game winning streak. We’re in a really strong position now.”

I’m sure we can all agree that the team have bounced back spectacularly, losing only once in the 22 league games since then, and hopefully the memory of that defeat will spur the players on to another three points at St James Park.

Moving on to team news…..

Newcastle welcome back Wayne Routledge and Jose Enrique for the visit of Scunthorpe after both were given extended rests in the weekend draw at Middlesbrough. Fabricio Coloccini will be given a fitness test late on Wednesday to see if he has been able to shake off a dead leg sustained at the Riverside. Alan Smith has been ruled out however, his ankle knock causing another game on the sidelines although he should be back in action for the weekend game at Bristol City.

The game comes too early for Joey Barton and Shola Ameobi whilst Mike Williamson and Steven Taylor will be out of action for a few weeks longer. Should Coloccini be passed fit it should leave us with a starting team of:

Newcastle Utd: Harper, Simpson, Hall, Coloccini, Enrique, Routledge, Nolan, Guthrie, Gutierrez, Carroll, Lovenkrands.

Scunthorpe manager Nigel Adkins is not without his share of problems either. Defender and captain Cliff Byrne misses the match as he starts his five game suspension following his red card at Ipswich at the weekend whilst 13 goal striker Gary Hooper is rated as doubtful as he nurses a groin injury. Scunthorpe do however welcome back midfielder Michael O’Connor from a three game ban. In their last game at Ipswich, the Irons lined up with:

Scunthorpe: Murphy, Byrne, Mirfin, Raynes, Williams, Sparrow, Togwell, McCann, Woolford, Hayes, Thompson.

Refereeing the match will be Phil Crossley from Kent who has never officiated a match involving Newcastle United before.

If Newcastle draw it will be their 1000th stalemate in league competition and Scunthorpe have never mustered a league win on Tyneside with their best result being a 1-1 back in 1962. It’s hard to see that changing tomorrow as Scunthorpe’s poor away form goes head to head against Newcastle’s superb home form. It may be tight though as Nigel Adkins likes to set his side out in a 4-5-1 formation away from home with the focus on trying not to give anything away easily.

That said, I’m plumping for 3-0 to the Toon. We have enough in our locker to frighten Scunthorpe and the memories of that October night at Glanford Park should be all the motivation the players need.

Howay the lads!

Venue: St James’ Park

Date: Wednesday, 17th March,

Kick-off: 7:45 pm.

NUFCBlog Author: toonsy toonsy has written 643 articles on this blog.

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63 Responses

  1. we are up up up! when we win tonight book your hols and look forward to the prem which is not all that cop. we wouldnt have to beat much look at chelsea they are old and slow if they stick to that policy come and buy nolan butt and smith off us ha ha

  2. So long as we don’t have another Fulham type night where we had 80% of the game and one of the worst GK’s of the time had an absolute blinder against us. Otherwise I’d agree with your prediction Toonsy 3-0 or better sounds good to me. Especially if Routledge is playing and is up to speed from the off.

  3. i’ll go for the 1000th draw – a boring one at that so take a decent book/magazine to read during the game.

  4. 2-0 home win tonight for me, autmatic promotion sealed when we beat forrest at home I reckon, then push on to the title from there.

    I know its a fizzy pop trophy, but its a trophy dammit!

  6. Cullen I’m with you on that one, a trophy’s a trophy and frankly, as a toon fan, I think it’ll be nice to see the lads lift SOMETHING at the end of the season!

    harper
    simspson colo kadar enrique
    routledge guthrie nolan gutierez
    carrol lovekrands

    boom, 5-1 the toon :)

  7. BIG WILLY hows the writing coming along m8,over your block yet?might come back strong when we go up :)

  8. if we dont get early goal i might go a just a little better than roy c 1-0,if we score early it will be dif

  10. I’d rather we didn’t celebrate winning the Championship like we’d won the Champions League – How embarassing is that?

    I’ll take 2nd place and promotion.

  11. for once stuart i agree with you! If we do win the league id like it kept as low key as possible

  12. Play Jonas and Routledge with Guthrie in the middle and attack them from the off.

  13. Johno Toon says:
    March 17, 2010 at 1:15 pm
    for once stuart i agree with you! If we do win the league id like it kept as low key as possible

    For once????

  14. Embarassing? Surely not, at the beginning of this season the whole world (besides the bookies, infact) had us down to do a leeds. I, for one, will be celebrating if we go up champions.

