Newcastle United v Olympiacos highlights (opens in new window). Highlights from yesterday evening’s “Guadiana Torneo” match, which saw Newcastle United drawing 1-1 with Greek Super League champions, Olympiacos, at the Estádio Algarve, Faro, Portugal.
It was Steven Taylor who opened the scoring for the Magpies after 25 minutes on his return from a very long injury layoff. However, Kostas Mitroglou levelled for Olympiacos in the 79th minute, even though they were down to ten men after Francois Modesto was sent off five minutes beforehand for receiving two yellow cards. This meant that the match went to penalties. I won’t tell the result of the penalties if you haven’t seen them yet, but don’t look below if you want to watch them first! (more…)
Two evenings, two games, two Newcastle United teams!Date: Friday, 27th July. Venue: Estádio Algarve, Faro, Portugal. Kick off: 8.45pm local and UK time. UK TV: Live on ESPN UK.
Hello, good evening and welcome to our match banter feature for this evening’s game, which sees the Magpies facing current Greek Superleague champions, Olympiacos, at the Estádio Algarve, Faro, Portugal.
This will be the first game for the Magpies in the pre season “Guadiana Torneo,” with the next, against SC Braga taking place tomorrow. With two games so close together, our Silver Supremo, Alan Pardew, will be fielding two almost entirely different teams for each game, and on this his assistant, John Carver said:
“It’s a little bit different to last week, we’re now three weeks into the pre-season training. Now we go into a competition format and the manager will play two different teams each night.
“Everybody will play some part. Some will get 90 minutes.”(more…)
Santon: Totally settled in now (but misses his Italian scran)Davide Santon has given another fairly extensive interview for the Italian CalcioMercato.com (Football Market), which was published on Monday.
When I saw how snippets of it had been taken out of context elsewhere (as is usually the case with such interviews), with even the title of the original interview suggesting that the young wing back was angling for an immediate move to AC Milan, I decided to do a translation of the full interview for you delectation and publish the full transcript on here so you can judge for yourselves.
In the interview, he gives a very positive message of how he’s raring to go for the new season, how happy and well supported he feels by his colleagues and the fans on Tyneside, how he’s now overcoming his language problems and adapting well to the different style of the Premiership, how he’s glad Newcastle united said “no” to Roma and much more.
The interview was held by Calcio Mercato’s Simone Togna, and like the last Santon Calcio Mercato interview I translated on here, many of the questions seem to be designed with the intent of making him say he wants to come back and play for an Italian team, which is understandable I suppose on an Italian site. However, he also revealed that he is now engaged to an English girl, which could indeed be an important factor in keeping him on Tyneside. After all, I’m sure that she would be very reluctant to give up the delights of Metro Centre and the glorious Tyneside weather for somewhere like Milan with all it’s shoddy clothes shops and second rate restaurants! (more…)
Nee scran for Ramadan?In more Demba Ba news to add to my story from earlier today, it’s that time of year again (Ramadan) and the Senegalese hitman is already off his scran during daylight hours for a month.
Of course, many of you will remember the fuss from last year when Ba had just joined the club, and the debate on how it affected his performances, and his goal scoring. Having written that, it did begin 11 days later in the year of 2011, and Eid Al-Fitr, which brings the end of the fasting, didn’t come until the end of last August, after several weeks of Premiership games had taken place. On the other side however, with the added burden of European competition to contend with, the demands on players will be higher than ever. Lee Ryder from the Evening Chronic stated in one of his pieces on Saturday the Demba had indeed started his fasting for this year’s Ramadan last Friday (January 20th). Whatever the dates in any given year though, there may be a solution to the problem in years when Ramadan fall within the Premiership calendar, which I will explore a little below.
Tracking back a little though, the same observance of the fast will almost certainly be true of the other Demba too, Papiss Demba Cisse, as they seem to be like peas in a pod. Though if it is true, it certainly didn’t stop Cisse scoring freely with Freiburg at the beginning of last season. (more…)
Pardew: More hot air?In an interview with the Evening Chronic’s ace football reporter, Lee Ryder, Newcastle United’s Silver Supremo exclusively revealed on Saturday that he will be playing Demba Ba centrally “in 90% of the games next year” in a bid to keep Senegalese hitman happy on Tyneside.
Pardew said:
“Demba wants to play in a central role. He wants to get himself chances to score goals, and I think that in 90% of the games next year that’s where he will play.”
But what could this mean?
Will Pardiola be abandoning his fancy foreign experiment with the 4-3-3 formation and return to his good old fashioned, decent, British 4-4-2 with Ba and Papiss Cisse as the two big lads upfront? Or will it be Cisse who will be shunted to the flank this time, or even left on the bench as an impact sub? (Admittedly, those last one would be somewhat doubtful!) (more…)
