Another St Mary's fist pump for Pardew today?Venue: St Mary’s Stadium, Southampton. Date: Sunday, 25th November. Kick off: 3:00pm Referee: Martin Atkinson. UK TV: None.
This game will see our own Silver Supremo squaring up to his Southampton Silver Supremo successor, Nigel Adkins.
Adkins did what Pardew couldn’t quite manage, get the South coast side promoted from League One and then taking them thorugh to the Premiership the following year. And so we face them this afternoon.
To be fair to Pardew though, he was hobbled by a 10 point deduction through administration, though he did have significant financial backing from new owner, Markus Liebherr, and they didn’t even make the League One playoffs, coming seventh. Pardew did make alot of signings who are still mainstays of the current Southampton Premiership side however, with top goalscorer Rickie Lambert, as well as José Fonte, Adam Lallana and Jason Puncheon all being signed by Pardew before he was fired under mysterious circumstances by Saints Chairman, Nicola Cortese.
Adkins’ usually reticent predecessor had this to say on the imbroglio in a rare interview:(more…)
Our last game at their place.Venue: St James’ Park, Newcastle. Date: Thursday, 22nd November. Kick off: 8:05pm Referee: Danny Makkelie (Holland). UK TV: ESPN.
This will be our penultimate game in Europa League group stage, with Newcastle United facing their second (away) leg against Bordeaux for the final game after this one.
As things stand, the Magpies lead the group with eight points and a win should see us safely through to the next stage. However the Magpies only lead second placed Bordeaux by only one point. Hence the big question should be whether we finish first or second on our group, which will probably have a bearing on the strength of the opposition we would face in the next round. Meanwhile, this evening’s opponent’s chances are now hanging by a thread as they are currently bottom with only two points. This means that so far, things are going as they might have been predicted from the start, with Newcastle United being narrow favourites over Bordeaux, with Brugge being seen as the slightly stronger of the two underdogs. Speaking as a Newcastle United fan, I sincerely hope the Belgians go out after their disgraceful treatment of travelling Toon fans in the second away leg at their place. But I digress… (more…)
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Another disappointing home defeat for the Magpies as they were sunk by two goals, with Swansea’s leading goalscorer Michu getting his seventh of the season in the 58th minute. A disastrous sliced clearence from Tim Krul in the Newcastle goal fell to the Swans’ Spanish international winger Pablo Hernandez, who then proceeded to bang in an excellent cross straight on to the head of his fellow Spaniard, who headed powerfully past the hapless flying Dutchman. (more…)
The supreme playmaker.Venue: St James’ Park, Newcastle. Date: Sunday, 17th November. Kick off: 3:00pm Referee: Phil Dowd. UK TV: None.
St James’ Park will be honoured to receive football royalty to St James’ Park as the greatest footballer of the 1990s, and indeed one of the greatest ever, Michael Laudrup, brings his Swansea City side to St James’ Park.
Unlike last week, this game should see an intriguing contrast of styles, as the elegant, flowing Swans are pitted against Pardew’s ugly ducklings, who are currently the Premiership’s biggest “route one” side.
St James’ Park welcomed back two old faces in our last game, Kevin Nolan and Andy Carroll, with the former scoring the winning goal against us. This time it is the turn of Wayne Routledge, who, like Nolan, has flourished since he was thrown out on his ear and declared not good enough for Noocarrssell by our Silver Supremo back in January, 2011. However, under the expert guidance of the playmaker supreme, he has provided six assists for Swansea so far this season, as well as a couple of goals. His four Premiership assists so far are as many as Ben Arfa (2), Cabaye (1), Gutiérrez (0), Shola (0) and Demba Ba (1), not to mention his replacement, Gabriel Obertan (0) have managed collectively. So, like Nolan, he might well be a danger for us alongside his current partner in goalscoring crime, the £2 million bargain of the season and Swansea’s top hitman so far with six goals, Michu.
Pardew's long balls against West Brom.As it starts to dawn on more fans that Alan Pardew is not bringing a more attractive, “fluid” style of play to Newcastle United after all, the Magpies continue to extend their lead as the biggest long ball team of the Premiership.
Using OPTA statistics for the Premiership season so far, which define “long balls” as passes which are over 25 yards, these long passes account for over 17.7% of Newcastle’s total passes on average, which is a hell of alot (see table below). To put this into some kind of perspective, Newcastle United are even beating Pardew’s own “Alma Mater”, Reading, currently managed by Pardew protege, Brian “long balls” McDermott into second place (16.3%). Meanwhile, the established high priests of “Route One” football, Tony Pulis and Sam Allardyce, currently occupy the third and fourth places respectively with 16.2% of Stoke’s passes, and 15.1% of West Ham’s being over 25 yards. At the other extreme we also find the usual suspects, with Arsenal occuping the bottom place in the table with only 7.7% of their total passes being long balls. Behind them we then have Manchester City (8.1%), Manchester United (9.7%) and Swansea City (9.9%). (more…)
