A 16-0 win will put us above Chelsea!Venue: The Hawthorns, West Bromwich. Date: Sunday, 25th March, 2012. Kick-Off: 4pm (Sky TV). Referee: Chris Foy (Merseyside).
Hello Geordies, and welcome to our latest “match banter” for this afternoon’s game with West Bromwich Albion.
West Brom are eight places below us in the Premiership table in a fairly lowly fourteenth, and their home form has been erratic at best. With a victory, we will move level on points with Chelsea, though it would take a 16-0 victory to overtake them in the table, something we have failed to achieve this season so far. Even a draw would be a milestone, as it would earn Newcastle United their 1000th Premiership point.
One other factor might be that Roy Hodgson has, like Harry Redknapp before him, been strongly linked with the England manager’s job. This is well known to be the most powerful curse in human history, and has recently taken Harry Redknapp from teaching us a footballing lesson with a 5-0 thumping to Tottenham’s worst run of results since the beginning of the season. Is that old silver fox, Roy Hodgson, now linked closely enough to be under that spell? Time will tell. (more…)
Another battle of the birds at SJP this afternoon.Venue: St James’ Park, NE1 Date: Sunday, 18th March 2012 Kick-Off: 4pm (Sky TV) Referee: Phil Dowd (Staffs).
Hello, good afternoon and welcpme to our “match banter” feature for this afternoon’s visit from the “Canaries” of Norwich City.
Here’s hoping for a better result than last time at their place, when we lost 4-2 in what was their highest total of goals in one game for the season so far. Grant Holt put two past us back then, with Wes Hoolahan and Steve Morison scoring the others for the Canaries in reply to our brace from Demba Ba. At least we will have home advantage this time though..
For a far more detailed look forward to the game, check out UTD111’s excellent match preview for all the team news, stats, what the managers have been saying in the run up to the game and all that sort of thing.
As usual, I will also be posting the team sheets for the game below when they become available. (more…)
Gooners, back on form for their last three games.Venue: Ashburton Grove, London. Date: Mon 12th Mar 2012. Kick-Off: 8pm. Referee: Howard Webb (Man. U).
Good evening Geordies and welcome to our regular “match banter” feature.
This evening of course sees us facing the Queen’s favourite side, the “Gooners” of Arsenal. Something which my esteemed colleague, Hugh, missed out of his otherwise excellent match preview is that this evening will be Alan Pardew’s 50th Premiership game in charge of the Magpies so far, with his record so far being P 49, W 18, D 17, L 14. This means he has won 71 points from a possible 147, and has a win percentage of 36.73%, fairly solid mid table form from the Silver Supremo so far, boosted of course by an excellent unbeaten run of eleven games at the start of this season. Here’s hoping we can recapture some of that against an Arsenal side who seem to have been well and truly back in form in their last three games (including one Champion’s League game), seeing them just about holding on to their usual position in the top four, with a little help from struggling Chelsea below them in fifth. (more…)
The Mackems: A tougher test than they used to be? Venue: St James’ Park. Date: Sun 4th Mar 2012. Kick-Off: High Noon. Referee: Mike Dean.
Hello Geordies and welcome to our regular match banter feature.
Today of course sees the Magpies pitted against the Mackems in another one of those “must win” derbies against our much loved and respected neighbours from the so called “city” of Sunderland.
In a recent interview for the Daily Torygraph, Alan Pardew claimed to now know everything about the about the town and the psyche of we fans. The Silver Supremo revealed:
“There’s nothing I don’t know about what’s going on in the town – how they feel about us, how they feel about the club, how they feel about removing the sign at the ground, how they feel about the performance at Spurs, how they feel about this game, whippets, number 9s, brown ale, spotty cakes… Gawd bless ’em!”
This he ascribed to assistant and native guide, John “why aye man” Carver, adding later in the interview: (more…)
Hungry like the Wolves!Venue: St James’ Park. Date: Sat 25th Feb 2011. Kick-Off: 15:00. Referee: Peter Walton.
Good afternoon Geordies and welcome to our regular “match banter” feature for this afternoon’s game against Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Well, on one side of argument, Wolves are currently in the relegation zone and under a caretaker manager with new manager, Terry Connor, after the recent sacking of Mick McCarthy. On the other side, we of course are in a different place, sitting fairly pretty in the top six. We have pulverised Manchester United, and yet we have also capitulated miserably against teams such as Norwich and Fulham.
Though Wolves are in the bottom three, they were almost relegated last season too, but built up something of a reputation for giant killing, pulling off shock wins against teams such as Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester City. Despite the difference in our relative seasons, as my collegue, Hugh rightly pointed out in his most estimable Match preview both teams will be going into this game on the back of “five goal stuffings.” We all know about our Tottenham nightmare, with Wolves going down 1-5 at home to Midlands rivals, West Bromwich Albion. (more…)
