Brighton v Newcastle United FA Cup Match Preview
Posted on January 27th, 2012 | 51 Comments |
Date: 28th January 2012
Kick Off: 5.15pm
Referee: Lee Probert
It’s the 4th Round of the FA Cup and we’re still in it! Added to that some notable teams such as Manchester City have already left the competition, and the so-called “big boys” keep getting drawn against each other for a change which can’t be bad. Could this be our year? I would love it, just love it if we went all the way (and beat Tottenham in the final, but that’s just a personal wish…). At least six Premier League sides will go out in this round so there’s everything to play for!
But first there’s the small matter of facing a rather good Brighton and Hove Albion for a place in the last 16 at the 22,500 capacity American Express Community Stadium in East Sussex. Brighton needed a replay to knock out non-league club Wrexham, in the last round. They also reached the fifth round for the first time in 25 years last season, and have lost only one of their last 11 home FA Cup matches over six years.
Brighton play a style of football which has been likened to that of Swansea City, technically very good keeping the ball and passing it well. They come into the game on the back of three straight wins in the Championship and can be expected to be confident and present a really stiff challenge for United.
In contrast, Newcastle followed the trouncing of Manchester United 3-0 on January 4th 2012 with a narrow win over Queens Park Rangers, then last weekend’s strange loss 5-2 at Fulham in what was very much a game of two halves. We beat Blackburn Rovers in the last round of course.
Alan Pardew can expect to be given some stick by the Brighton fans as an ex-Crystal Palace player. Palace are seen as Brighton’s main rivals even though the clubs are 40 miles apart. We sold out our initial allocation of 2,500 tickets for the South Stand and yet again, our wonderful management turned down an additional 800 tickets, which therefore went to home fans. Thanks Mr. Ashley.
The game will be shown live on ESPN. As usual, we’ll also try to identify some useful streaming links before the game for those of us who won’t be there or can’t access ESPN. If you know of any good links yourself, bring them along to our regular “match banter” feature, which will be on here from around an hour before kick off. If we still have an interest in the competition, I’m sure we’ll also be keen viewers of ITV at around 3.30pm on Sunday afternoon when the draw for the fifth round will be made.
Brighton Team News
Winger Kazenga LuaLua could be the past player who comes back to haunt us. He has missed the last three weeks with a hamstring injury but will no doubt be desperate to return against us. Fellow winger Craig Noone and midfielder Vicente Rodriguez are others who could return for Gus Poyets side. Noone has been suffering a hamstring problem while Rodriguez hasn’t played since October after pulling a thigh muscle. Full-back Marcos Painter will not play after reinjuring his hamstring against Peterborough on Saturday. Defender Tommy Elphick (Achilles) and midfielder Gary Dicker (broken leg) are still recovering from long-term injuries.
Brighton Likely Squad: Peter Brezovan, Casper Ankergren, Corey Gonzalez, Gordon Greer, Lewis Dunk, Adam El-Abd, Inigo Calderon, Romain Vincelot, Marcos Painter, Mauricio Taricco, Grant Hall, Ben Sampayo, Alan Navarro, Matthew Sparrow, Craig Noone, Rodriguez Vicente, Ryan Harley, Liam Bridcutt, Kazenga LuaLua, Will Buckley, Will Hoskins, Ashley Barnes, Craig Mackail-Smith, Jake Forster-Caskey.
Newcastle United Team News
Strikers Demba Ba and Papiss Cisse are away on African Cup of Nations Duty with Senegal of course, although Senegal’s failure in the competitions means they will be back in soon. Pardew has revealed that pressure is being applied to try to get them back by Tuesday of next week – not in time for this game of course. Steven Taylor, Sylvain Marveaux and Sammy Ameobi are all injured. Captain Fabricio Coloccini is also a major doubt with a groin problem – which gives us a problem for this game and also emphasises the urgent need to sign a decent central defender before the end of the current transfer window.
Newcastle United Likely Squad Tim Krul (G), Rob Elliot (G), Steve Harper (G), Danny Simpson, Ryan Taylor, Davide Santon, Shane Ferguson, James Perch, Fabricio Coloccini, Mike Williamson, Tamas Kadar, Yohan Cabaye, Gabriel Obertan, Hatem Ben Arfa, Jonas Gutierrez, Dan Gosling, Mehdi Abeid, Haris Vuckic, Leon Best, Shola Ameobi, Peter Lovenkrands.
What The Managers Are Saying
Gus Poyet the Brighton Manager has been full of praise for the United manager:
“Alan’s done very well, putting together a great set of players and he deserves credit. They’re a very difficult team to beat.” Then adding:
“It’s a cup game, and you always have a chance, Saying that, in terms of their quality, their performances and the way that they’ve been playing, you would say that Newcastle are favourites. That’s not me trying to put pressure on Newcastle, or trying to play any mind games. That’s just the reality.
“It’s one-off game, and with the atmosphere and the players’ excitement, it’ll be a great game. We will need to be very good and we need to be playing the way we did against Sunderland, because we were very good defensively and going forward. We were decent against Liverpool, and that’s what makes us think that maybe we had a chance. We need to make sure that we are very good on the day.”
For his part, Alan Pardew is quoted as saying:
“For us, it’s a competition we can focus on. We’ve got ourselves in a good position in the league. We’ll be sending a strong team. Brighton are a good team. They play the ball about and move you around. They are good technically, and we will have to be at our best to get the right result.”
Prediction
The signs are not good for United – particularly if Coloccini doesn’t make the starting line-up. With the players we have missing, I actually think Brighton are favourites for this game, and would be happy if we come away with a draw.
NUFCBlog Author: UTD111
UTD111 has written 59 articles on this blog.
Its a massive worry whenever Colo is missing but I still think we’re too strong for them…and we really should be.
Brighton were completely hopeless against Wrexham and did not deserve to go through based on their efforts over the 120 minutes.
They were just lucky it went to pens in the end. Obviously they’ll rais their game against us but realistically hope far can they raise it?
If we lose this match I will be seriously pi55ed. There’s no excuse, not even losing our captain for the day.