Tricky trees? Newcastle United v Nottingham Forest – match preview.
Posted on March 28th, 2010 | 90 Comments |
Very much the game of the weekend as far as the Championship is concerned and many fans will be able to tune into live Sky TV coverage of the 1st place vs 3rd place clash.
Nottingham Forest are now one of only two sides remaining that can ‘do the double’ over us this season after they beat us 1-0 at the City Ground earlier in the season via a Dexter Blackstock goal on the stroke of half-time. Back then though Forest were flying and sweeping teams aside comfortably. Things are very different now, particularly away from home where they have struggled badly in recent weeks failing to win in their last six away games. In contrast, Newcastle have been fantastic at home and now boast the only unbeaten home record in the football league.
In previous meetings it has been Newcastle that again hold the upper hand. Of the 54 league game between the two sides Newcastle have emerged victorious on 29 occasions compared to Forest’s 12. The last meeting at St James’ Park was over a decade ago in 1998 where the Tonn ran out comfortable 2-0 victors.
Newcastle can expect a flood of new faces back from injury for this most important game. Shola Ameobi, Peter Lovenkrands, Alan Smith and Mike Williamson all come back into the squad although fitness levels will dictate if any of them can start. Williamson should be fine as his hand injury would not have prevented him from training. Steven Taylor has been out for three months now and now looks like he will miss the remainder of the season and Fitz Hall misses out with a hamstring strain. The team should be:
Newcastle: Harper, Simpson, Coloccini, Williamson, Enrique, Routledge, Nolan, Guthrie, Gutierrez, Carroll, Lovenkrands.
Forest go into the game still missing Paul McKenna and Julian Bennett although one time Newcastle target James Perch should be back in the squad to add to their numbers having missed last weekend’s win over Crystal Palace with a recurrance of a foot injury. Manager Billy Davies can rotate his front men and also has on loan midfielder George Boyd to call on if needs be. They lined up against Palace with this starting XI:
Forest: Camp, Gunter, Morgan, Wilson, Chambers, Cohen, Moussi, Anderson, Majewski, Earnshaw, Blackstock.
Officiating the match will be Premier League referee Alan Wiley who last took control of a Newcastle game in the FA Cup tie down in Plymouth in January.
As for the game, it will be tough. Forest know this is the last chance saloon and if they are to maintain their slim hopes of automatic promotion then they will need to take all three points away with them. On the other hand, Newcastle know that if they take the points then they are only a maximum of 3 wins away from guaranteed promotion. It should make for an interesting game.
My prediction: Newcastle 3-1 Forest. I think we will be too strong for them and roared on by an expected bumper crowd I feel our boys have enough in the tank to secure a massive result.
Howay the lads!
Date: Monday, 29th March, 2010.
Time: 7:45pm.
Venue: St James’ Park.
NUFCBlog Author: toonsy
toonsy has written 643 articles on this blog.
Going to be a strange game this one.
Forest really need a win if they are to have any realistic chance of automatic promotion. So do they push forward and take the game to us and risk being left wide open, or do they sit back and hope to get to half time 0-0 then go for it?
I think they’ll go for it right from the start, and I think it’ll be a really great game. There could be quite a few goals in it.
I’m tempted to go for a 3-1 home win but it could just as easy be 2-2.
All in all I wouldn’t be too dissapointed with a draw considering we don’t HAVE to win this, we just don’t need to lose.