Hope he lhas a face like this after the game!Venue: St James’ Park, Newcastle Upon Tyne Date: 4th January 2012 Kick Off: 8.00PM Referee: Howard Webb Hair by: Rooney of Croxteth
Manchester United make their seasonal pilgrimage to St James’ Park in what could be viewed, for them anyway, as a tough game – particularly as they seem to be in relative disarray.
Wayne Rooney and a couple of the club’s lesser lights (Darron Gibson and Johnny Evans) allegedly went out for a meal and a few drinkies on Boxing Night. This wasn’t against any of the Manchester club’s rules. However, they subsequently committed the crime of looking decidedly shabby and putting in a poor performance in training.
As a result manager Alex Ferguson threw a strop and dropped them for the home game against Blackburn Rovers. ‘Ol Red Nose was rewarded for his tantrum on his 70th birthday by a defeat from the second-bottom club.
If rumours are to be believed, Mr Rooney is hopping mad about being dropped and fined £200,000 but has managed to “keep his hair on”. (more…)
A bad season at the office for Owen Coyle so far.Venue: Reebok Stadium, Bolton. Date: Monday 26th Dec, 2011. Kick-off: 3.00pm. Referee: Peter Walton.
Dear readers, for any of you who were expecting some kind of “normal” match preview for this Boxing Day away game against Bolton, I am writing this after a fairly messy Christmas Eve Party followed by two nights of very little sleep (none at all last night) and a couple of days full of Champagne overconsumption, hence an in depth analysis of the Trotters’ own kind of “Champagne” football isn’t really on my agenda at the moment. However you may get a bit of team news, a bit of history between the two sides and some opiniated waffle this time if you’re lucky.
Stats, previous matches etc…
The two sides come into this game with Newcastle United standing at seventh in the Premiership, with Bolton standing at second bottom. However the two sides do have roughly similar records as Newcastle’s terrific start to this season has somewhat inevitably crumbled into ashes. (more…)
Magpies v Throstles - Who will get the juicy 3 point worm?Good evening Geordies and welcome to our latest “match banter” feature for this evenong’s game, which will be yet another battle of the birds.
First it was Magpies v Canaries, then Magpies v Swans, and now the Mags find themselves battling the Throstles of West Bromwich Albion for a juicy three point worm. “Throstle” is an an English name for the Eurasian song thrush, and though you’d think the poor little song thrushes would have no chance against the mighty Magpies, they have proved to be fairly tricky customers in the past and we haven’t been racking up the results as we did in the earlier part of the season, with no win in our last five games.
Before I forget, please excuse me for the lack of our usual “match preview” feature this week, which was cancelled due to the horrors of Christmas. I shall endeavour to make up for that somewhat by incorporating a kind of mini preview into this article, starting with previous encounters, and then a bit of team news.
Pardew: Problems at the rear.Venue: St James’ Park, Newcastle. Date: Saturday 17th Dec, 2011. Kick-off: 3.00pm. Referee: Lee Mason.
With the Magpies still lickng their wounds after a 4-2 mauling by some powerful Canaries, they return to their nest at St James’ Park to face another bird attack, this time from the Swans of Swansea.
In case you were wondering about the title, Newcastle United are not the only team to have a very promising flying Dutchman between the sticks. Tim Krul’s biggest competitor for the Netherland’s substitute goalkeeper slot (behind Roma’s Maarten Stekelenburg) is Swansea’s £1.5 million bargain buy from Utrecht, Michel Vorm. Like his Dutch compatriot, Vorm has also played a significant role in his team’s good start to the Premiership season. The unfancied Swans have certainly been no ugly ducklings in a fairly respectable 11th place, which is quite an achievement for a team on their budget and in their first season after promotion. However, as in our previous game against those other Premiership underdogs, Norwich City, it will be other areas of Pardew’s back end where attention will be focused, but more on that in the team news… (more…)
Who will replace them?Newcastle United’s 3-0 defeat at the hands of Chelsea pales into insignificance compared to the prospect of playing without Fabricio Coloccini and Steven Taylor.
I’m not particularly worried about the 0-3 scoreline on Saturday. Things didn’t go our way with the sending off that didn’t happen, the loss of Coloccini early on then Taylor near the end of the game and the infernal woodwork that saved Chelsea on a number of occasions.
That’s not to say that Chelsea weren’t threatening – they were – but on another day I could have seen us get a draw from that game, or at least only lose to a scoreline that was more reflective of the game than 0-3. I think what I’m trying to say is that we certainly weren’t completely outclassed or anything like that.
Looking ahead, though, what is worrying is our extensive injury list, particularly in the defensive region. (more…)
