Norwich City v Newcastle – Pre-season match preview.
Posted on July 23rd, 2010 | 62 Comments |
Newcastle fans get called many things, some of them unwarranted, but one thing that can’t be denied is that we travel in numbers, and I believe we will be doing much the same at Carrow Road tomorrow afternoon.
Newly promoted Norwich will represent a step up in class over last weeks opponents (Carlisle) and should provide a much sterner test for Newcastle as pre-season begins to get into full swing. One thing last weeks visit to Brunton Park does give us is an insight as to how the game will be approached, which does come in handy and means I won’t be fliying blind like I was last week for my match preview.
I probably won’t be able to guess the team line-up, but what I can say is that it is likely we will have two teams playing again – one for the first half and one for the second, although personnel may be switched around from last week at Carlisle.
Another thing I can tell you is who will be missing out for us. Obviously Steven Taylor won’t be playing as his shoulder injury is still being assesed. Tamas Kadar is another absentee as his groin injury means he will now miss most of pre-season and faces a race against time to be for the big kick-off on August 16th. They both join long-term injury victim Danny Simpson on the sidelines.
On a more positive note, Joans Gutierrez could make an appearance for Newcastle as he is now back with the squad after an extended rest period that was granted after his summer World Cup exploits with Argentina. Luckily he managed to avoid injury and should be a little bit fitter than the rest as he hasn’t had as much time off as the rest of them.
Yet again the result isn’t overly important, although a win would be nice to keep confidence high. I would expect Nile Ranger and Haris Vuckic to feature a bit more than they did last week as I believe their performance was good enough to warrant a starting place, but it really is a case of fitness first so there will be some rotation to ensure everyone gets a bit of workout whilst remaining fresh at the same time.
As ever, the usual pre-season politeness has reared it’s head as both managers take it in turns to talk up the opposition, say how imprtant pre-season is etc etc. Hughton can go first;
“We’re very much looking forward to coming down on Saturday, playing on a good pitch and building on our game at Carlisle on Saturday. Pre-season is all about getting your players ready for the big kick-off and that’s exactly what this game will do.”
“Like us, Norwich had an outstanding campaign last season and will be full of confidence being back in the Championship. They are renowned as a good footballing side and in Paul Lambert have a terrific young manager who did fantastically well in his first season at Carrow Road.
And now Norwich boss, Paul Lambert;
“This really is a great fixture for us to have – Newcastle are a huge club with a great fan-base and they enjoyed a terrific season last time out as they returned to the Premier League at the first time of asking. When you look at what Newcastle achieved at Championship level last season, this really is going to be a great test for us.”
“Chris has done a fantastic job at St James’ Park, regardless of the division you are in, if you want to achieve something you have to go out and win games week-in, week-out and that is never easy.”
That’s all well and good, but I want a win!
Howay the lads!
Date: Saturday, 24th July, 2010.
Time: 3:00pm.
Venue: Carrow Road, Norwich.
NUFCBlog Author: toonsy
toonsy has written 643 articles on this blog.
Can imagine Airey will get some game time also.