Magpies v Throstles - Who will get the juicy 3 point worm?Venue: St James’ Park, Newcastle. Date: Sunday, 28th Oct. Kick off: 3:00pm Referee: Chris Foy. UK TV: None.
Hello, good afternoon and welcome to our “match banter” feature for this afternoon’s Magpies game against West Bromwich Albion at St James’ Park.
In the Premier League betting stakes, Newcastle United are the favourites this afternoon, with home advantage and Newcastle’s fifth place finish last season seemingly trumping the fact that West Brom are three places higher in the current Premiership table as we go onto this game. However it should be a very tough match between the Magpies and the Throstles, a match which could go either way.
For all the information you’ll ever need in the run up to this game however, please check out my collegue Andy’s excellent match preview, with all the team news, form guides, opinion and such. To that, I will add what Alan Pardew and West Brom manager Steve Clarke, who as you may know was a former Newcastle United assistant, as well as a caretaker very briefly (for one game) after the departure of Ruud Gullit in 1999, holding the fort until Bobby Robson took over for his five year stint as manager. (more…)
Clarke returns to St James' Park.Venue: St James’ Park, Newcastle. Date: Sunday, 28th Oct. Kick off: 3:00pm Referee: Chris Foy. UK TV: None.
The Toon return to Premier League action when the Baggies visit for a non-televised 3pm kickoff on Sunday.
The “Boing Boing” Baggies have proved a real thorn in our side at SJP in recent years and Alan Pardew will be looking for a first home win against them in three attempts. Their previous boss Roy Hodgson, who clearly had the advantage over our sad and sorry silver haired sycophant, went on to better things at the end of last season and Pardew will be trying to get the Toon back on track, after a faltering start, just so he can lay some claim to follow “Woy” into the England hot seat in the years to come.
After Hodgson’s departure to Soho Square/Wembley/Burton, the Throstles went out on a limb and found a replacement in former Toon assistant manager Steve Clarke. He managed one game for the Toon against Man Utd losing 1-5 at Old Trafford after sexy football manager Gullitt left the team in the lurch. Clarke’s baptism as a “No. 1” has been relatively successful. After eight games into the season he has guided West Bromwich to sixth place in the Premier League on the back of two wins, three defeats and a draw from their last six games in all competitions. However the Baggies are still looking for their first Premier League away win of the season and have won only one of their last nine away league games (since their 1-0 win at Anfield in April).
Our first meeting with the Belgians of Brugge.Venue: St James’ Park, Newcastle. Date: Thursday, 25th Oct. Kick off: 8:05pm Referee: Martin Hansson. UK TV: ESPN.
Hello, good evening and welcome to our “match banter” feature for this evening’s Europa League game at St James’ Park with Belgian table toppers, Club Brugge.
For some in depth information on the visitors, as well as all the usual team news and words from Alan Pardew about the kind of team he’ll be putting out and so on, you can consult our extensive match preview. As well as that, I will also be posting the teamsheets for the game when they become available. Though thanks to Alan Pardew, we can say that Cheick Tiote, Sammy Ameobi and Shane Ferguson will definitely be playing a role, with the Silver Supremo also saying that he will be fielding a “younger” team this evening. Here’s what he said:
“The team will be younger. I’m looking forward to seeing it. It’ll have a lot of energy, and we hope that’ll cause problems. It will be very similar to the one selected to play Bordeaux. That’s the best clue I can give you.”
The Belgians are coming!Venue: St James’ Park, Newcastle. Date: Thursday, 25th Oct. Kick off: 8:05pm Referee: Martin Hansson. UK TV: ESPN.
Brugge come to St James’ Park this evening as leaders of the Belgian Pro League, though on the back of a fairly heavy 4-1 defeat against Oud-Heverlee Leuven (the home of “Stella Artois” beer).
However, this was their first league defeat of the season, with their record before that being D,D,W,D,W,W,W,D,W,W. Their only other defeat this season was their 4-0 Europa League hammering by Bordeaux. Of course, we beat Bordeaux convincingly in our last Europa game, 3-0 at our place, though if you think that makes the Belgians a pushover it’s not as simple as that. Brugge went on to do better than us in their next Europa League game, a 2-0 defeat of Maritimo where we could only manage a 0-0 draw.
This will be our first game against Brugge in European competition. Their last matches against English opposition in this competition were two legs at the same group stage last season against Chris Hughton’s Birmingham City. In those games they were beaten 1-2 at home by Birmingham, drawing 2-2 in their away leg at St Andrew’s.
