Cisse – Back in the goals against Leeds.My latest blog at metro.co.uk is now up!
Now entitled “Left-field selection Sammy Ameobi helps Papiss Cisse break his Newcastle scoring duck,” it orignally had the same title as this piece until a sub-editor got his or her hands on it. Thankfully though, they seem to have left the story intact this time, apart from taking my correct spelling of ‘Yoan Gouffran’ and changing it to ‘Yoann Gouffran’ like another French player, Yoann Gourcuff.
Enough of my petty griping though, the piece itself takes a look at the return of Papiss Cisse to the score sheet in Wednesday evening’s League Cup game against Leeds United. It also takes a look at the role of two of the best players in that particular game, Sammy Ameobi and Yoan Gouffran. In particular I look at how, for a change, Alan Pardew actually had a left footed player, Ameobi the younger, playing on the left hand side rather than a right footer who would constantly cut in. This resulted in a superb left footed cross by the big lad for Cisse’s goal, with Ameobi also playing a role in Gouffran’s spectacular second goal in what was an excellent performance overall on the wing from the youngster. (more…)
Who made it? And who didn’t?Below you can see two Newcastle United “teams of the season,” which I have assembled based on player statistics from whoscored.com, OPTA and transfermarkt.co.uk.
The first (and most important) is based on performances in the Premier League, with the second based on performances in the Europa League. The figures below the player’s names are their ratings from whoscored.com, which are based on a range of performance metrics based on OPTA stats. To put these into some kind of perspective, whoscored’s most highly rated Premier League goalkeeper last season was Sunderland’s Simon Mignolet with an average of 7.0. In defence it was Tottenham’s Jan Vertonghen with 7.6 and in midfield the honours were shared between Arsenal’s Santi Cazorla and Tottenham’s Gareth Bale, both with 7.9. Finally, up front, Liverpool’s Luis Suarez narrowly pipped Manchester United’s Robin van Persie (7.8) with his 7.9 rating.
Getting back to Newcastle United though, although the goalkeepers, defenders and strikers were pretty straightforward overall, things became more complicated when it came to midfielders who had been played in several different positions during the season, gaining different ratings in different positions. However, after some work, I have finally managed to sort it out. (more…)
As you may know already, a team of Newcastle United’s younger players led by Academy coach Willie Donachie will be competing once again in the seven a side “Hong Kong Soccer Sevens” this weekend, which is being held in (you guessed it) Hong Kong.
They will be defending their title for the main trophy, having won last year’s final against a side of Aston Villa youngsters (a video of that final is below). Here’s hoping we can make it two in a row! (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.”
