Swansea: The victims of some pathetic refereeing this season.Venue: Liberty Stadium, Swansea. Date: Wed 4th Dec, 2013. Kick off: 7.45pm. Referee: Howard Webb. UK TV: BT Sport.
Hello, good evening and welcome to our latest ‘match banter’ feature for this evening’s game against Swansea City at their place.
Poor old Swansea haven’t had much luck recently. Amongst other things they have been the victims of some of some of the most awful deciosions, and it has usually cost them points, as it did against Valencia and Stoke most recently.
Personally, I think Michael Laudrup needs to be a little more like Alex Ferguson or Jose Mourinho. They know that match officiating, like parking enforcement is one of those jobs that just attracts the wrong kind of people mostly, little Hitlers. They know that there is no point whatsoever in being nice and respectful to them as that will just make them respect you even less, you have to make them fear you. Swansea are too nice and Laudrup and his players really need to start getting in their faces a bit more. Having written all that, I do hope that the Magpies win this game fair and square this evening, rather than having to rely on some dreadful decision. (more…)
Can we throttle the Throstles for four in a row?Venue: St James’ Park, Newcastle. Date: Sat 30th Nov, 2013. Kick off: 5.30pm. Referee: Phil Dowd. UK TV: Sky Sports 1.
Could we be celebrating four wins in a row this evening?
If the Magpies do manage to wrestle a juicy three point worm from the Throstles at tea time, it would be the first first time they have managed such a feat since March and April of 2012. Back then, they beat Norwich, this evening’s opponents, Liverpool, Swansea, Bolton and finally Stoke in a 6 match winning run, before finally succumbing to a 4-0 hammering at Wigan.
Although that was in the Spring before last, the side had an unseasonal 4-3-2-1 ‘Christmas Tree’ formation with a potent ‘delta force’ of Demba Ba, Papiss Cisse and Hatem Ben Arfa up front. During the West Brom game in that run I jokingly referred to Alan Pardew as ‘Alan Pardiola.’ The Guardian’s North East football correspondent, Louise Taylor, actually took me seriously and the phrase stuck amongst spme fans for a while. (more…)
The last Toon goal scored by Cisse which wasn’t ruled outIn case you missed it, Papiss Cisse had yet another perfectly good goal ruled out as offside against Norwich on Saturday, yet another linesman seemingly judging Cisse on his reputation, rather than what he could actually see.
Luckily for Newcastle United, they still won 2-1 and got the three points so all was well that ended well. Even so, that hasn’t always the case and it is getting absolutely ridiculous now, to the point where lazy linesmen are just saying “oh it’s Papiss Cisse, it must be offside.”
I use the word “reputation” above, though it might come as a surprise to some so called fans (and Sports Direct News rent a quote, Malcolm MacDonald) that Cisse is not the most ‘offside’ striker in the Premier League by any means. Romelu Lukaku, Christian Benteke and several others were caught offside more often last season.
However, when it comes to having perfectly good goals wrongly ruled out as offside, Cisse in in a league of his own. He had seven wrongly ruled out last season, including two in one game against Metalist Kharkiv, and one which robbed us of a derby win against Sunderland. This means that he would have scored at least twenty goals last season had those seven goals stood. (more…)
Alan Pardew: “We’ve got ourselves in a poised position – now we need to capitalise on that, something we’ve not done well in the last 18 months. If we win we can put ourselves right in the mix. For us, it’s a great opportunity and we don’t want to pass on those opportunities. They don’t come around very often in the Premier League. If we get ourselves in a good place with 50,000 (fans) that’s going to make a big advantage and we need to make sure we carry that through.” (more…)
Hughton returns to St James’ Park.Venue: St James’ Park, Newcastle. Date: Sat 23rd Nov, 2013. Kick off: 3.00pm. Referee: Mike Dean. UK TV: None.
Chris Hughton’s Norwich City seem to be a team in transition at the moment.
Despite bringing in quite a few new players in the last transfer window and very creditable 11th and 12th placed finishes in their last two campaigns, they still have a very modest squad by Premier League standards. Both Hughton’s predecessor Paul Lambert and Hughton himself punched well above their weight, so much so that some Norwich fans have become rather unrealistic about the squad’s real strength, with some ingrates even calling for Hughton’s sacking when, for the first time since they were promoted, they were about where they should have been, third or fourth from the bottom of the table.
Quite a bit if this has probably been due to the two managers difference in approach. Whilst Hughton’s predessor Paul Lambert would have a go, I think it could be said Hughton’s approach to get Norwich punching above their weight in the League was somewhat more cautious and ‘defensive’ in his first season at Carrow Road, albeit with very similar results in the League for the two managers. (more…)
