Cisse does it again, in style.Newcastle United keep their Champions League – or, at least, 4th place – hopes alive after beating Chelsea 2-0 at Stamford Bridge to go level on points with Spurs.
It was a sedate start to things at Stamford Bridge although Torres caused a bit of concern by standing shoulder to shoulder with our defence and taking care not to fall foul of the offside trap. In doing so, he managed to set Meireles up for a shot that went sky-high and then got away from our defenders to run into the box himself, but he was driven wide by the advancing Krul and the attack came to nothing.
Sedate it may have been but Tiote still managed to pick up a yellow card in under 4 minutes for clumsily bringing down Torres a few yards outside our box. Fortunately the resulting free kick was hit straight to Krul.
Our first meaningful attack came when Santon made a run up the left, cut inside and tried to take a shot, although it was blocked by the defender in front of him. Shortly after that Tiote seemed to be flirting with danger when he brought Ramires down but fortunately the ref just had a quite word with him. (more…)
Highlights from this evening’s Chelsea v Newcastle United game at Stamford Bridge, including two great goals by Papiss Cisse. One of them was surely one the goals of the season.
For the sake of poor fans says Llambias.Newcastle United’s Managing Director, Derek Llambias, has been speaking to David Conn for yesterday’s Guardian.
In the interview he spoke on how he has received so much abuse from Geordie ingrates that he doesn’t hear it any more, how Mike Ashley told him that he would have “a horrible job” in May 2008, just before he took over as managing director to oversee Ashley’s Sports Directification of the club, how the club spent all of the £35 million Andy Carroll money (although the club made a mighty profit of £36.731 million on player trading without amortisation in their last set of published accounts). Conn also wrote of many other things Llambias supposedly revealed to him in what is a rather fawning piece overall.
Irritatingly, for much of the “interview,” Conn give his own version of what Llambias told him, rather than just giving the quotes themselves in something which reads like a PR piece, something Llambias usually reserves for his friends at Mirror Group titles such as the Mirror, People, Chronicle and Journal. But I digress. (more…)
Please Blow The WhistleVenue: D.W. Stadium, Wigan. Date: Saturday, 28th April, 2012. Kick-Off: 3.00pm. Referee: Mike Dean.
United went into this game with confidence sky high on the back of six straight wins, sitting fourth in the table and chasing an unexpected place in next season’s European Champions League.
Wigan, although one of the teams fighting relegation, had a good recent record too, having won 3 of their last 4 games beating Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal, although slipping up in their last game with a 2-1 defeat at Fulham.
This was the first of our final 4 “cup finals” and the 4500 United fans took over one end of the ground to make sure the team felt right at home in a vital away game. It was 4th top v 4th bottom with United having “momentum”. What could possibly go wrong? Surely even the ominous pre-match news that top tipster Mark “I always get them wrong” Lawrenson had tipped us to win couldn’t stop the Newcastle steamroller? (more…)
Wigan - Coming good just in time?Venue: D.W. Stadium, Wigan. Date: Saturday, 28th April, 2012. Kick-Off: 3.00pm. Referee: Mike Dean (The Wirral Whistler).
Hmm, well despite the large difference in the Magpies’ and the Latics’ respective league positions, this could well be an interesing game.
Roberto Martinez and Atletico Wigan’s progress has followed a fairly similar pattern to that of last season, ie staring into the abyss most of the time, then finally pulling themselves together for a string of stylish and surprising results which look like pulling them out of the mire at the eleventh hour, well they would if fellow strugglers, Queen’s Park Rangers hadn’t decided to pull off one or two surprising results of their own as the Premiership season edges towards it’s denouement. The catalyst for this change in form seems to have been a switch from what has looked like a 4-5-1 formation earlier in the season, to a highly offensive Cruyffian style 3-4-3 formation from Señor Martinez. Of course, our Silver Supremo, Alan Pardiola, has been on a similar road to Damascus recently, switching from his old 4-4-2 to more attacking 4-3-3 which has reaped remarkable dividends with the electrifying form of players such as Hatem Ben Arfa and new boy, Papiss Cisse, leading the way.
