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…)
Toon in Europe - Be careful what you wish for?Ok. So at this point, with 12 games of the season left and 43 points, we are looking to head to Europe; although that could tempt the “Be careful what you wish for” saying.
The squad we currently have is most certainly unable to cope with so many games in such little time if we were to get to the Europa League. Maybe we would follow the same route as Spurs, play almost a reserve team and ‘concentrate on the league,’ but that would be a waste of a flight, wouldn’t it? But is the Europa League good for us? Because after all, its second best, like the League Cup. Would we get any money from it? Not a great deal probably. We would have to somehow get the money to buy in a lot of good players (not just satisfactory) to strengthen the team during the Summer, because put simply, Perch, Williamson and Guthrie aren’t good enough. (more…)
No new deal for Coloccini yetNewcastle United have been trying to negotiate new contracts with Danny Simpson and Fabricio Coloccini, so far without any success. We’ve seen before that the club is prepared to let players go if they demand what the club thinks is ‘too much’, so what does the future hold for this pair?
It seems like the contracts of Coloccini and Simpson have been ‘outstanding’ for ages and new attempts to get both players to sign new contracts this week have apparently failed. Nevertheless, Alan Pardew is upbeat about the negotiations and said:
“We’ve had conversations. I can see a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel now. I can understand why fans are concerned, but we’re making progress.
“It’s not easy, contracts, and we’re trying to do what’s best for the football club and what’s best for the player. Sometimes, they are worlds apart.
“There’s been a bit of antagonism with contracts in the past. There’s a lot more communication here and I think we’re trying to work through the process in a sensible manner.”
The press have suggested that Danny Simpson has turned down a £25,000/week 5-year deal and, although he still has 18 months left on his contract, there have been rumours in the past that he might favour a move away from Newcastle (and the higher salary that might bring him). (more…)
Pardew - Learning lessons?After Newcastle United’s 5-0 thumping at Tottenham on Saturday, silver supremo Alan Pardew has reflected on his teams defeat and performance at White Hart Lane.
Recent quotes attributed to Mr.Pardew happen to mention the use of formation in recent weeks, which is something I am interested in venting my thoughts on. But before I begin, in case you haven’t had the pleasure of reading his recent reflections on all things Newcastle I shall include the most important snippet for you below. Enjoy…
“We have two good strikers but they didn’t have a chance at Spurs. Papiss isn’t going to win you the game when you’re 2-0 down after five minutes.
“We need to be able to cope with having two strikers. The Press and the fans have criticised us when we have played 4-5-1 at times this year. Now they understand why.”
The formation debate is something that I see / hear on a regular basis, right through all the Newcastle blogs it’s a topic discussed between fans. The main issue I see however has never been in regards to United utilising a 4-5-1, rather, it has been more notably about United using a 4-4-2. It seems, certainly in my case anyway, that most are against Newcastle using 4-4-2 and more pro towards using a 4-5-1. So where Pardew has got this information from seems lost on me. Moreover, Newcastle haven’t used a 4-5-1 all season, but have dabbled with a 4-3-3 and a 4-4-1-1. The latter formation has only been used when Hatem Ben Arfa has been included in the starting eleven (hardly ever), and the former was recently used at Fulham and Brighton. (more…)
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…)