  15. Yeah! Well over last while in anyways! I always find you very negative , im not saying your wrong to be or anything , I was readin what you were saying yesterday how you supprt the team on the pitch which is fair enough but id be more confident next season than you would

  16. win the league then put mike and his gimp on an open top bus and drive it round town on a friday night so we can all show our appreciation of them.

    – better still , tie the two of them to the back of it and drag them round & give them a good kicking when they pass you.

  17. Icedog, yeah nowt like the feelgood factor for inspiration. My problem according to my missus is that I’m a tommorrow will do sort of person, I do get there in the end though.
    As for celebrating I bet theres going to be several thousand joyous geordies on the pitch after the first home game where we have promotion never mind the title won. And more than a few glasses of wine slurped, Naah something wrong there we aint Chelsea, bottles of Broon I meant.

  19. If/when it happens, i’ll be taking it all in my stride,
    back to square one.
    Back where we belong.
    Sounds like a cue for a song.
    :)

  20. Naah – celebrate like loons, I say.

    We took so much stick from press and other fans a year ago, with so many people sneering at “another Leeds” and how the fans would abandon the club.

    Win that cup and ram it down their throats, I say.

    Long way to go, mind. WBA are up close and sniffing about.

    Tonight, though, I see another thrashing in the off. 5-0.

    Guthrie, Nolan, Loverboy and a brace from Carroll.

    (If you’re gonna predict, be specific, I say!)

  21. Right, my missus is a Guild Wars fanatic, not bad for a grannie and OAP!! And is dragging me away from the blog to participate in some slaughtering of innocent monsters with her. Catch you all later. ;)

  22. Hmmmm~~~~~~~;););)

    Following the long- awaited unveiling of his mask against Barnsley, plans for fans to wear similar masks in honour of Jonas Gutierrez have sprung up across the web.

    This is planned to happen at the televised home game v Nottingham Forest on Mon March 29th.

    Masks are available from various outlets, but the Magicbox branch on Percy Street in the City Centre have now agreed to donate £1 from each £9.99 mask sold (as above) to the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation.

  23. Too right Whumpie.

    Though I reckon Gutierrez will get one, I’ve been saying that every game since he signed though.. I’ve been right twice mind!

  24. I’ve heard the term “do a Leeds” a lot this season – which people often refer to with respect to suffering successive relegations.

    What everyone seems to forget is that Leeds did ok in their first season in the Championship. In fact they actually made it to the play-off final, where they were beaten beat 3-0 by Watford.

    It wasn’t until the season after that they were relegated to League 1.

    Anyway, none of that should matter, as I fully expect us to secure automatic promotion within the next 3-4 weeks! :)

  28. what do you mean you dotn want us to celebrate if we go up?? WTF?? after all that has happened and al lthat has been said. i was seriously worried we would do a leeds and drop right through the fizzy league and go league one. this bunch of players and thsi manager have done wonders and they deserve a really good party as we all do when we go up. Think about it, all our big name players left like fucking rats, no big name manager, serious issues with knobber ashley, money issues, you name it….. we were written off by everyone (me included tbh). So what has been acheived is a true success in my books. You know, sometimes you have to take a step backwards to go forwards in life. Thats what we have had to do for many reasons. Our club was full of rot and decay and in my opinion, getting relegated has been needed to clear the decks of al lthe s**theads. what we have left is nothing but a bunch of players that WANT to play for us and they ALL respect their manager. So, if you dont want to celebrate go ahead, i myself think thats pretty sad. Christ… one post on here has said he would rather we came second in this league??? madness.

  29. I have a feeling he might not risk Colo and will play Kadar instead with Hall. Enrique will probably start by the sounds of it.

    As long as we don’t take this for granted, I think we’ll run out 2-0 winners and it might be comfortable and a little tedious by the end.

  32. Craig Im not sayind dont celebrate it but i think we should keep it as low key as possible. One of the reason would be so people dont see us coming next season , let them under estamate us

  33. Out off topic why don’t Cris give neo benhag and frank Daque a first team football ..tozer and Morris are very well developed and they r still on the reaserv side …if they were at arenal they would have been a star …

  34. craig chisholm says:
    March 17, 2010 at 2:24 pm

    I think you’re referring to my comment – Actually the quote is ‘I’ll take 2nd and promotion’. Nowhere does it say I would rather finish 2nd.

