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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.
Benny’s 3rd round FA Cup goal against Blackburn Rovers from January 2012.
You may have heard already that Newcastle United’s Hatem Ben Arfa is one of ten candidates for the FIFA “Puskás Award” for the best goal of the year.
However, this competition is also up for a public vote on FIFA’s official website, and I wouldn’t be doing my duty if I didn’t encourage all you Toon fans out there to get on the site and vote!
To crib unashamedly from the Wikipedia, it is described thusly:(more…)
Big Sam's tactics board, or Alan Pardew's?Venue: St James’ Park, Newcastle. Date: Sunday, 11th November. Kick off: 3:00pm Referee: Mike Dean (the Wirral). UK TV: None.
In case you are one of those who have successfully deceived yourselves that our manager’s real name is Alan Pardiola, and today’s fixture will be a match between a cultured, elegant passing side of fancy foreigners against big, “long ball” Sam, well think again!
As we go into this game Newcastle and West Ham are currently the two biggest “route one” sides in the Premiership. Looking at my OPTA stats, which defines long balls as passes of over 25 yards, Newcastle United and West Ham are the two biggest long ball merchants, with 17.5% of Newcastle’s total passes being long balls, and 17.9% of West Ham’s.
To put this into some kind of perspective, the percentage for Swansea City (our next opponents incidentally) is 9.7%, which is even bigger gulf than it sounds. Of course, this is not to say that the lower the percentage, the better it is or any nonsense like that. As the great Mackem Buddha of football, Bob Paisley, once said (and also Michael Laudrup more recently), “it’s not about the short pass or the long pass. It’s about the RIGHT pass.” Though the great Dane could say that as he could pass a ball 30 yards on to a team mates foot (and from a tight space too) effortlessly! (more…)
Nolan: Still Chicken dancing on a regular basis.Of course, Newcastle United’s game against West Ham on Sunday will see the return to St James’ Park of two ex Magpies, Kevin Nolan and Andy Carroll, and also an ex manager, Sam Allardyce.
In this piece I intend to concentrate on one of those, Kevin Nolan, who has received much undeserved flak from the less “gifted” sections of Newcastle United’s fanbase since his departure. Though Carroll has almost certainly received even more, that is undoubtedly a whole story on it’s own and as a Newcastle United blogger, I am still suffering from Carroll fatigue, and possibly you are too?
Getting back to Nolan though, below is one example of the kind of thing I’m writing about from so called “fans”. It is from the commments section below a story on the midfielder in local rag, the Chronic.
“Yes kevin Nolan, one word springs to mind that actually rhyms with “Fishbowl” when talking about the south….”**ithole” Thank you for your service, but sorry, you wouldn’t get into this squad ahead of Ben Arfa or Cabaye, get your head out of the smogg air son, big clubs have demanding, passionate fans, that’s why so many can’t handle the pressure up here and depart for debt laden clubs willing to overpay on salaries, smaller crowds, less expectation, and poorer playing standards installed by useless fat Sam!”(more…)
