Everton vs Newcastle United match banter!
Posted on September 17th, 2012 | 82 Comments |
Venue: Goodison Park, Meerseyside.
Date: Monday, 17th September.
Kick off: 8:00pm
Referee: Mike Jones.
UK TV: Sky Sports 1.
Hello, good evening and welcome to our “match banter” feature for this evening’s game against Everton.
With some fans disappointed with the club’s failure to reinforce the squad, with Alan Pardew bravely hitting back at them for not displaying sufficient “gratitude” to Mike Ashley for not “cashing in” some of the players we already have, this could be the start of a fairly decisive period for the Silver Supremo. If we get hammered in this game and produce a another mediocre performance against Maritimo in the Europa League later in the week, he could find himself in something of a downward spiral. On the other hand, convincing victories in both matches would see his latest patronising lecture to fans on behalf of his handlers totally forgiven. We shall see but fingers crossed for the latter!
Of course, the Silver One did get a little egg on his face in our last game against the Toffees, arrogantly and prematurely proclaiming that Newcastle “operate in a different league” to Everton, before being soundly beaten 3-1 by them in our last game of the season. This is something Everton players such as Phil Jagielka and Leon Osman has reminded both Pardew, and their own fans about on the eve of this game, with Jagielka saying:
“I wouldn’t say there was a bit of an edge to the game, but I think it’s a little bit disrespectful for someone to say something like that after one good season. Fair play, Newcastle had a fantastic season and massively overachieved, but they aren’t the first team to overachieve for a season. In the Premier League it’s all about consistency, and if you look at how we have performed over the years, then it’s a little bit disrespectful to come out and say something like that.”
And Osman adding more fuel to the flames, adding to his team mates words:
“It is Alan Pardew’s right to say what he thinks. But, for what Everton have achieved, we could be a role model for clubs like Newcastle because we’ve performed so many times over the past decade. We have had a blip here or there, but I would say we have our best squad ever this season – we have slowly progressed and got a better quality player in. In the beginning, we maybe didn’t have the depth, so if we had injuries we had problems, but look at our bench these days. But there is always the next step which you have to take, you never want to stand still.”
Which is something it is hard to say about Newcastle United when you look beyond our first team to see how much depth there is in some areas of the pitch. However, there’s nothing to be done about that until January now so we’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed (again) until then.
Getting back to this game though, for some more in depth background, you can do no better than check out AndyMac’s rivetting match preview. This has all the team news, but as usual, I shall be posting the final team sheets for the game when the become available, as well as posting match highlights, and eventually a video of the whole match when these become available too so stay tuned!
Howay the Lads!
ps: I have posted some links for this evening’s game in the comments section.
Team sheets
Everton (4-4-1-1): Tim Howard (G), Tony Hibbert, Phil Jagielka, Sylvain Distin, Leighton Baines; Leon Osman, Phil Neville (c), Steven Pienaar, Kevin Mirallas; Marouane Fellaini; Nikica Jelavic.
Subs: Jan Mucha (G), John Heitinga, Shane Duffy, Seamus Coleman, Magaye Gueye, Steven Naismith, Victor Anichebe.
Newcastle United (4-2-3-1): Steve Harper (G), James Perch, Mike Williamson, Steven Taylor, Davide Santon, Vurnon Anita, Jonas Gutierrez, Hatem Ben Arfa, Yohan Cabaye, Sylvain Marveaux, Papiss Cisse.
Subs: Rob Elliot (G), James Tavernier, Gael Bigirimana, Dan Gosling, Gabriel Obertan, Shola Ameobi, Demba Ba.
Poll
Some links for the game:
http://www.wiziwig.tv/broadcast.php?matchid=168555&part=sports