Birmingham City v Newcastle United – Match preview.
Posted on December 17th, 2010 | 221 Comments |
Newcastle will have to be at their very best of they are to beat a side that doesn’t generally give much away, especially on their own turf.
Birmingham are a physical side who work hard for each other. They chase and harry the opposition when they haven’t got the ball and can be a real threat when they do have the ball. The league table may suggest that Birmingham are struggling at the moment, but it will still be a very tough game.
Still, Newcastle have to go to The Midlands believing that they can win the game. The importance of three points, or even a point, can’t be understated, especially with tough games against Manchester City and Tottenham coming up over the festive period. Building on the impressive 3-1 victory over Liverpool has to be a high priority for Alan Pardew and the lads.
Sol Campbell is likely to miss out after picking up an illness during the week, but that loss is negated by the fact that Newcastle have both Mike Williamson and Fabricio Colocinni returning from their three-match suspensions which will give Alan Pardew a bit of a selection headache as he sets about trying to find his best central defensive pairing.
Steve Harper is fit to return to first-team action although I would personally keep Tim Krul between the sticks until his performance warrants being dropped.
Shola Ameobi is also said to be struggling with a hamstring injury which could mean that he might miss out tomorrow. Nile Ranger will likely start in his place if Shola is deemed not fit enough to feature. Hatem Ben Arfa, Dan Gosling and Ryan Taylor all still sidelined through long-term injury.
So that should give Alan Pardew some food for thought with regard to team selection tomorrow. Swapping Ranger for Ameobi is straight-forward enough, but the biggest dilmma will be at the heart of our defence. Should Pardew persist with Steven Taylor and introduce one of either Coloccini or Williamson along side him? Or should Pardew pick the two players who have played together for most of the season? It’s a tough one, but I’d go with a team of;
Newcastle – Tim Krul, Danny Simpson, Steven Taylor, Fabricio Coloccini, Jose Enrique, Joey Barton, Cheick Tiote, Kevin Nolan, Jonas Gutierrez, Nile Ranger, Andy Carroll.
Birmingham will be without Alexander Hleb and James McFadden for the match tomorrow as they sit out with hanstring and knee injuries respectively, but they are the only injury concerns for The Blues. Liam Ridgewell and Martin Jiranek are both fit to start after recovering from the flu virus during the week.
Birmingham lost 1-0 at local rivals Wolves last weekend in a match where they failed to register a shot on target for the entire 90 minutes – the second time it has happened this season. I expect that the home side will want to put on a performance tomorrow to atone for the disappointment of last week. The team that played that at Molineux was;
Birmingham – Ben Foster, Stephen Carr, Roger Johnson, Scott Dann, David Murphy, Sebastian Larsson, Lee Bowyer, Barry Ferguson, Keith Fahey, Cameron Jerome, Nikola Zigic.
The last five games between the two sides have all ended in draws, and Birmingham have only won one of the last ten league meetings against Newcastle. In fact if you look at the broader form book, Birmingham have only won four of the last 27 Premier League matches. Home form is important to The Blues though and they have only lost once at St Andrews in the last 23 matches.
Newcastle have the edge in the overall head-to-head. The two teams have met 105 times with Newcastle winning 41 times, Birmingham winning 33 times. The other 30 matches have all ended in draws.
As I’ve said, it will be a tough game. Not many teams go to St Andrews and come away with all three points. Still, we have to try though, certainly harder than we did in the last match I attended at West Brom!
I think a draw could be in the cards.
Howay the lads!
Date: Saturday, 18th December, 2010.
Kick-off: 3:00pm.
Venue: St Andrews, Brimingham.
NUFCBlog Author: toonsy
toonsy has written 643 articles on this blog.
0-2 to Newcastle, Carroll to score both.