Ram-raid!Well let’s hope the lads have worked off the excess turkey they were clearly suffering from against Sheff Wed, before they meet The Rams at St James Park Monday evening. Despite our lacklustre performance on Boxing Day, resulting in a 2-2 draw with Sheffield Wednesday, Newcastle United still go into the Derby County game top of the league, a position we will continue to hold going into 2010, regardless of the result against Derby.
Let’s hope Chris Hughton has had the lads training hard today to get the sluggishness out of their systems. Conversely, Nigel Clough won’t be looking forward to taking a patched up Derby County team up to the northeast to meet the league leaders. Clough’s team were booed off as the Rams lost at home to Blackpool on Boxing Day, their second home defeat in a row. He was frustrated with his side against Blackpool and admits he doesn’t know what to expect against Newcastle:
“We seemed incapable of doing the simple things,” said Clough. “We looked very nervous and very short of confidence.”
“The confidence is very fragile and we looked short of ideas. At times we couldn’t pass the ball to a white shirt.” (more…)
Pick that one out...If you asked me at half-time if I’d be happy with a repeat of the first half after the break, we’d have walked away with three points following a 2-0 victory and I would have been bemoaning the obvious lack of quality in our side once again. As it was, the scoreline was the same and the manner in which we won was far from convincing. But following the early second half dismissal of Kevin Nolan, this result held an awful lot more satisfaction than it might have, and proved once again that winning is a good habit to be in.
Having started with the same eleven as we did against Swansea, we started brightly enough although our defence seemed less than sure of itself this week. Despite a number of scares, including a goalline clearance from Steven Taylor, we took the lead on 20 minutes after Harewood had blocked the keeper’s clearance and Lovenkrands was left with a straightforward tap-in to make it 1-0. (more…)
Jus' chillin'?Chris Hughton has admitted that he is pretty laidback as the hour approaches and the ‘temporary loan signing’ window shuts at 5pm tomorrow night until February.
It has long been reported that Leon Cort has been on Hughton’s radar but Hughton has been telling the Chronicle that he’s not in any rush to sign players just for the sake of it:
“You never know, but realistically looking at the squad I don’t really expect to bring anybody in during the next month or so.
“Of course, all sorts of things can happen in the next 24 hours, and phone calls will be made on Thursday with players potentially becoming available.
“Some clubs might make a decision that some of the players who weren’t available earlier in the season are now there for loans. But we’ll see.”(more…)
Butt: Shocked.Newcastle United’s vintage ginger playbreaker, Nicky Butt, has been giving his thoughts on life in the Championship so far, with the lads about to face their seventeenth league game of the season against Preston North End at Deepdale.
“It’s a bit of a strange division and one that is very hard to predict.” Butt mused.
In the Premier League, nine times out of 10 the top four teams win their games whereas in the Championship you can come into the changing room after a game to find out there’s been one or two shocks.
The stastistics bear Butt out on this. As I stated in a previous ‘blog some time ago, last years champions, Wolves, lost a whole ten games last season, the year before, West Brom lost eleven, and the year before that, a certain Wearside team lost a mighty twelve games and still won the top spot. The last team to really ‘storm’ the division being Reading in the 05/06 season when they lost only two games, but with quite a few draws.
Butt continued:
“That’s down to the fact that the bigger teams in this division – the likes of ourselves, Middlesbrough and West Brom – are teams that everybody wants to beat and it’s a big deal for some of the smaller clubs to play teams like that. You see that week in, week out and it’s reflected quite regularly in the results.” (more…)
Looking and feeling a little rusty in the middle?Yesterday’s review of the current squad, took a look at the Newcastle defence, an area that this season we’ve been surprisingly strong in, given our poor reputation in recent years.
Tonight looks at arguably the fulcrum of a successful team, the midfield, the place that could and should control a game and dictate the style of play. That doesn’t bode well for our side at the moment because arguably, we have a midfield full of players who are very similar and lack pace. Therefore, the pace is often pedestrian and the game often goes stale.
Looking at the current crop, it really makes you pine for some of our former midfielders who have graced the hallowed St James’ turf in the last couple of decades. Reminisce about the grace of French wingers David Ginola and Laurent Robert. Recall the guts, determination and drive of Robert Lee and Gary Speed. Consider the guile we had in Emre, albeit fleetingly, and the sheer brilliance of Nobby Solano. Even having pure pace ala James Milner, Keith Gillespie to worry the opposition. You can even look at some of the less popular characters. We would kill for the pace of Kieron Dyer and dare I say, I could forgive Jermaine Jenas. Possibly even Damien Duff is a big miss? Maybe that’s stretching it…..
Anyway, that was the past, what about the present? – (more…)