  35. why take second when you are 1 clear with two games in hand – defeatist attitude… we should be going all out to nail this league. second is all but in the bag, 1st is the prize and thats is what we will get

  36. I dont’t think open top bus parades and street parties are needed, but we can and should at least afford ourselves SOME celebration.

    As Craig has said, many people wrote us off and the pre season odds of around 10-1 seem to indicate we were viewed as outsiders for auto promotion. To be where we are is a fantastic achievement, even though it was expected by some.

    All you have to do is have a look at any blog pages/internet site/forum and go back to the summer, go back to that 6-1 at Leyton Orient and read what people were saying.

    It’s only then you realise just how well we have actually done this season.

    Isn’t it nice toi be able to watch/listen players that actually choose to be here? Don’t get me wrong, of course they are remunerated well for it but it shouldn’t detract from the fact that most of our current squad could have got a move somewhere else if they really angled for it, like Martins, Beye etc.

  37. Henock – They are still in the reserves because they are pap, or not good enough for the first team.

    The manager and coaches see far more of them than we do so I’ll trust their judgement more.

  39. But,
    like toonsy says, no need for open-topped buses either.
    Maybe spray a couple of cans of pepsi around to celebrate getting out of the coke league, bollox to that red’n’white slop.
    :)

  42. Craig,

    So if we didn’t finish 1st you wouldn’t be happy with 2nd? Weird!

    I said I would take 2nd and getting promoted – Obviously 1st would be better, but the objective of the season is promotion, winning that poxy trophy just doesn’t even enter my thoughts.

  43. I’d like to celebrate with a little humility and a magnanimous attitude, in a manner not unlike our saviour, Chris Hughton. Rather than shouting from the rooftops at anyone who’d listen, I’d like to give detractors a knowing look, go in a bar and lock the doors on them and just go fecking mental.

  44. Craig,
    Aye,
    that would be well worthy of celebration,
    & no mistake.
    Fall down drunk variety.
    :)

  46. Bang on BBM.

    Does anyone know if the game is streaming tonight? Can’t make it up t the ground like

  47. Doubt it Dave, probably just be on the wireless. I haven’t seen it listed anywhere.

  49. Yep, well put Craig.

    Not sure about the open-top bus, but anyone who doesn’t want to recognise and celebrate the achievements of this team (and managers) is missing the point of supporting a club in the first place.

    I just read the latest Terry Pratchett book (sad, I know) which is about football and gets it all spot on.

    The quote on the back is brilliant:

    “THE THING ABOUT FOOTBALL… THE REALLY IMPORTANT THING ABOUT FOOTBALL… IS THAT IT’S NOT ABOUT FOOTBALL”.

  50. Thought as much Toonsy, cheers anyway fella.

    Big score tonight I reckon like, 3-0 minimum I feel. Hopefully. Maybe. Probably.

  51. I think CH should give a chance to Nicky to prove his worth for England and impress Capello by playing him as a support striker behind Loven.

  53. @52 ..bang on the waccy backy, more like :)

    I may have to log on and listen to the commentary on this one.
    By the way, has anyone else noticed that the highlights go onto the .cock website much quicker these days? Unreliable servers still, though.

  55. I fancy us for another goalfest. With our defensive injuries he has to go forward and defend from the front.

  56. Nicky Butt for England??? Wake up and smell the coffee bud, or are you a wind up merchant? It was Butt’s stupid schoolboy trip that gave the Smogs the free kick that led to their second goal. Typical of the man, we’ve seen it time and again unfortunately

  57. @ Monument Mal. I find it hard to understand how is it a wind up if I voice my support to Newcastle player!? Keep faith, he can make it! I just placed 20 pounds on paddy for Nickys call up!

  59. oi oi… been a while since I have been on the boards like…. not since the .com version of this blog went down, bit like the toon really. In the states now and can’t get a radio link to listen to teh match. Any of yous gotta link to a non UK ip so I can have a deeks of the match like?

  60. d¡ngo©™ says:
    March 17, 2010 at 6:38 pm

    “Any of yous gotta link to a non UK ip so I can have a deeks of the match like?”

    Dingo, There’s usually a few links posted on the “Match Banter” blog on here, which will be published around 45 minutes before the game.

  63. SouthernFan –

    There’s usually a few links posted on the “Match Banter” blog on here, which will be published around 45 minutes before the game.

    better gan te speksavers mate :P