Newcastle United v Reading match banter!
January 19th, 2013 | 120 Comments |
Date: Sat 19th January, 2013.
Kick off: 3.00pm.
Referee: Andre Marriner (West Mids).
UK TV: None.
Hello, good afternoon and welcome to our “match banter” feature for this afternoon’s game between Newcastle United and Reading from St James’ Park.
This of course will be the Magpies’ second encounter with Reading, the last one being a 2-2 draw at their place, the Madejski Stadium, at the end of September. Back then it was a battle of the long balls between Alan Pardew and his Reading protégé (though they are both 51), Brian “long balls” McDermott, who was a chief scout for Pardew in his first managerial job. Newcastle and Reading are the two biggest long ball sides in the Premiership so far, but thankfully, Pardew’s Magpies seemed to be settling into a style which is slightly less reliant on “route one” tactics in recent games, though in their last game against Norwich, a 0-0 bore draw, Newcastle showed some signs of reverting to their previous long ball ways. (more…)