Giving us a taste of what's to come?Newcastle United lose their unbeaten record for the season to Manchester City with 2 penalties and a few hundred million pounds making all the difference.
First Half
We got off to a promising start, attacking from the off up the right. Sammy put in a poor cross through and it eventually went out for a goal kick off Danny Simpson.
City spent a few minutes passing the ball amongst their back four, looking for an attack route and had their first meaningful attack after 4 and a half minutes when Milner’s shot was blocked by Guthrie. Not long after that, Richards got a good cross in and Steven Taylor had to clear the ball. Taylor was again called into action shortly afterwards to block a shot from Milner.
City had a lot of possession in the first 15 minutes but so far we’d managed to deal with them and even started to make some forward runs ourselves with Sammy dribbling nicely up the right only to finish off with a poor cross.
City came back on the counter attack and it took a block by Taylor and a nice interception by Colo to keep things intact, although on 20 minutes we were lucky when Aguero was in a good position to get a shot off and put it over the bar. (more…)
Toon's toughest test yetGood afternoon and welcome to today’s match banter for Manchester City vs Newcastle United.
Megabucks meets tight shrewd as the two unbeaten sides in the Premier League go head to head after what seems like a 10-year break in fixtures due to the international agenda. Both teams could still be unbeaten at the end of this game of course, although I don’t personally see this one ending up in a draw.
For full details about the game have a look at Worky’s excellent match preview and what the managers said articles, but otherwise buckle up for what will hopefully be a rip-snorting fanfaronade of soccer succulence.
It’s a bit like King Kong v Godzilla as the meanest defence goes up against the most prolific attack, with skyscrapers crumbling and bridges demolished along the way. Will the public ever be safe again? (more…)
Responsible for attackJohn Carver offer some insight into how Newcastle United run the dressing room on a weekly basis and talks about how he’s now convinced that Alan Pardew is the man for the job.
In a recent interview, John Carver told of how he and Alan Pardew split the workload at Newcastle, with Pardew concentrating mainly on the defensive side of things and Carver concentrating on attack. Carver said:
“Every Monday he [Pardew] comes into work having compiled a defensive report on the opposition. That’s his project, working with our video analysts to provide players with the best information.
“This week, for example, he will talk about Manchester City’s angles of attack, their set-pieces, their movement, as well as focussing on individuals. The lads will be made aware of Dzeko’s strengths and weaknesses, the best way to nullify Silva, Milner’s incredible work-rate, everything.
“That takes care of Monday to Thursday. On Friday it’s my turn when we look at ways to get at opponents. Put simply, Alan concentrates on how not to lose and I then find ways to win.”
It’s interesting that we spend the largest portion of the week on defence and goes some way to explaining why we have the best defensive record in the Premier League. I don’t know if that’s the typical way a Premier League manager does things but I can only imagine that it’s totally different to the way Keegan ran things in the 90’s, where it seemed that Darren Peacock and Philippe Albert were only vaguely aware they were defenders. (more…)
Respected player?Since joining Newcastle United from Mallorca, Jonas Gutierrez has been an almost permanent fixture in the side. But has he finally earned the respect of that fans?
Jonas started his career with Argentina’s Vélez Sársfield as a youth in 1999 and he moved into first team in 2001. He stayed with Vélez for 99 games, winning the title with them in 2005 before moving to Mallorca for just over £3m after the title-winning season. Jonas bought himself out of his contract with Mallorca to join us in July 2008 and there was something of a furore after that with Mallorca demanding £13.2m off us in ‘compensation’. The dispute went to a FIFA hearing in the end and Mallorca settled for an undisclosed – but much lower – fee thought to be somewhere between £2.5m and £5m.
He slotted fairly quickly into our left midfield position and he’s more or less been there ever since. He did play a couple of matches at left-back for us and for his country he has often played at right-back, particularly under Maradona who one described his team selection policy as “Mascherano, Messi, Jonas and eight more“. (more…)
Newcastle United’s Hatem Ben Afra receives a letter from Nigel de Jong expressing regret over last season’s tackle, which resulted in a broken tibia and fibula for Ben Arfa.
Remember this?:
Difficult to forget it really!
Well apparently Nigel de Jong has written a letter to Hatem Ben Arfa ahead of Saturday’s game to express his regret over the challenge, although it’s unclear whether the letter included an apology. (more…)
