Villa Park awaits the high flying Magpies.Venue: Villa Park, Birmingham Kick off: Saturday, 17th Sept, 3pm Referee: Neil Swarbrick
Well if stats are anything to go by, our forthcoming away clash with the Villans, the result could well be another 0-0 like the QPR match. Of course though, there’s been many a time in the past when people like myself written stuff like that and the games have ended up as 4-3 scorchers so here’s hoping!
While both Newcastle United and Villa have made fairly promising starts to the season, the best in fifteen years for Newcastle no less, this has been more on the back of solid defences rather than exciting, entertaining Cavalier style attacking play. Both teams are yet to lose, with Aston being the draw specialists on the Premiership so far with three of their first four games ending up deadlocked. Incidentally, whilst I’m wheeling out the stats, Villa are also the all time draw specialist in Premier League history with no less than 226 altogether in the nineteen and a bit years of the competition so far, which is around twelve draws a season. While the Magpies have one more victory than the Villans, and are four places ahead in fourth, we have scored but three goals in our opening four games, whereas Villa have scored five.
Santon: Knee knacked again.Earlier today, Davide Santon injured his right knee once again in training.
Speaking in a rare interview, Newcastle United manager, Alan Pardew, suggested that may have been another recurrence of a *lateral meniscus injury which have haunted the Italian since it was torn in an Italy Under-21s game against Luxembourg in November, 2009.
Pardew said of the latest injury:
“Unfortunately, Davide hurt his knee this morning. He’s going for a scan today. That’s not good news for us.
“He’s having a scan on what looks like a cartilage. His knee looked a little bit unhealthy after training today.
“It’s an injury he’s had previously, so I think it’s very wise that the doctor and his team have him scanned today to make sure.
“I’m not actually sure of the mechanics of it. It’s very important he has a good start at this football club, so we want to make sure he’s 100%”(more…)
French flair or English doggedness?How important is an English spine to a Football Club?
The thought crossed my mind the other day, after pondering the comings and goings from this transfer window:
“Just how important is an English spine to NUFC?”
Many sports pundits have criticized Arsenal over the years for a weak English showing in their teams, and cite this reason for the failure over recent years. On the same sort of note how will our recent shift to cheap foreign imports play out in the long run?
I have to admit, last year looking at the group of Carroll, Barton, Nolan and Harper (to name a few) I always felt that we would stay up. The guys had been through the relegation, bonded in the Championship and knew what had to be done in order secure our Premier League status. But now with the French Revolution going on with the club, how much passion and desire do these guys have? (more…)
Up to the task?Newcastle United manager Alan Pardew says we have to find new ways of scoring goals now that we’ve sold all the people that scored them for us last season.
It already seems like a geological time era has passed since the last Newcastle match and we still have to wait until Monday. There seems to be a general feeling of post-transfer window depression amongst Toon fans and we need a match to – preferably a winning one – to help lift the gloom.
Whilst Alan Pardew has allegedly ‘got over’ the disappointment of not signing the striker he was after in the transfer window, he does still seem a little unsure where our goals are going to come from. Pardew said:
“We are going into the unknown to a certain degree because a lot of the goals we created and scored last year are not in this team.
“But we have got a lot of new talent and that new talent is exciting and they have shown that in games. We are going to be leaning on them to make us look a little bit different and to create a different type of goal.” (more…)
Camden Council: Scuppers No.9 hunt, for now.Right, so now as the dust settles on another tansfer window, where we made some great early progress with players such as Cabaye, Marveaux, Obertan, Abeid and Ba, and a couple of late window acquisitions in the shape of Elliot and Santon, we’re all set for the next big game in the stop/start beginning to this Premier League campaign.
The squads have been handed in to the FA and ‘set in stone’ until the January window creaks open for another round of harem scarem frittering of perfectly good cash on journeymen three-time losers and other teams ‘deadwood’. Can’t wait! (well, maybe I can as I can’t stand the way we have to do business these days).
Anyhoo, Yes, we could’ve done with a new striker to amply fill the legendary No.9 jersey here at Toon towers. But, it is what it is, so we have to just pick ourselves (jaws included) up off the floor, dust ourselves down and go with what we have now.
It’s a real pity actually, ‘cos i’d ’employed’ Mrs. FLiCK to ‘find’ us a new NO.9. A job she totally came up trumps with.
Alas, we couldn’t quite make the deadline in the registration of the ‘Great Black ‘n’ White hope’ in time for the squad lists. I put this down to the inefficiency of Camden Council and their collective inability to speed up the registry service down here in London Town. We were told that we had to form an orderly queue outside the Camden Town Hall and it could take as long as 6 weeks. I said:
