Newcastle v Sunderland – Derby day match preview.

Posted on October 30th, 2010 | 78 Comments |

SMB's, you will see!
SMB's, you will see!
Derby day fever is starting to get in full swing and we are now less than 24 hours away from the event itself.

The cheesy chip eating, trampy blue pop drinking brigade will be ruining the look of the landscape in Newcastle for a few hours tomorrow afternoon, so let’s hope we can send their distorted faces back home without anything to smile about!

Sunderland are wandering around at the moment believing they are the best, and they could have some justification for that to be honest. Afterall, they didn’t spend last season in The Championship, unlike us.

Still, I have a newsflash for them – they are not as good as they seem to think they are!

A bit of luck, and a few own goals have gained them points at home against some good teams. If they had lost that bit of luck then they wouldn’t have anywhere near as many points as they have now. To illustrate just how a bit of luck can play a part in the table, if we had some luck we would be four points better off already.

Steven Taylor will miss the match although he is back in full training and will be back in contention for a first-team recall soon enough. Unfortunately the same can’t be said for Dan Gosling, Hatem Ben Arfa, Steve Harper, Sol Campbell and Leon Best.

The formation will be key tomorrow in my opinion. Sunderland are likely to play a 4-5-1 formation, so it depends whether or not Chris Hughton decides to match up to them or stick with the two strikers up top.

If we play a 4-4-2 I suspect that we will lose the midfield battle as we will be outnumbered. If we match up to them it will be more of a level playing field in the midfield, but it will leave us looking rather light up front. It’s a call that Chris Hughton has to make, but I would like to see a team of;

NewcastleTim Krul, Danny Simpson, Mike Williamson, Fabricio Coloccini, Jose Enrique, Wayne Routledge, Joey Barton, Cheick Tiote, Jonas Gutierrez, Kevin Nolan, Andy Carroll.

Having said that I can easily see us starting with two up front tomorrow and playing Joey Barton on the right of midfield again in a carbon copy of the team and formation that done so well at West Ham a week ago.

Sunderland will be missing Frazier Campbell and David Meyler who are both long-term absentees. As far as injury news goes that is about it for them to be honest.

In their last match, a 1-0 win over Aston Villa, Darren Bent didn’t actually score! Instead it was the turn of their second highest goalscorer ‘own goal’ to take some of the limelight as Richard Dunne rather unexplicably put through his own net to gift the spanners a win at the Stadium of Light last weekend. It was their first win without the intervention of Darren Bent scoring for 14 months, but call them a one man team and they get ever so defensive……. Their team for that game was;

SunderlandSimon Mignolet, Nedum Onuoha, Michael Turner, Titus Bramble, Phil Bardsley, Ahmed Al-Muhammadi, Jordan Henderson, Lee Cattermole, Steed Malbranque, Danny Welbeck, Darren Bent.

Newcastle hold the upper hand in terms of Tyne-Wear rivalry, and that is a fact that won’t be changed tomorrow regardless of the outcome. This will be the 144th meeting between the two sides. Newcastle have won 51, Sunderland 46 and there have been 46 draws. It’s also been ten years since Sunderland managed a win on Tyneside with their last win coming way back in 2000 courtesy of a Niall Quinn header.

It will be a tough game, as derbies always are, and form goes out of the window to coin a cliche. There is no doubt that I am up for it already and I will be in The Gallowgate End screaming the lads on to what will hopefully be our 52nd Tyne-Wear derby victory.

Howay the lads!

P.S. – No prediction this week ;)

Date – Sunday, 31st October, 2010.

Kick-off – 1:30pm.

Venue – St James’ Park, Newcastle.

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

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78 Responses

  1. Haha great caption on the photo!

    It be a tough game but i cant see us losing , id be more than happy with a point but i have a feelin we might sneak it by a goal

  2. Toonsy good preview Lad its got me even more excited cant wait to teach the Tramps a lesson, oh and nice one with the prediction ;)

  3. I know one or two people from Singapore get on here. Is the match being shown tomorrow anywhere or what TV channel? ta

  4. Why are the press persisting with this story!? They are like blood hounds. I think the board should shield CH more after all he’s done, and start negotiations on a new and deserved longterm contract NOW.

    For tomorrow- surely we have to go with the same 11 as last weekend. I’m sure that’s our best 11 – with longtermers out. Give Barton another go on the wing, 2 match winning crosses suggests he can continue to be effective out there. May even lead to him getting a chance at an england game.

    Shola’s velvet and coming deep to receive the ball, is a nice counterpoint to AC/ Nolan’s kick and rush power game.

  5. Boater, previous sabotage attempts have failed, assured and confident predictions of 3rd division football,mass crowd walk outs, all out civil war on Tyneside, administration and nil points return this season have all been proved to be total bollocks and its with that bone stuck in their throat, together with the mouthful of lemons and huge chip on their shoulders, that they plough on regardless.
    Im sure that even if we hammer the mackems tomorrow they will still find something negative to write about, and if they cant, they will just make it up!

  6. Cue the Rudd Gulit Classic “Why Does it always rain on me” if we get beat.
    I think CH is going to start getting some stick from the Diehards if we take a trouncing.

    My prediction 2-1 Toon Howay the Fookin Lads !!

  7. aye he is Dave,divnt kna how much like cos I cant work it oot :roll:

    need Wigan to score on me 2nd one and west ham, arsenal and Wigan on me 3rd :-(

  8. Aye Dave, where’s Zog when ya need him. Got £116 of first one tho ;-)

    Brad Inman scored the other goal

  9. DJG …aye it’s tight there’s gonna be plenty ups and downs this season…just ups tomorrow tho ;-)

  10. AOD cheers mate ;)
    Richie good on ye Lad nice to see someone take money of the bookies :) dont worry I wont say owt to Batty incase he is looking a cut ;)
    DJG its a weird set up the way the table is at the mo

  11. Richie keep your winnings in your sky rocket mate ;) im surprised Batty didn’t tell you that mate :)
    Batty I asked once before but dont think you seen it or else you just ignored me :lol: is Fred with the aztec backpiece one of your younguns ?

  12. divnt worry Dave, if that last one loses I’ve more than doubled me money, if it comes in I’ll quadruple it.

  13. Richie good luck mate ;) oh Woodburn isn’t that far from me, as for the Maze I was at a Dog section BBQ one night and got threw out, plus all the prisoners complained about the noise :)
    Batty hows he doing anyway mate

  14. everyone gone to bed or what,we will win no worries,pleased toonsy backed oot of forcast like :)

  15. ya’d have finished by now Toonsy if ya’d got ya arse oot of bed at a reasonable time ;-)

  16. RICHIETOON been grafting m8,catching last off fine weather in garden,then off to buy glasses to watch you and toonsy in 3-D :)

  17. Ice aye Batty said he had to kick ye a few times cause you seemed to be dreaming early on before he took ye for a walk, I thought he was a bit hard on ye as I was always told to let sleeping dogs lie.
    Toonsy it must take you a fair few hours getting up to SJP

  18. BIG DAVE icepup thinking of getting this one (religios sleeve)thinks art work on dove is poor like,any idea on time ?.
    batty is a hard man starved me

  19. Also, did anyone see SoccerAM this morning? They had two lads on from a band, both from the NE, one a mackem, the other one a toon fan. Anyway, they spoke about the game and this complete plank of a mackem, admits that he’s going to the game but he’s actually sitting in the Newcastle end as he couldnt get a ticket with the scum.

    On national television!? Have fun with your reception when you sit down to your seat tomorrow, doylem! lol.

  20. Ross – Three Bulls is open at 9 I think :)

    Dave – I’ll be there in plenty of time, don’t you worry ;)

    Why fro all anyone knows I could very well be setting up a new ‘Same Day Delivery’ depot to in Team Valley as we speak………. ;)

  21. Jay Jay take it easy mate I dont want you rushing the drinks down your neck you still have a few hours left :)

    Ice there is about 10 – 12 hrs on that unless its a yank doing it in that case it will take about 20 hrs :)

  22. I’ve heard the match is now sold out? Now does it mean actually sold out? Or does it mean sold out apart from the members tickets in level 7 that get withdrawn from sale but don’t sell out?

  23. Toonsy…NUFC.com said earlier that thee was some seats for level7 for seaon ticket holders and members but its not on there now.

  24. Why do they need an extra large gap. Just stick some police dogs in there. :)

    No doubt it is costing the club a fortune in dogs, horses and helecopters.

  25. DJG-I always think the gap between fans takes up far too much room, but then you watch games from abroad where they’ve got a single line of riot police between them and they’re quite quickly rendered useless when things get tasty. I understand why they do it but it’s frustrating none the less. I think we’ll be as close to a sell out as possible tomorrow.

  26. DJG says:
    October 30, 2010 at 8:00 pm

    “Why do they need an extra large gap.”

    To protect Geordies from the putrid smell of unwashed tramps, DJG.

  27. My biggest concern is CH. He has no No. 2 right now to bounce ideas off and the rest of the backroom aint exactly budding Mourinho’s. What’s the betting he’ll start cautiously ?

    Bruce will go with 4-5-1, as we have shown its a good system to play away from home as it can quickly convert to 4-3-3 on the break.

    Our response will have to come down the flanks so we’ll have to have some decent crossing into the box for AC and partners. If it wasnt for the rapport that he’s built up with Jose I’d be inclined to try Jonas on the right of a 4-4-2 with Tiote, Barton and Nolan making up the group. Ensuring that whoever nominally fills the left hand side gives cover for Jose to make his forward runs.

    As that wont happen we need to go with last week’s selection as AC + Shola will put more pressure on their mf to help out in defence. As long as we restrict the service to Bent and go out with a positive attitude (the one that finished at WHU last week) we should be capable of winning this.

    The CROWD has to play its part :D