Following on from part one of Newcastle United’s 2011 / 2012 season review, we begin at the start of the new year with a home tie against Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United.
January – Man Utd humbled / A Nightmare at the Cottage / The new number nine…
A stunning display from Pardew’s team saw champions, Manchester United, comfortably beaten 3-0 at St James’ Park. Two brilliant goals from both Demba Ba and Yohan Cabaye put United on course to victory, with Phil Jones putting through his own net to complete the rout. It was a tremendous start to January, and helped eradicate the previous month’s below par performances. Pardew got the tactics spot on, knowing that Man Utd’s centre backs Rio Ferdinand and Phil Jones couldn’t handle the physicality of Magpies front men, Demba Ba and Shola Ameobi. (more…)
The end of the season is finally upon us. A season in which defied all expectations. A season where even the most optimistic of Toon fans would have struggled to predict what would be.
Newcastle United gate-crashed the top six, and also knocked on the door of the Premier League’s top four. As it turned out at 5pm on Sunday the 13th of May 2012, Newcastle United were confirmed as finishing in 5th place, above Chelsea, above Liverpool, and above the majority of peoples expectations.
The Europa League awaits the Magpies next season, a new chapter or perhaps a new beginning is on the horizon. But before we look forward into what might be, I’m now going to relive the season that was. Cast my mind back and tell the tale of Newcastle United’s 2011 / 2012 season. I hope you are all sitting comfortably… (more…)
"More Wins"Newcastle United manager Alan Pardew has identified that we must win around half of our 10 remaining fixtures if we are to have a chance of Europa League football next season. When you think of the doom and gloom amongst many supporters at the beginning of the season, qualifying to play in Europe would have to be judged as quite an achievement by all concerned.
Pardew said:“We don’t want to slip. We are saying we are going to push for Europe now and let our fans know we are going to try to push for it. We are going to need four or five wins and if we don’t beat Norwich, that’s going to look difficult in nine games, because that means the task will be that much harder.”
“But if we win, then can we win three or four of our next nine? I think we can, and that would put us in with a great chance of Europe, so it’s a very important game. It’s tough to get into Europe. You have got a team with the finance and quality of Liverpool who could run us down. We will have to hold our hands up if that happens, but we are going to give them a good fight for their money.”(more…)
How does the run-in look?With two-thirds of the Premier League season now complete, this author looks at what the final third might have in store for Newcastle United.
We’re now into the home stretch – the final third of the 2011/2012 Premier League season. We have no Cup distractions so our only aim is to finish as high as possible in the league and I thought I’d take a look at the run-in and see what I think we can achieve.
I’ve take a cautious – even pessimistic – view I think. The attitude of the pessimist is often derided but I reckon if you set your expectations on the lower side of realistic there’s a greater chance you’ll be pleasantly surprised when those expectations are exceeded.
Anyway, enough of the philosophy, let’s see how the the remaining 13 games look.
February
There’s just one match left this month and that’s at home against Wolves. They’re currently without a manager but they have said they expect one to be in place by the time they play us next weekend. Alan Curbishley has apparently ruled himself out of the running and Agent Bruce is now touted as the favourite in most areas of the press. Whatever happens in terms of their manager, I expect us to pick up all three points.
So for February I have us getting: 3/3 points. (more…)
The table can't lie (can it?)Newcastle United currently sit at 3rd in the Premier League, but how do the games we’ve played so far compare with last season?
Much has been wondered about whether we’re worthy of our 3rd place position. Not just from the usual suspects in the world of punditry who seem incapable of giving Newcastle much credit for anything, but we’ve had cause to wonder a bit ourselves.
There are too many variables to consider and the semantics of the word ‘worthy’ leaves too much open to subjective opinion to ever reach an objective conclusion about our ‘worthiness’. All we can say is that we’ve met the challenges that have been thrown our way so far.
But I had this burning urge to create an HTML table. Don’t knock it – it’s no more unusual than fancying a pork pie and rates fairly low in my list of insanities. So create a table I did and what it does is to compare last season to this season with the games we’ve played so far. (more…)
