SuperMac's poisonous words.....Derby day fever has certainly caught up with me now, which is why I haven’t slept a wink all night and why I decided to get up at 5am rather than rolling around trying to get to sleep, and getting irritated in the process.
Anyway, I was perusing the ‘comments’ section on the ‘blog to see if I had missed anything and to catch up on the gossip when one thing struck me. It seems that the media bandwagon regarding the future of our manager is rolling on.
Those who listened to ‘The Legends’ radio phone-in during week will have heard Malcolm Macdonald bleating on about Chris Hughton and launching some quite scathing attacks on our current manager. The reason being that he is somewhat annoyed by the team selection that Chris Hughton made against Arsenal in the Carling Cup in midweek.
Now I see things differently and fully backed Hughton’s decision to rest a good number of first-team players in midweek as I wanted our best possible team to be available to play in today’s derby, but I understand that others feel differently and feel that fielding a weakened team during the week equates to us missing out on an opportunity to progress into the Carling Cup quarter-finals at the expense of a team that has scored an average of three goals in every game this season. (more…)
St James' Park - Full to the brim?I’ve been checking online for quite some time now to see how ticket sales for the derby match against Sunderland tomorrow have been progressing.
It’s fair to say that they have been going pretty well, which is to be as expected as it is THE local derby, but will we manage a sell out at St James’ Park for the first time this season?
In short, technically we won’t sell out fully as a larger than normal segregation area between the two sets of fans has been requested by the police, presumably to stop those filthy Mackem tramps hoying their sharpened benefit coins at the home fans, again, but what about all of the rest of the avaiable seats? Will we shift them in time for the kick-off tomorrow? Or will we fail to sell out a derby for the first time in quite a while?
I checked earlier and all I saw was one seat remaining in the Platinum Club, just one seat in the entire ground. I checked a bit later on and the official website said that there was a few more seats left. Then I checked again and it said we had sold out. In short, heaven only knows if we have actually sold out what is available as the new club website appears to be a bit pants in all honesty and can’t seem to make it’s mind up on what it wants to show! (more…)
SMB's, you will see!Derby day fever is starting to get in full swing and we are now less than 24 hours away from the event itself.
The cheesy chip eating, trampy blue pop drinking brigade will be ruining the look of the landscape in Newcastle for a few hours tomorrow afternoon, so let’s hope we can send their distorted faces back home without anything to smile about!
Sunderland are wandering around at the moment believing they are the best, and they could have some justification for that to be honest. Afterall, they didn’t spend last season in The Championship, unlike us.
Still, I have a newsflash for them – they are not as good as they seem to think they are!
A bit of luck, and a few own goals have gained them points at home against some good teams. If they had lost that bit of luck then they wouldn’t have anywhere near as many points as they have now. To illustrate just how a bit of luck can play a part in the table, if we had some luck we would be four points better off already.
Steven Taylor will miss the match although he is back in full training and will be back in contention for a first-team recall soon enough. Unfortunately the same can’t be said for Dan Gosling, Hatem Ben Arfa, Steve Harper, Sol Campbell and Leon Best. (more…)
Joey Barton - Pedro look-a-like?Joey Barton has built up a reputation based on his controversial past, but if you take the time to listen, then you could well be pleasantly surprised at what the Cheshire lad has to say.
When Joey speaks he come across as quite an articulate person and has a stunning habit of talking a lot of sense, the kind of sense that if he himself had listened to earlier in his career he may not have found himself in some of the situations he has been in.
Anyway, Joey has been speaking to The Shields Gazette where he talked about Newcastle’s troublesome home form and the upcoming derby match against Sunderland this Sunday.
“It’s a derby game, and form will go out of the window. Sunderland are a very good side. Steve Bruce has built a good, young team,” said Barton, who will play in his third Tyne/Wear derby match on Sunday.
“But we’re on our own patch, and there’ll be 50,000 Geordie lunatics cheering us on, and hopefully we can get the result we want and send them all out on the town happy.”(more…)
Sing your hearts out for the lads!This weekend, life stops for the majority of Newcastle fans, and Sunderland fans for that matter.
The Tyne/Wear derby is back on the agenda, and I have a feeling that this one could be particularly tasty, for a number of reasons.
Newcastle have arguably been knocked off their perch as top dogs in the North-East due to last seasons ‘character building’ season in the second tier of English football, but Sunday presents a chance for us to claim that crown back and take the bragging rights, until January anyway.
For that to happen it’s going to take a whole lot of togetherness, both on the pitch and off the pitch. It’s going to take a team effort, and the fans need to play their part in the proceedings and get behind the team vocally and show them filthy, dribbling tramps what support is. (more…)
