Newcastle United vs West Brom match banter!
Posted on October 28th, 2012 | 147 Comments |
Date: Sunday, 28th Oct.
Kick off: 3:00pm
Referee: Chris Foy.
UK TV: None.
Hello, good afternoon and welcome to our “match banter” feature for this afternoon’s Magpies game against West Bromwich Albion at St James’ Park.
In the Premier League betting stakes, Newcastle United are the favourites this afternoon, with home advantage and Newcastle’s fifth place finish last season seemingly trumping the fact that West Brom are three places higher in the current Premiership table as we go onto this game. However it should be a very tough match between the Magpies and the Throstles, a match which could go either way.
For all the information you’ll ever need in the run up to this game however, please check out my collegue Andy’s excellent match preview, with all the team news, form guides, opinion and such. To that, I will add what Alan Pardew and West Brom manager Steve Clarke, who as you may know was a former Newcastle United assistant, as well as a caretaker very briefly (for one game) after the departure of Ruud Gullit in 1999, holding the fort until Bobby Robson took over for his five year stint as manager.
Firstly, our current Silver Supremo, Alan Pardew, was fulsome in his praise (as managers usually are in these pre match interviews). Speaking of Clarke’s transition from highly sought after assistant to manager at West Bromwich, Pardew gushed:
“It’s like anything. You don’t get the starring role in a production unless you’ve been in the back for a little while, be it the chorus line or whatever. That’s how I got into the game. I was reserve-team manager at Reading for two or three years. Steve had a longer period when he was first-team assistant. He’s just done a cracking job at all the places he was at. So when the time came and there was an opportunity to become a manager, he had all the experience. That Steve was going to be a success was no mystery to anyone in the management trade. It did not surprise anyone.”
Meanwhile, Steve Clarke himself had another Newcastle United Silver Supremo in his thoughts, Bobby Robson. Speaking of the now sadly departed ex-manager, Clarke had this to say:
“I was lucky to work with Bobby for a year and I took a lot from the way he dealt with and managed the players. He was great to me because he knew I was a young coach who wanted to learn and he sat me in on some of the meetings when he was one-to-one with a player. He would have me there to watch and observe and see how he spoke to and dealt with players and that was absolutely invaluable for me. It was just his manner and his way of getting the best out of players. As a manager there is not one way to get the best out of a number of different people. There are a number of different ways to get the best and Bobby seemed to have the gift of being able to recognise and understand what sort of motivational tool he had to use at that time.”
However, he also didn’t forget about out current silver haired supremo either, Speaking on Pardew’s current Newcastle United team he remarked:
“I thought they were fantastic last season. I would say it is the best team since that Sir Bobby team that did really well. They came out of that into a period that was a little more rocky and now they’re trying to get that stability back. If you can get stability at any club then it makes it easier for the people who are trying to make it successful.”
Gushing further about Newcastle, he also said:
“I think Newcastle is a blueprint for any club with ambition. Every club wants to be successful and, if you are, is it the right thing to go out and sign 20 players and double the size of your squad, or do you try to nurture what you’ve got and bring through some young ones? That’s what Newcastle have done and they’ve done it with a good balanced squad and without being crazy in the transfer market. That’s a good blueprint for a number of clubs who might be in that position in the future. I’m sure they can challenge towards the top half of the league. The fact that they have the Europa League to contend with as well is an issue. They have done a great job to get in the position they’re at in the Europa League, where they’ve managed to almost qualify from the group. If they could win their next game they would be comfortable. To balance the two competitions (Premier League and Europa League) must have been a bit of a challenge for Alan Pardew and his staff and I think they have done it well.”
And finally, of his time in Newcastle he reminisced:
“I had a great time at Newcastle. It was very early in the career of my development as a coach. It was the first two years out of playing. I got some wonderful friends from my time up there. I still keep in touch with them. The supporters are fantastic, it is a great football city and I look forward to taking my team up there and giving them a game. It’s a place where everyone lives for their football. The first thing you see when you come into Newcastle is the stadium, it’s right on the top of a hill.
“They are trying to build a bit of stability into a club that maybe has not been known for its stability over the years.”
Well that’s more than enough mutual flattery from those two, so I will wrap things up with the usual reminders that I will be posting the teamsheets for this afternoon’s game when thay become available, as well as posting highlights, and probably a video of the whole match once it’s all over.
This game will not be broadcast on UK TV, however fear not! I will also be posting some lists of links to the game when they become available too. I would recommend using the “Spocast” player though rather than the Flash links. If you don’t have the Sopcast player, you can download it from here. The best Sopcast links are usually those from “Bloodzeed” BTW, which are always of excellent quality when available for Newcastle United games. Which only leaves it for me to say:
Howay the Lads!
Team sheets
Newcastle United (4-4-2): Tim Krul (G), Danny Simpson, Mike Williamson, Fabricio Coloccini (C), Davide Santon, Hatem Ben Arfa, James Perch, Yohan Cabaye, Jonas Gutierrez, Shola Ameobi, Demba Ba.
Subs: Steve Harper (G), Shane Ferguson, Steven Taylor, Vurnon Anita, Gabriel Obertan, Sammy Ameobi, Papiss Cisse
West Bromwich Albion (4-2-3-1): Ben Foster (G), Gabriel Tamas, Gareth McAuley, Jonas Olsson, Liam Ridgewell; Youssouf Mulumbu, James Morrison; Peter Odemwingie, Zoltan Gera, Graham Dorrans; Romelu Lukaku.
Subs: Luke Daniels (G), Gonzalo Jara Reyes, Goran Popov, Yassine El Ghanassy, Markus Rosenberg, Shane Long, Marc-Antoine Fortune.
Poll
NUFCBlog Author: workyticket
workyticket has written 1095 articles on this blog.
Just thought I’d pop in before I bugger off to SJP.
Fingers crossed for a win!