Newcastle United v Wolves match preview.
Posted on April 2nd, 2011 | 55 Comments |
On statistics, at least some of them haven’t been looking very good for The Magpies recently. We have only managed one victory in our last ten games, haven’t won at home since January 5th, and were pummelled 0-4 in our last game against Stoke, who are a similar team to Wolves. This fairly dismal record under Alan Pardew means that we have now slipped to within four points of the relegation zone after a fairly comfortable start to the season.
Enough misery though.
Our previous game at their place was a hard fought 1-1 draw, with the referee turning a blind eye to some decidedly iffy “tackles” (for want of a better word) on midfielder, Joey Barton by his opposite number in the Wolves team, Karl “hatchetman” Henry. Speaking on the match to come, Newcastle United manager, Alan Pardew hinted at Wolves’ rather unsubtle approach to the beautiful game when he said:
“We have to be really, really strong and make sure we compete with Wolves as they have competed, to be fair to Mick and his staff, almost every game – and so have we, for the best part.
“That will be hard against Wolves, but that’s what we will try to do.”
Though still in the bottom three of the Premiership, his opposite number at Wolves, Mick McCarthy (the only manager who can smell ’round corners) has been very bullish on the back of their last three results, a 4-0 victory against Blackpool, a draw against Champion’s League Tottenham and finally, a 1-0 defeat of Aston Villa in their last game. He said:
“After our last game, why would I be any different to two weeks ago?
“We’re going to attack and to try to win the game.”
Team news
On the Newcastle side, talismanic midfield pit-bull, Cheick Tioté, will certainly miss out through serving another two match suspension for picking up another five yellow cards. Ryan Taylor will also be sitting this one out, due to another suspension, this time for a stright sending off against Bolton. Leon Best, will be almost certainy be out to a ankle knock, and José Enriqué (hamstring) and Stephen Ireland (thigh) will also be highly doubtful, with Ireland still to play a game for the club after his loan move from Aston Villa. Add to this the usual long term casulties, ie Alan Smith (ankle / foot), Hatem Ben Arfa (broken leg) and Dan Gosling (knee) and that’s about it.
On the good news front though, it looks like Joey Barton should be making a return after a troublesome thigh problem.
Wolves meanwhile will be without striker, Kevin Doyle with a knee injury sustined on International duty for the Republic of Ireland which may see him out for the rest of the season. According to Mick McCarthy, Sylvan Ebanks-Blake will definitely be standing in for Doyle. Their long term casualties include defenders, Ronald Zubar and Steven Mouyokolo, Defender / Midfielder, Michael Mancienne, and finally, midfieders, Steven Hunt and David Edwards.
Here’s hoping we can make a big improvement on the last game!
Howay the Lads!
NUFCBlog Author: workyticket
workyticket has written 1091 articles on this blog.
We need to get Barton stuck into henry and Guthrie to play in balls to ameobi also we need jonas to get some decent crosses!
This is the team I would play. Gk. Harper. Def. Simpson Coloccini. Williamson. Enrique/ferguson
Mid Guthrie Barton. Nolan. Jonas. St Ranger. Ameobi