Highlights of Newcastle United’s 1-3 defeat to Manchester City, who, somewhat predictably going on their recent form, finally ended our long unbeaten Premiership run. After City goals from Mario Balotelli (pen), Micah Richards and Sergio Aguero (pen), the Magpies finally managed a consolation goal from Dan Gosling. Though the defeat was hardly a shock, the lads will undoubtedly be rueing a few missed chances in this one.
A full match report from my erstwhile colleague, Hugh, is available here.
As usual, I shall endeavour to update these highlights with better ones when they become available.
The Silver Supremo greets the Silver Supremo.Welcome to our usual round up of what the managers have been saying in the run up to this afternoon’s away game against the team which sounds like a gay anthem, Man City.
For a detailed preview of the match with stats, team news, match details, thoughts on the upcoming game etc, please check out our comprehensive match preview. We will also be posting our regular “match banter” thread, where you can make comments, share streams for the game etc while the match is in progress. This should be going up around and hour before the kick off. Also, we shall be posting our usual report of the game some time after along with highlights when they become available.
Getting back to what the managers have been saying though, we start as usual in the black and white corner with Alan Pardew, who had much to say as always. Even as far back as Monday, Mr.Motivator was blowing his trumpet about today’s City game, with the general themes being “winning” and “belief”. On these themes the Silver Supremo mused:
“Belief comes from results as much as anything. I genuinely think the team believe they can win every game we enter. We will go to Manchester City thinking we can win.(more…)
Responsible for attackJohn Carver offer some insight into how Newcastle United run the dressing room on a weekly basis and talks about how he’s now convinced that Alan Pardew is the man for the job.
In a recent interview, John Carver told of how he and Alan Pardew split the workload at Newcastle, with Pardew concentrating mainly on the defensive side of things and Carver concentrating on attack. Carver said:
“Every Monday he [Pardew] comes into work having compiled a defensive report on the opposition. That’s his project, working with our video analysts to provide players with the best information.
“This week, for example, he will talk about Manchester City’s angles of attack, their set-pieces, their movement, as well as focussing on individuals. The lads will be made aware of Dzeko’s strengths and weaknesses, the best way to nullify Silva, Milner’s incredible work-rate, everything.
“That takes care of Monday to Thursday. On Friday it’s my turn when we look at ways to get at opponents. Put simply, Alan concentrates on how not to lose and I then find ways to win.”
It’s interesting that we spend the largest portion of the week on defence and goes some way to explaining why we have the best defensive record in the Premier League. I don’t know if that’s the typical way a Premier League manager does things but I can only imagine that it’s totally different to the way Keegan ran things in the 90’s, where it seemed that Darren Peacock and Philippe Albert were only vaguely aware they were defenders. (more…)
Pardew: Fans can still have some traditions.Newcastle United’s Silver Supremo, Alan Pardew, has come out and defended Mike Ashley’s decision to rename St James’ Park the “Sports Direct Arena.”
Speaking in an interview in the run up to Newcastle United’s away match against Manchester City, he began by reassuring “traditionalists” who may be upset that it would still be the same place, that at least the Gallowgate End would still be there, and we could still have our tradition of walking to the Stadium (shouldn’t that be “Arena” now?) saying:
“For the traditionalists amongst our fans, I think it’s something they are upset at.
“But it is still in the same place and it’s still the Gallowgate End and we still have your tradition of walking to the stadium from the centre of town. It’s there where it is.
Emphasising the financial gain should anyone eventually decide to take over from Sports Direct, who have once again generously agreed to allow their name to be used at no cost to “showcase” the benefits of being being mired in controversy and local emnity, he then continued: (more…)
What's in a name? Lots of potential damage seemingly.I was planning to write a follow up to my previous piece on why Mike Ashley’s “rebranding” of St James’ Park was ill conceived from the very start and doomed to fail.
In it I was going to outline how the value of Newcastle United’s brand has been damaged so much by this that it will lose far more in the long term that the minimal amount gained through selling the stadium’s naming rights. Going on similar deals on considerably less problematic new build stadiums, this amount will be nowhere near the £8-10 million foolishly quoted in public by Derek Llambias in an interview with BBC Radio Newcastle. Going on similar examples such as Arsenal’s Emirates Studium and Borussia Dortmund’s Signal Iduna Park, it will be more like a third to a half of that sum unless a shirt deal is also included and even then, the price is still somewhat ambitious.
As most of you will know, current shirt sponsors, Northern Rock, recently pulled out of their recent rather meagre £2 million per annum shirt sponsorship deal, and it has even been suggested that the furore over the Ashley’s second attempt at a stadium rebrand will jeopardise this sponsorship, as potential sponsors distance themselves from this now toxic brand. As I mentioned in my previous piece on the subject the offer has been almost universally derided by the people in the sponsorship industry who advise corporations on the efficacy of such deals, with one exception, from someone called Jonathon Gabay, who was reported as being an “unofficial consultant” to the club on the renaming issue. (more…)
