Newcastle United vs Manchester City match banter!

Posted on May 6th, 2012 | 111 Comments |

Newcastle United v Manchester City.
Man City - Football club or Gay night?
Venue: St James’ Park.
Date: Sun 06th May 2012.
Kick-Off: 1:30pm.
Referee: Howard Webb.
TV: Sky Sports 1.

Hello, good afternoon and welcome to our latest “match banter” feature, this time for the game against the only club to be named after a Gay anthem, Man City.

Despite our recent good form, it will undoubtedly be a very stiff test for the boys in black and white as we continue our quest for the holy grail of Champions League football next season against the prospective Champions. Still, we comfortably disposed of resurgent, FA Cup winning Champions League finalists, Chelsea, thanks to Papiss Cisse and his wondergoals. Here’s hoping we can do it once more against moneybags Man City!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Magpies’ Silver Supremo, Alan Pardiola, for making my job slightly easier for this post by naming his team yesterday, the same one as last time against Chelsea. As a kind of addendum to the “What the managers say” section of my colleague Hugh’s excellent match preview for this site, here’s what a confident and bullish Pardew had to say:

“It’ll be the same team that plays Man City. I’m not hiding that from Man City – they can know our team – and they’ve got to beat us.”

Continuing, he also said of the forthcoming game:

“It isn’t a season-defining 90 minutes, as our season’s been magnificent, but what it will be is a real test for us in terms of playing a team going for the title.”

“We’re going for fourth place and that Chelsea game was about setting up this game. We couldn’t have done any better – it was a great performance.

“Forget about Papiss’s two goals, which were special, it was a brilliant performance.

“Even without the goals, we’d have got a 0-0. We tied them up. We did that part of the job and I’m immensely proud of the players.”

Looking back at our last game against City, a 3-1 defeat, he went on:

“We really put in a great effort, but I thought we were a little distance away from them. I think it’ll be a lot closer this time.”

So anyway, thanks Alan, I’ll just paste in the team from the Chelsea game below.

In conclusion, I will just remind you that as usual, we will also be posting match highlights shortly after the game has concluded, as well as a match report, and also a video of the full match if / when one becomes available, which only leaves it for me to say:

Howay the Lads!

Team sheets

Newcastle United (4-3-3): Tim Krul (G), James Perch, Mike Williamson, Fabricio Coloccini (C), Davide Santon, Cheick Tiote, Jonas Gutierrez, Hatem Ben Arfa, Yohan Cabaye, Demba Ba, Papiss Cisse.

Subs: Rob Elliot (G), Shane Ferguson, Ryan Taylor, Dan Gosling, Gabriel Obertan, Sylvain Marveaux, Shola Ameobi.

Manchester City (4-4-1-1): Joe Hart(G) Pablo Zabaleta, Vincent Kompany (C), Joleon Lescott, Gael Clichy; Gareth Barry, Yaya Toure; Samir Nasri, Carlos Tevez, David Silva; Sergio Aguero.

Substitutes: Costel Pantilimon (G), Micah Richards, Aleksandar Kolarov, Nigel De Jong, James Milner, Adam Johnson, Edin Dzeko.

NUFCBlog Author: workyticket workyticket has written 1091 articles on this blog.

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Comment on this post

111 Responses

  1. How at the lads, hoping for a 3-1 win today with Cissè first scorer! It’ll make me very happy and rich Toon fan!!

  3. Aye – my i-Phone does the same. It had “AndyMac” coming on for Liverpool yesterday!!

    I think Andymac from here spotted it too LOL!

  5. Wonder if they’ll ever be a quitting ‘Bloodzeed’ helpline through the NHS in the future…

  17. Pardiola sounds like he’s going to keep it tight & hope its close full the last 20 minutes. Gary Neville gave an insightful view if the way City have set up – to blitz us hope to build a lead then bring on the likes is De Jong. Think Tiote needs to have another blinder & get on top of Toure.

