Time to break a dismal run against Blackburn?Good afternoon Geordies and welcome to the match banter post for Newcastle United’s visit to Ewood Park to take on Blackburn Rovers.
Blackburn have won the last 6 encounters between the two teams, so we’ll be looking to break our dismal record against the Lancashire team. We’ve only scored more than once in one of our last 18 Premier League away matches, which is a worrying statistic, but I’m optimistic today and say a pox on statistics.
Joey Barton is likely to come up against Morten Gamst Pedersen again today, who he punched in the chest during the encounter at St James’ Park in November and received a 3 match ban for his troubles. Joey holds no grudge though and said:
“I apologised profusely for my behaviour and we agreed that the next time we saw each other we’d have a good laugh about it. I said ‘if you want, you can hit me back’, but he just laughed and said that’s not his way. I think he invited me for dinner. He’s a nice guy.(more…)
FA nearly banned himNewcastle United’s Nile Ranger narrowly avoids an FA ban thanks – allegedly – to Manchester United.
It seems that Nile Ranger was nearly banned from today’s game by the FA. This is all due to the fact that he was ‘injured’ for the midweek international friendly but did not get assessed by an England team medic.
Fortunately for Nile Ranger, Manchester United’s Chris Smalling also missed the game in similar circumstances and when an organisation feels like flexing its muscles it obviously doesn’t want to do so towards Sir Alex Ferguson and the mighty Man U.
It’s a bit like the punchy chap in the pub at last orders. Even in a drunken state the chap thinks twice about being punchy with the 6ft 5in 25 stone yeti with hands like JCB buckets. He is in fact rather inclined to ‘let him off’.
Credit where it’s due, I picked up on this story thanks to a comment referring me to FootballFanCast article by Joe Austin, which does a good job of summing up the situation.
The question to ponder, though, is what do we do about international friendlies? (more…)
Destination Ewood Park on SaturdayNewcastle United are off to Ewood Park on Saturday to take on Blackburn Rovers.
Both teams are on 31 points but Newcastle are one place higher thanks to goal difference (and we have a match in hand).
Blackburn have lost their last three games in all competitions and that, coupled with the confidence our 4-4 comeback against Arsenal should instill, should mean that we’re in with a chance of at least one point and possibly even all three from the fixture, despite our fairly dismal record against Blackburn over the years.
The good news for us is that niggling injuries to both Nile Ranger and Leon Best are expected to be healed and Cheik Tiote came through his midweek international unscathed. Unfortunately neither Steven Taylor nor Stephen Ireland will be fit in time and longer term injuries keep Ryan Taylor, Dan Gosling, Alan Smith and Hatem Ben Arfa in the treatment room.
New, short-term signing Shefki Kuqi may put in an appearance and will probably at least be on the bench. (more…)
Artist's impressionNewcastle United’s Shola Ameobi is targeting a return before the end of the month thanks to a face mask.
Shola is off to the States to be fitted with a face mask by NBA face mask guru Jeremy Murray. Said mask is likely to expidite Shola’s return to first team football, even to the point of him playing before February is out.
Shola had surgery on his fractured cheekbone this week and would normally expect to spend 6-8 weeks sidelined in recovery, but Alan Pardew reckons the specialist mask will allow Shola to play within 2-3 weeks.
Pardew said:
“We’ve got good news on Shola. We’re sending him to America.”
That’s not the good news by the way, Pardew continues:
“There’s a basketball guy who specialises in protective masks for American NBA players. He’s the only guy in the world who does that kind of thing and we’re going to use him to protect Shola’s cheekbone, so Shola could be back in two or three weeks.(more…)
Summer signing?Roman Pavlyuchenko could be an £8m striking option for Newcastle United this summer.
Rumour has it that Newcastle may be after Roman Pavlyuchenko this summer, which would be more bad news for me as it’s another name I struggle to spell.
The Russian has a career total 179 goals in 371 appearances, giving him a strike rate of 47%, but he has become frustrated in his role as a bench warmer at Spurs and is seeking a move to ensure regular first team football.
29 year old Pavlyuchenko moved to Spurs for £13.8m in August 2008 but it is thought he would be available for around £8m, which should easily be within Newcastle’s reach after the £35m sale of Andy Carroll to Liverpool.
Personally, I thought his age would put him outside the profile of potential candidates for our club. I know that the under-25-up-and-coming requirement is probably a general aim rather than a hard and fast rule but there would also be his wages to consider, which I would imagine are not insignificant. (more…)
