A double victory for Redknapp this week.Venue: White Hart Lane. Date: Saturday 11th Feb, 2012. Kick-off: 5.30pm. Referee: Andre Marriner.
For Newcastle United, this was a day to forget – started poorly, defended poorly, played poorly” Those words uttered by Sir Alan Shearer just about summed up this game for us. To be fair, Alan equally poured lavish praise on the performance of Tottenham Hotspur, who started well, attacked incisively with pace and skill, and pretty much outplayed us in every department.
We can have no complaints. This was not a game where the score flattered to deceive, in fact it could have been a lot worse. Yes it might have been different if Tiote had been sitting in front of the defence, if Cabaye had been available to manufacture some bullets for our Senegal strike force to fire, if Ryan Taylor had been there to put the free kick over the wall, if Steven Taylor had been in defence.
Sadly, that’s all ifs and buts. The truth is that the 11 men we sent out to play this game just weren’t at the races. Alan Pardew took the blame for getting his formation wrong, but how many of us before the game didn’t want to see both Ba and Cisse up front in our favoured 4-4-2 formation? Personally I expected Tottenham to score, especially against the defence we had out and without Tiote to protect it. So in my book we needed some potency up front. And looking at the players actually available to Pardew, there wasn’t a great deal of scope to change things in a way which would have produced an improvement. (more…)
Butch Wilkins: My Word!Venue: St James’ Park, Toon. Date: Sun 15th Jan 2011. Kick-Off: 1:30 pm. Referee: Chris Foy.
United came to this game on the back of 2 excellent straight wins against Man Utd 3-0 (got that one in early today!) and Blackburn 2-1 in the FA Cup. In contrast, Queens Park Rangers had taken only one point from their last 6 games.
Everything pointed to a fairly routine, comfortable home win. However this was the first league game without Demba Ba and Cheick Tiote, and the other potentially influencing factor was the appointment of Mark Hughes, who took charge of QPR for his first game following the sacking of Neil Warnock.
The match referee, Chris Foy, was the man who had sent off Man City’s Captain Kompany the previous week for that 2-footed challenge about which there has been much subsequent debate.
United Manager Alan Pardew was asked by Sky TV before the game about Ba and how he would deal with losing such a prolific goalscorer. He replied that it was about the team, not individuals and that Best and Ameobi would be a handful.
The day got off to an annoying start for those watching on Sky as they insisted on calling St James’ Park the “Sports Direct Arena” for some inexplicable reason. You’d think they would have asked somebody what the proper name was if they didn’t know? (more…)
A bad season at the office for Owen Coyle so far.Venue: Reebok Stadium, Bolton. Date: Monday 26th Dec, 2011. Kick-off: 3.00pm. Referee: Peter Walton.
Dear readers, for any of you who were expecting some kind of “normal” match preview for this Boxing Day away game against Bolton, I am writing this after a fairly messy Christmas Eve Party followed by two nights of very little sleep (none at all last night) and a couple of days full of Champagne overconsumption, hence an in depth analysis of the Trotters’ own kind of “Champagne” football isn’t really on my agenda at the moment. However you may get a bit of team news, a bit of history between the two sides and some opiniated waffle this time if you’re lucky.
Stats, previous matches etc…
The two sides come into this game with Newcastle United standing at seventh in the Premiership, with Bolton standing at second bottom. However the two sides do have roughly similar records as Newcastle’s terrific start to this season has somewhat inevitably crumbled into ashes. (more…)
Ba and Mr.T: Out for Africa.As most of you will no doubt be aware, the Africa Cup of Nations will be taking place next month.
This incredibly awkward competition is held bi-annually, unlike the European Championships which are held every four years. Also unlike the Euros, it is also usually held right in the middle of the bloody football season! This time the tournament will be jointly hosted by Gabon and Equitorial Guinea from January 21 to February 12 2012, but players will usually be called for duty by their national teams some time before that, even as early as the 8th of January for pre tournament training camps and warm up games.
Cheick Tiote and Demba Ba will definitely be there representing the Ivory Coast and Senegal respectively. Inspired by Manchester City, who also wish to hold back their talisman midfielder, Yaya Toure, from joining Tiote in the Ivory Coast team for as long as possible, Alan Pardew is now trying to delay Ba’s and Tiote’s departure until around the 15th January.
If Pardew and City manager Roberto Mancini fail in their quest to hold the players back until the middle of the month, the two Silver Supremos could be missing their important players for as many as six or seven games according to my calculation. Of course, this will almost certainly have a much greater effect on the Magpies than it will on moneybags Man City with their wealth of strength in depth. In Newcastle United’s case the potential games missed will be the following if Tiote and Ba depart on the 8th January: (more…)
Demba Ba: Scored twice, but it wasn't enough.Going into this game, United were without Steven Taylor, Danny Guthrie and Sylvain Marveaux through injury. Dan Gosling and Yohan Cabaye were both missing through suspension.
Alan Pardew decided to play Haris Vuckic in midfield to replace Cabaye, otherwise the team was unchanged from the Swansea game. This was United’s last home game of 2011 and the mood amongst the fans seemed to be one of expectancy – a good opportunity to get back to winning ways.
The match got off to a lively start with Newcastle stroking the ball around confidently. Within the first five minutes Steven Reid of West Brom was injured and clearly unable to continue. Jonas sportingly kicked the ball out of play and was rewarded with a handshake from opposing manager Roy Hodgson. Reid was replaced by Billy Jones.
A good, open game was developing with nothing much between the sides. Then in the 20th minute, Chris Brunt slotted the ball through to Odemwingie who hit a left foot shot into the net. 1-0 to West Brom. United hit back and had the ball in the net within 3 minutes but Ba’s effort was ruled offside. (more…)