  19. Ba needs to keep it basic. Receive the ball, possess the ball, wait for reinforcements.

  24. The plan should have been to go out from the start and pile some pressure on Citeh as they’re more desperate to win this. Now the crowds gone quiet :(

  25. Good way to go about it I’d say. Let them come at us and try them on the break. They need this win and will pile people forward eventually.

  27. Exactly, maze. It’s tough to watch but as the game goes on City will leave massive space in the back. Also, they’ve got a gang of players who have made over 30 appearances and Silva, in particular, tends to tire as matches go on.

  30. Wise by Barry to foul him early. Lescott had it covered. It was a yellow.

  31. Lescott and Kompany will handle any direct ball. We just don’t seem to be keeping it on the deck.

  32. How does he call that back after they take it to the edge of our box? That’s some crap there.

  39. “How many goalline clearances have we had this season?”

    We’d probably win “Clearance of the Season” if there was such a thing !

  40. City getting a whole lot more benefit of the doubt from Webb in their challenges.

  42. Pardew’s master plan working so far – the longer the game goes on with us still in it, the more nervous Manciteh will get!

    Perfect!

  45. HBA can’t beat Clichy. If we’re insisting on this formation today, with direct balls into the box, maybe put HBA on the right vs Zabaleta. He’ll have more joy.

  46. Give him time, Jimbob. In any case, I’ll take that City started their more defensive pair of fullbacks because they worry about HBA, Ba, Jonas and Santon. Wouldn’t be surprised if Kolarov’s one of the players they put on at some point.

  48. Tunyc, I’ve watched a lot of City recently and think Clichy has been superb. Really good full-back. Improved greatly on last season.

    I’m just looking it at the perspective of having a good go second half. I would imagine if we fall behind we’ll change to 4-3-3.

    Santon is looking better in every game.

  50. I agree, Jimbob. Clichy is definitely their starting LB. He’s quality. But if they were confident of getting at us and putting this away, they could have gone with the more attacking option of Kolarov. But Mancini knew Benny would be in behind him all day.

  51. City do look surprisingly casual. They realize a draw isn’t good for them, right?

  59. Nobody tracking him from midfield. Lazy goal to concede. Guess we’re out of gas.

  66. Ferguson on for Perch. Guessing Santon switches to the right.

    Ameobi on for HBA. So much for any change in shape, and I think with HBA off it’s going to get a lot easier for City. They were constantly doubling and tripling him, opening up space.

    I think this may be over.

  67. Jonas at LB so Fergie an out and out LW let’s hope he can deliver some quality then ?

  72. And again (Ferguson) we pick up a very soft yellow from a City player going down over nothing

  76. My point exactly maze. Since he went off, it’s been very easy for City to keep 5 strung across the back. Insult to injury: we’re not doing any better in the air.

    Now Richards for Silva. Very Italian.

  79. Wow. All from another poor set piece.

    Disappointing game. Turning it off now.

  83. I don’t disagree, Jimbob but in the first half and the beginning of the second, everything we did to threaten them went through our midfield. The lumping & hoping that started when Shola went on was, in my opinion, never going to work.

  84. Just disappointing all over. No passing, no real chances. Oh well. Man City are the champions.

  85. Hard to tell, worky-but if it is, I think it would be a harsh one to give. Can’t expect it, anyway.

  87. They are not officially champions at all. Thank f. No celebrations at our joint.

  88. Tunyc, think it’s been hoof all game to be fair mate. HBA has little influence so deep, as does Cabaye. But guess you got to look at who we’re playing and the level they are at.

  89. We created alot of chances, good ones too against a very good defense. Dunno what game you guys were watching.

  91. Have to agree to disagree, Jim. Possession had gotten back to 50-50 before we took HBA off. Not saying we camped out in their half but we did string some passes together. We may have trended one way but once we’ve got Shola, Ba and Cisse on we’re obviously one dimensional.

