It was a case of “same old same old” from Pardew at the start as Liverpool were all over the Magpies at the start. However, they were also rather sterile when it came to the crunch and couldn’t put a goal past the obstinate newcastle defence. So, for once this season, Newcastle United weren’t a goal or two down before the inevitable improvement came. As usual though, it took some exceptional play from two of the usual suspects, Hatem Ben Arfa and Yohan Cabaye to combine for an opening goal for the Magpies. Ben Arfa’s silky dribbling skills took him through two Liverpool players before he floated in a great cross to the far post for his fellow Frenchman. Cabaye more than kept his end up too with an excellent finish from what looked like a very tricky angle. (more…)
Mike Williamson: You're simply the best!He is according to football stats site “whoscored.com” anyway, where he is Newcastle United’s only representative in their Premiership team of the season so far.
In this he joins players such as Robin van Persie, Juan Mata, Gareth Bale and other top players, just nudging out Tottenham’s Jan Vertonghen as best centre back, and tying with Everton’s Leighton Baines as best defender in the league full stop, with an overall rating of 7.6 out of 10.
Like Danny Simpson last season, Williamson is a vastly underrated player who may confound some of his armchair critics within the Newcastle United fanbase with his excellent defending statistics. It won’t confound Newcastle United’s Silver Supremo, Alan Pardew though, who recently said of the big lad:
“Willo’s been brilliant. People forget I’ve never favoured anybody over anybody else, and Willo put in one of his great performances (against the Mackems -wt). He was brilliant for us.”(more…)
Full match video and highlights of yesterday evening’s Newcastle United v Club Brugge Europa League game at St James’ Park.
Highlights of the game include an excellent, Cruyff like flick over the shoulder from Sammy Ameobi before a good assist to Gabriel Obertan for a well finished goal in the 48th minute. Another was another excellent cross by little Shane Ferguson to Papiss Cisse, who’s resulting effort was saved by Bojan Jorgacevic in the Brugge goal.
Our first meeting with the Belgians of Brugge.Venue: St James’ Park, Newcastle. Date: Thursday, 25th Oct. Kick off: 8:05pm Referee: Martin Hansson. UK TV: ESPN.
Hello, good evening and welcome to our “match banter” feature for this evening’s Europa League game at St James’ Park with Belgian table toppers, Club Brugge.
For some in depth information on the visitors, as well as all the usual team news and words from Alan Pardew about the kind of team he’ll be putting out and so on, you can consult our extensive match preview. As well as that, I will also be posting the teamsheets for the game when they become available. Though thanks to Alan Pardew, we can say that Cheick Tiote, Sammy Ameobi and Shane Ferguson will definitely be playing a role, with the Silver Supremo also saying that he will be fielding a “younger” team this evening. Here’s what he said:
“The team will be younger. I’m looking forward to seeing it. It’ll have a lot of energy, and we hope that’ll cause problems. It will be very similar to the one selected to play Bordeaux. That’s the best clue I can give you.”
