Routledge could have a chance to shine tomorrow.Defeat to Blackburn on Wednesday night brought us back down to earth with a bump, but another home game pretty much straight away gives us a chance to put things right against Fulham.
It also gives Chris Hughton a chance to give some other players a run-out.
Now I’m not talking wholesale changes, although obviously Joey Barton and Shola Ameobi are going to need replaced because of their respective suspension and injury, but the problem is who to replace those two players with. Much of that depends on whether or not Hughton decides to stick with the 4-4-2 formation that has served us so well in recent weeks. If we do stick with that system then I would personally like to see Nile Ranger and Wayne Routledge brought into the line-up.
Routledge will end up facing his former club, and we all know what happens when one of our former players faces us. Inevitably they usually end up having a stormer, so hopefully we can finally do it to another team and Routledge can show us glimpses of what he was doing last season. (more…)
Undroppable?A day in the life of a Newcastle fan is seldom dull. I for one have supported them ever since they began telecasting EPL games in Goa, which would have been way back in 1996.
In that length of time, I can quite honestly say that I must have witnessed a record number of highs and lows as compared to any other aspect of my rather eventful life. I can therefore only imagine what some of you other fans out there must have experienced in a much longer length of time of following The Toon.
This very season, for instance, I have seen our team perform in the most erratic fashion possible. We have beaten Everton, Aston Villa, and Chelsea only to face defeat at the hands of Blackpool and Stoke. At times, at the expense of better and more talented players, we have to endure seeing their seemingly lacklustre counterparts played week in and week out.
This brings me and my poison pen to analyse one point alone. Why do managers pick teams that, even to us humble fans, look suspect from a mile away? What makes the players that represent these line-ups so special that they make us want to tear our hair out? Why do managers unleash ‘The Undroppables’? (more…)
Hughton needs to show some balls!Whilst some fans may still be reeling from the weekend loss at home to Blackpool, the reality is that it has now gone and there is absolutely zip that can be done about it.
Another reality is that as much as the stats suggest that we pretty much dominated the game and were unlucky to not get something, they don’t change the fact that we didn’t get anything out of a home game against a relegation rival.
That last part is the cause of most of the depressed feeling that is hanging around at the moment, in my opinion anyway. The loss on Saturday ruined my prediction coupon. I, and many others probably, had it down as a home win, but I always had the feeling that it would be a lot closer than a fair few were predicting. That loss now means we have to pick up some extra points on the road if we are to avoide getting sucked into the early season depression cycle of being near the bottom of the league. (more…)
