A watershed moment in Newcastle United's season?Venue: St James’ Park, Newcastle. Date: Sat 22nd December, 2012. Kick off: 3.00pm. Referee: Kevin Friend (Leics). UK TV: None.
Hello good afternoon and welcome to this extra special Christmas match banter for Newcastle United’s home match with the “R’s” of Queens Park Rangers.
To say that this was an important game for Alan Pardew and the Magpies would be an understatement. With The Magpies being pulled ever closer into the relegation quagmire, a fairly daunting pair of away games against Manchester United and a recently resurgent Arsenal follow, not to mention a tricky home tie with sixth placed Everton to complete the Christmas and New Year holiday fixture list. With QPR being one of the few teams which are below in in the table at the moment, hopes have been pinned on this game as the best hope of getting a desperately needed 3 points. However, despite their lowly position at second bottom, even here the momentum is with today’s West London visitors. Even Pardew himself has acknowledged this. Speaking of QPR in a pre match interview he said: (more…)
"Spend, spend spend" says Shearer. Writing in his column for the Sun, Alan Shearer has laid the blame squarely at the door of Mike Ashley for the Newcastle United’s current lack of form.
“Newcastle missed a huge opportunity in the summer” he began, continuing:
“Having punched above their weight last season and almost made it into the top four [sic], this was the time to spend. The club was up and running again after so many years mired in uncertainty. There was once again a feel-good factor and even Mike Ashley was enjoying it. But he needed to put his hand in his pocket and strengthen with two or three quality players. The best time to buy is when you are in a position of strength.”
Which is fair enough, especially the last sentence which is very true. “Momentum” is vital in football, something which the ex Toon hitman acknowledged himself when he continued later in the piece:
“Sadly the momentum built up by Alan Pardew last season has been lost and Saturday (Newcastle’s 1-3 defeat to Man City) was a stark example of that.”(more…)
A bright new dawn for NUFC?Many thanks to “ToonBano” from the Toon blog www.toonbano.com for his second guest blog here – wt.
Today is the two year anniversary of Alan Pardew’s very first game as NUFC manager, when we defeated Liverpool 3-1 thanks to goals from Kevin Nolan, Joey Barton and Andy Carroll. Just looking at the goal scorers that evening and the impressive overall performance, compared to who we have in our team now after another defeat at the hands of Fulham Monday Night, it’s safe to say things have changed a lot over that period of time.
Most people were confused and concerned as to why Alan Pardew was even in the dugout that night two years ago as Chris Hughton was doing a sterling job in our first season back in the Premier League after the ultimate humiliation of relegation. Which of course was thanks to him for rescuing this club from certain doom by getting us promoted at the first time of asking, even though he had no previous managerial experience at that point of his life. Most fans thought he was unfairly sacked and I was one of them. (more…)
Shamone! Eeeh heh!Venue: Craven Cottage, London. Date: 10th December 2012. Kick off: 8:00pm. Referee: Lee Mason. UK TV: None.
After an much needed win and a much needed change in tactics in our last Premiership game against Wigan, we now find ourselves facing Fulham away, a team who despite a recent lack of form can be very tricky customers on their own turf.
History and recent form.
Fulham’s season has been a bit like our own, hence we find ourselves only separated by goal difference in the Premiership. It couldn’t have started better for Martin Jol with a 5-0 victory over his ex assistant Chris Hughton’s new Norwich side. Fast forwarding to today though, Fulham fans have had to endure seven Premiership games without a win now, the last one coming on 20th October against Aston Villa. Meanwhile, a 3-0 victory over 10 man Wigan helped to lift Newcastle United’s spirits last week, though that was the first victory in six Premiership games for the Magpies. (more…)
Hoof the ******!“Alan Pardew will tell you that he tries to play good football – That’s rubbish, he plays long ball football. It’s very direct, there is no creativity in midfield, he just wants to play route one football. Every time I’ve seen his teams play, they play that way but he’ll say in the Press ‘we play good football.’ At times he can be a conman.”– ex player and pundit Stewart Robson when Pardew was appointed as Newcastle United’s manager.
In my previous story on Alan Pardew’s long balls, “Pardew’s long balls – An in depth probe,” I revealed that thanks to our Silver Supremo’s love of “route one” football, Newcastle United are now the biggest long ball team in the Premiership. Indeed, they are eclipsing even the high priests of long balls, Tony Pulis and Sam Allardyce, as well as Pardew’s own long ball protege, Brian “long balls” McDermott at Reading, who Pardew beat into second place by some distance. This piece is intended as some kind of follow up to that.
But first however, here’s a truncated version of the table I presented in that piece, which covered our first eleven Premiership games (up to and including West Ham).(more…)
