The man in the mask salutes hat-trick hero, Demba Ba.Venue: Britannia Stadium, Sir Stanley Matthews Way, Stoke-upon-Trent. Date: Monday, October 26th, 2011. Kick-off: 8:00pm. Referee: Mike Dean.
Demba Ba’s second hat-trick of the season powered Newcastle United to a 3-1 victory at the Britannia Stadium and up to 3rd place in the Premier League.
Stoke usually start apace at home but it was us who made the running from the off today and Stoke’s defence of a strange flick from Obertan to nobody in particular gave us our first corner within 2 minutes. Our first attempt came to nothing but Stoke only managed to clear for another corner and from this one Ryan Taylor fashioned himself a chance with a long shot that was wide and high, although not by all that much.
Most of our play was up the right and Best and Obertan looked busy in that area but the deadlock was broken with a move started by Tim Krul. A Stoke attack led to a goal kick, with which Krul found Guthrie. Guthrie put the ball into space on the right of the box and Obertan caught Stoke sleeping, chipped a lovely ball across the box right onto the head of Demba Ba who made no mistake finding the net after only 12 minutes. 0-1 to us. (more…)
Good vibes include Delboy, says TaylorNewcastle United defender Steven Taylor talks about the excellent team spirit at the club, including good relationships all the way up the hierarchy.
I was alarmed to see a headline in The Telegraph that said ‘Newcastle have Europe in their sights’. Admittedly the author of the article intimated that European football is more likely in future seasons than this one, but it also mentioned ‘whispers of Europe on Tyneside’ for this season following our good start.
The reason this alarms me is because it raises expectations and we’ve been down that road before. Many times.
I prefer it when nobody thinks we’re capable of anything significant and that with each win we’re exceeding expectations. Obviously our current Premier League position is going encourage some talk of Europe in people of a more hopeful disposition, but I fear that such people are simply setting themselves up for disappointment. (more…)
Time to get behind Ashley, says ShepherdFormer Newcastle United owner Freddie Shepherd has surprisingly good things to say about the man who took over from him.
Freddie Shepherd celebrated his 70th birthday yesterday and in his after-dinner speech he actually heaped a load of praise on Mike Ashley which, given some of the criticism Shepherd has slung Ashley’s way in the past, is a bit of a surprise.
Shepherd said:
“I am still a massive Newcastle fan. True to say Mike and I have not always seen eye to eye but you’ve got to give him some of the credit for what is happening this season.
“I think it’s time for the fans to get fully behind him and give him a chance. After all, no one really owns Newcastle because it’s simply a football institution.
“Maybe he is right in his policy and I was wrong. Maybe we gave our managers too much money to spend in the transfer market. I reckon we spent around £300m on players like Alan Shearer, David Ginola, Les Ferdinand, Tino Asprilla and Michael Owen.(more…)
Disappointed ... yet confidentNewcastle United manager Alan Pardew has been talking about Liverpool’s alleged interest in Coloccini and the defeat we suffered at the hands of Blackburn on Wednesday.
Alan Pardew has responded to recent press speculation about Liverpool’s interest in Coloccini by saying:
“Liverpool like looking at our players, don’t they? But I don’t want to add any more to that. He’s been outstanding for us as a captain and a player and we’re in negotiations with him on a new contract.”
Somehow that’s been taken to mean that negotiations are going well by some elements of the press and blogosphere, although that’s not something I’d extrapolate from the above quote. Not that it matters much what Pardew thinks anyway – it will be Ashley’s decision based on the results of the contract negotiations between club and player and on any offer we receive from Liverpool, if indeed we receive one at all.
Can't turn back time on the League CupNewcastle United have a big test of their ability to bounce back from defeat with a tricky game away at Stoke on Monday. I do actually manage to squeeze in some references to the game in an article even more rambling than usual.
The mid-week League Cup defeat was disappointing but without a time machine* we can’t change that now, so it’s time to get jiggy about our upcoming game against Stoke.
This in fact is the attitude of Davide Santon, who had his first start for us on Wednesday. Santon said:
“We hoped to get into Europe through the League Cup but now we must look to the league for that.
“We need to aim for a top-four spot. We have a fantastic squad. But we have a lot of very, very big games against very good teams coming up and we need to put all of our efforts into doing that now.
“We lost Wednesday’s game, but we’re in a good place in the league. That is where we are concentrating now. We need to keep going and carry on winning.(more…)
