Battling for a place in the last 8Good evening and welcome to the match banter thread for tonight’s Carling Cup tie between Blackburn Rovers and Newcastle United.
A place in the last 8 beckons for one of us and I’d quite fancy our chances at this one if it wasn’t for a strange sense of foreboding I’m feeling about the game.
As you all know by now, I’m blessed with more than the mere 5 senses of normal mortals and both my 17th and 23rd sense are tingling slightly. Although that might just be the curry I had last night.
Without Cheik Tiote (knee) and Steve Taylor (conk), Pardew will be forced to make a few changes and it will be interesting to see who gets the nod. I wouldn’t be surprised to see appearances by Smith and Perch in this game and I reckon Benny will get a starting place up front with either Ba or Best. But I’m just guessing. . (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…)
