Destination FloridaIn the second of their three-leg American pre-season tour, Newcastle United face Orlando City tonight.
Our pre-season tour of the States continues with a game against Orlando City Soccer today. With much of America gripped in a heatwave – and Florida’s pretty hot and humid in normal circumstances anyway – the game will be another tough test of the team’s fitness.
Pardew said that, whilst the heat was an issue to contend with, he thought that playing in it would be beneficial to the squad in the long run:
“The heat is definitely an issue.
“No matter where we play in America, it will be hot. We can’t do anything about that, we just have to play in whatever weather that day has in store for us.
“It is not unusual,” said Pardew, doing a commendable impersonation of Tom Jones. “I saw the light of the night that I past by her window,” he added, trying to perfect the voice.* (more…)
Oh no! Not again!As many of you may have heard, Hatem Ben Arfa was stretchered off in the Magpies’ 0-0 draw with US team, Sporting Kansas early this morning (UK time).
As esteemed collegue Hugh reported in this piece, Ben Arfa was injured around thity minutes into the game after a tackle by Kanasas player, Espinoza, and will be returning home from the tour. This is something that will, no doubt, be somewhat worrying for many Toon fans, especially so after the events of last season with Ben Arfa’s double leg break after a shocking scissor tackle committed by Manchester City hatchet man, Nigel de Jong.
Anyway, this may be just gossip, but honoured and trusted site user, ‘Geordiedug’, has has had word from a friend who is staying in the same hotel as the Newcastle United team that he has spoken with French master himself and he said that he was suffering with an ankle problem, should be out for around three weeks, and hopefully, will be back for the start of the season proper. (more…)
I wondered where I'd left themThe stretchering off of Newcastle United’s Hatem Ben Arfa has raised some questions (at least with this writer) about whether we are indeed an injury-prone club.
As I write this, we sit at the top of the Premier League injury table alongside Spurs and the rabble from down the road and my perception is that we get a lot of injuries compared to other teams.
However, my perception might be clouded by the fact that I support Newcastle, so I set about trying to find some historical stats about injuries and – in the main – failed dismally to do so. I did find a site called LadyArse – a gooners’ fan site – which does contain an injury list that has us 5th, but I can’t vouch for the accuracy of said table.
Another thing that might cloud my perception is that injuries to key players are obviously noticed more than those to squad players, and we seem to have had a lot of those in recent seasons too.
So I guess my first question is: do we get a lot of injuries for a Premier League club? (more…)
Down but not outNewcastle United get their US pre-season tour underway with a 0-0 draw against Sporting Kansas City and Ben Arfa is stretchered off with a leg injury.
The 100 degree Fahrenheit climate was described as ‘brutally hot’ in Kansas as Newcastle lined up to take on Sporting Kansas City in the first of three matches as part of a pre-season tour of the United States.
The weather, combined with an in-form opposition who are unbeaten in 11 games, transpired to create a 0-0 draw.
Newcastle started with:
Tim Krul.
Ryan Taylor, Steven Taylor, Fabricio Coloccini, Jonas Gutierrez.
Peter Lovenkrands, Dan Gosling, Cheik Tiote, Sylvain Marveaux.
Hatem Ben Arfa, Demba Ba.
Jonas played at left-back, Lovenkrands was on the right wing and Ben Arfa was up front with Demba Ba.
Sporting Kansas tried to take advantage of our unfamiliarity with such hot weather by keeping the tempo of the game high but we were up to the task, at least defensively. (more…)
...and yet we still lack depth.Interesting scenes today as Newcastle United fans chanted “If Sammy scores, we’re on the pitch”… and then Sammy Ameobi decided it would be a great idea to score.
Needless to say, on fled hundreds of Toon fans, some of which travelling all the way from Newcastle upon Tyne, forcing the referee to actually postpone the game. During the madness, a steward was hit in the face by a Darlington supporter, which I’m sure we can all agree is simply out of order.
Newcastle United were at the Northern Echo Arena for the second time in as many pre-seasons to open up their pre-season campaign. Fraser Forster began between the sticks with Hatem Ben Arfa making his first appearance since his horror tackle by Nigel De Jong. Joey Barton scored after just 3 minutes and at some point afterwards (relying on Twitter for information here!) Sammy Ameobi dared the Newcastle fans with his goal. (more…)