  92. I’m proud of the lads – they’ve given us a great season, and they were just beaten by a better team today.

  93. I agree, after Chelski on Wednesday, we had the momentum but we gave them too much respect. IMO our best form of defence was to hit them hard and early.

  94. Tunyc, it’s just the team we’re playing mate. Personally it wasn’t us at our fluid best, but we were up against a very good team. I think tactically we set up like we did vs Man Utd, but it didn’t fall for us today. City are at a different level.

    Everton next week will be very tough, but we can do it.

  96. As UTD says we’re in Europe and looking good for next season. Let’s hope for a dynamic, all guns blazing, final game next Sunday :)

  97. Agreed Andy. Hope the lads get a cracking send off during the lap of honour. They deserve it.

  98. Agreed-and I do appreciate that we were actually able to hope for a result against the title favorites on the next-to-last weekend of the season. The one thing I’d disagree about is the “different level.” They’ve got a better squad than us, but they are beatable for us now. That was a quality stop from Hart on HBA and if that goes the game is very different. I’d describe more as “we’re not quite there yet.”

    I really hope the lads are up to finish the season showing what they’re really about. I’d love to see us thrash Everton.

  99. Disappointing. We never really came back after they scored. Cabaye was not quite up to his best, nor was Ba, and Cisse never really had a decent chance. We needed some luck which never came.

  100. The lads gave their all. Mistake to take off HBA. Feel very dejected. Heart was brilliant as was Company. Mancini played a blinder bringing on De Jong to push up YaYa.

  101. I do think it should have been Ba to come off and not HBA. But since we were going for longball at that point AP wanted the big men on the pitch.

    How was the lap of honor? Good and loud, I hope. My stream cut off right after the end of the match.

  103. The Welsh Barcelona are 14/1 to beat Man U today. That can’t be right, I thought they would have been favourites.

  104. So, we need to win and we need either an Arsenal loss or Spurs not to win. There is still hope of Champions League.

  105. Good game of football, too bad we could’nt get the win.
    Another game where everyone contributed and gave their all, one could see the heavy legs by the latter part of the second half.
    Dont know what the position permutations are but a successful enough season, even if we end up sixth.
    This season’s successes may have instilled a sense of
    “we can compete in the top level” of football and a combination of holding onto who we have and some quality defenders brought in……
    Sky’s the limit !

  107. It’s actually not that bad…. Neither of our rival won games they would have expected to win while we put in a good effort against a team that realistically we were expected to lose to….

    We are still within range of both teams above us and I don’t think Spurs game against Fulham will be easy for them and QPR are still fighting for their lives so wont be easy for Arsenal.

    I’d be very suprised if West Brom manange to beat Arsenal and with Arsenal’s goal difference advantage a draw for them wont allow us to catch them but you never know….

  109. Well Man.U. leading Swansea 2-0 @ 1/2 time and for all you closet Sunderland fans, they are down 2-1 to Fulham.
    Both good games!
    Have to say we in the US are spoiled by the number of games available on tv, with about half the EPL games shown.
    Not to mention Seria A, La Liga, the French, Dutch and Bundisliga.
    Then theres the Argentine and Basilian games, just too much, making life difficult as to which game to watch,
    Ah well!

  110. GS says:

    “So, we need to win and we need either an Arsenal loss or Spurs not to win. There is still hope of Champions League”

    A. I dont think we’ll finish third or fourth
    B. I dont really think we need CL football at this stage in our development
    3. Rather play in a tournament we could progress in, than one we’d probably lose out before Christmas.
    4. It is said CL football is the only “carrot” which could keep the top players here but I think Europa level is a pretty high standard which would test us considerably. In addition a decent run could help us re establish a UEFA coeficient ranking which, sadly, we no longer have :(

    So fifth would be fine and save us from early quailfying rounds.

    http://kassiesa.home.xs4all.nl/bert/uefa/seedel2012.html

  111. and E I think I’ll stick to “Ten things Tiote eats before every match”