King Kenny has the last laugh.It was chucking it down with rain as the teams took the field at Anfield, with Newcastle United wearing their first choice kit of Puma’s version of black and white stripes. Three ex-united players were in the Liverpool team: Bellamy, Enrique, and of course, Andy Carroll. There was also some bloke called Jordan Henderson, who, as we know, has a dodgy past.
First Half
The first 10 mins saw United getting plenty of the ball without actually threatening the Liverpool goal. As expected, Mike Williamson got the job of marking Carroll. I was going to say “Williamson was preferred to Perch” but I thought better of it.
Both teams were taking a while to settle and the first bit of excitement came in the 11th minute when Downing hit the ball against Ryan Taylor’s hand. There was a shout from the Kop for handball rather than the Liverpool players, but there was nothing doing from the referee.
After a quarter of an hour we saw a dangerous cross from Enrique – cue the chant from the Geordie faithful “you’re just a s**t Ryan Taylor!” I’m sure they both saw the funny side. (more…)
Well done Benny!Bolton Wanderers 0 – 2 Newcastle United (Hatem Ben Arfa (69), Demba Ba (71)
Newcastle United were in their all black strip for this game, and enjoyed the backing of 4,000 travelling Geordies who pretty much took over the ground – at least in terms of noise! As a result of the Toon Army being in town, Bolton registered their biggest crowd of the season – 26,080, beating even the crowd for the visit of Man Utd from just down the road.
With games against Liverpool and Man Utd next, Newcastle fans could be forgiven for hoping we would bank 3 points here against the second bottom team. Santon’s knee injury saw the return of Ryan Taylor, and Mike Williamson made a welcome return after long-term injury, back at the expense of Perch and Cabaye, who also returned after his one game suspension.
Bolton looked nervous and edgy as United started the game in familiar fashion – controlling things and pressing the ball early. They continued to dominate as the game progressed, with loud backing from the Toon Army, and almost went ahead in the 16th minute, Ryan Taylor with a free kick over the wall forcing Jaaskelainen to fling himself to his left to palm away. At this stage, Bolton were only making the odd fruitless sortie forward on the break. (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…)
Magpies v Throstles - Who will get the juicy 3 point worm?Good evening Geordies and welcome to our latest “match banter” feature for this evenong’s game, which will be yet another battle of the birds.
First it was Magpies v Canaries, then Magpies v Swans, and now the Mags find themselves battling the Throstles of West Bromwich Albion for a juicy three point worm. “Throstle” is an an English name for the Eurasian song thrush, and though you’d think the poor little song thrushes would have no chance against the mighty Magpies, they have proved to be fairly tricky customers in the past and we haven’t been racking up the results as we did in the earlier part of the season, with no win in our last five games.
Before I forget, please excuse me for the lack of our usual “match preview” feature this week, which was cancelled due to the horrors of Christmas. I shall endeavour to make up for that somewhat by incorporating a kind of mini preview into this article, starting with previous encounters, and then a bit of team news.
Highlights of the game. 11 minute highlights of the match.
Swansea were defending very deep in the first half of this game, with Newcastle United keeping the Swans pinned back in and around their own box for quite a few spells. However as the second half rolled on, Swansea did make something of a comeback. So after an hour or so of complete dominance by the Magpies which they failed to capitalise on, it actually started to look possible that we could have ended the game emptyhanded. It ended as “honours even” at the end though.(more…)
