Williamson vs Taylor - The battle is on!Steven Taylor came through 60-odd minutes of reserve-team acton yesterday as he stepped up his return to first-team football.
I said in an article yesterday that Taylor won’t find it easy to get back in the first-team and will have a fight on his hands for a first-team place for arguably the first time in his Newcastle career.
So in an article inspired by one of our poster’s, TonyGreenSupreme. I decided that perhaps now would be a good time to take a look at just what Steven Taylor is up against if he wants to break into the first-team. He was named on the bench for Sunday’s demolition derby, and he is expected to make the bench again for this weekend’s trip to The Emirates. After near enough ten-months out I would say that a start is out of the question at this early juncture, but at least it gives an option should anyone suffer an injury during the game.
You have to look at just who Taylor will replace, if he is to prove himself worthy of a place in the team in the forthcoming weeks of course. I think most of us are in agreement with regard to Fabricio Coloccini being the central defender who is least likely to get dropped. His form over the past eighteen months or so has been fantastic, and he looks to have carried over his good form from The Championship into the Premier League. (more…)
It's that man again!I did have a funny feeling about a 2-2 draw for this game, then I thought of the home advantage and finally plumped for a 3-1 victory after a valiant, but very unlucky performance against Manchester City a fortnight ago. Of course though, in the world of Newcastle United, the unpredictable is predictable. So it was today, thanks partly to a somewhat below par performnce from Mike “Sonny Boy” Willamson in some parts of the game, most notably against Toon old boy, Charles “Insomnia” N’Zogbia.
The first notable piece of news was the absence of usual Captain, Kevin Nolan, who wasn’t even named in the squad. Apparently, it was a minor knock which kept him oput of the fray this afternoon. Danny Guthrie was back from his injury though, with Peter Lovenkrands also making a rare start upfront in place of the mildly crocked Nolan. (more…)
JLoyd Samuel in action for Bolton.The treatment at St James’ Park is already beginning to fill up, even before a ball has been kicked in the Premier League.
It is worrying that we seem to be losing players left, right and centre due to injury, but an additional concern is the amount of time that players will be out because of these injuries.
Take Danny Simpson as an example, he will miss the first month of the season through injury, and it looks like Steven Taylor will be joining him although that is yet to be confirmed. Tamas Kadar is another player who is fighting to be fit for the start of the season. Add all that together and it is becoming apparent that we are desperately short of players in certain positions for the new season. (more…)
Williamson: Settled Toon nicely.Mike Williamson has been somewhat of a revelation since his arrival on Tyneside, which is more that can be said for other more high profile names that have had the chance to wear the famous Black & White stripes of Newcastle United.
Williamson was signed by Portsmouth in September 2009 but was subsequently forced to play in the reserves as the financial rot set in at Fratton Park. That meant that the South coast club couldn’t afford to pay any more of the fee owed to Watford if he made a first team appearance, which was a shame on a personal level for him but ended up being beneficial for us.
When the new season starts and August rolls around it will see Mike being given the chance of playing top level football for the first time in his career. Again, the ability of Mike to be able to make the step up has been cause of debate between some fans. Some argue that he hasn’t played top flight football for a reason, others say he was just unlucky at not getting his chance last year with Portsmouth. Given that he hasn’t put a foot wrong, other than on his surf board, since he has been here then surely he deserves his shot at the big time, and I will be backing him to succeed. (more…)
Has been Fab-ulous this season!Here I continue with the second of four installments of my player reviews for the title winning season just gone.
Last time out we had at look at how our goalkeepers had been getting on throughout the season, which was pretty easy by all accounts as there isn’t that many of them. Now we step up the difficulty and broaden our review to feature our whole defence and look at how they have performed this season. The back four has been a very strong area for us this season, a strange thing for a Newcastle fan to say following year after year of shabby backlines that nobody really seemed to be able to sort out. Granted we may have been playing against weaker opposition, but we have come out on top of them, miles on top in fact and we head to the Premier League with best defensive record in The Championship safely in the bag. I know we have had loan players in the shape of Patrick van Aanholt, Fitz Hall and Zhurab Khizanishvilli but I am going to discount them for this as they aren’t technically our players and only really played a handful of games for us. (more…)
