The Toon tackle The Trotters!After a brief international break, it’s back to domestic action this weekend as Newcastle United head to The Reebok Stadium – the home of Bolton Wanderers.
I have a lot of time for Bolton to be honest, and most of that is born from one man, a former colleague, and his lad.
The chap in question is called Dave Bates and is an ex-colleague of mine from when I was working for Royal Mail. Both him and his lad held season tickets at Bolton, and they frequently travelled up for the games.
One Saturday, on the way back, they were involved in a motorway pile-up. Dave survived, but unfortunately his lad didn’t. The support that Bolton offered Dave was immense and included personal visits to is home from Bolton chairman, Phil Gartside among other things. The seat was also left empty as a mark of respect. (more…)
Will Newcastle rock The Reebok?Newcastle head to Bolton tomorrow in what could be billed as a battle of the bargain basement if you look at the transfer activity of both sides over the summer.
Neither side spent more than £5 million over the course of the summer transfer window, yet both sides sit in the top-half of the table a third of the way through the campaign.
Bolton have been playing some great stuff in recent weeks, and it’s a far cry from what used to be served up at The Reebok under Sam Allardyce. Owen Coyle is doing a magnificent job in transforming the image of Bolton Wanderers in the eyes of the nation, and they have gone from being known as long-ball cloggers to being recognised as a decent footballing side, which is much better to watch, and I am sure that the Bolton fans will agree.
Andy Carroll looks set to start tomorrow after coming through the England game in midweek without aggravating his groin injury. And it could be Shola Ameobi who partners him in attack as the striker has recovered from his hamstring injury in time for the trip to Bolton. (more…)
Hughton has his say!Well the England game has been and gone, and so has the tug of war between Newcastle and England that looked like it could boil over.
Carroll’s groin has been a major point talking this week after the striker looked like he could miss the opportunity to make his England debut against France last night.
The concerns from the club appeared to be unfounded, and Andy went on to make his debut anyway amid reports of the club contacting the FA via e-mail.
Basically, the rumour suggested that Newcastle had asked the The FA for Carroll to be withdrawn from the squad for fear of aggravating the groin injury that he picked up against Fulham, although with no confirmation on that from the club you could be forgiven for being a tad sceptical and putting it down to yet more press rumour-mongering.
But this time it appears that the press were right, and there was indeed some contact between Newcastle and The FA. (more…)
Andy Carroll in action against France.As football matches go, last night was pretty forgettable for England, but you just try telling Andy Carroll that.
After the media frenzy concerning the players’ fitness that dominated the build up to the match, Carroll was finally deemed fit enough to play and made his internatonal debut in front of 86,000 fans at Wembley Stadium.
Whilst I would imagine that Carroll would have wanted his debut to be a winning affair and would probably have preferred it if England hadn’t have lost 2-1 to France, he can at least hold his head up high knowing that he tried his best, and recieved a standing ovation from the Wembley crowd for his efforts when he was withdrawn from action on 70 minutes.
England were awful last night, and as a result they failed to get any service into Carroll at all. He was left isloated up front on his own against some seasoned international defenders, but he just got on with it and did what he does best. (more…)
Raylor sidelined.I’ve written quite a bit recently about our rather long injury list, so on that basis, the news that Ryan Taylor will be out for 12 weeks seems quite topical at the moment.
The club have confirmed that the utility man will be missing for three months due to suffering ankle ligament damage in a training ground collision with Sol Campbell.
Even though Taylor hasn’t really featured this season, apart from in the Carling Cup of course, it’s still a blow and further reduces the pool of players available to Chris Hughton. Taylor was touted around by some fans as a replacement for the suspended Joey Barton before the weekend game against Fulham, but there were hints that Taylor had picked up an injury back then, although I didn’t expect that it would be an injury that would keep him out for so long.
Chris Hughton said:“It’s very disappointing to lose Ryan for this period of time.”(more…)
