It’s blood and guts time again.Venue: St James’ Park, Newcastle. Date: Sat 10th March, 2013. Kick off: 3.00pm. Referee: Andre Marriner (W.Mids). UK TV: None.
Hello, good afternoon and welcome to our “match banter” feature for this afternoon’s game between the Magpies and Stoke City from St James’ Park.
Although Stoke are four places above us in the table, their recent Premiership form has been pretty awful to be frank. In their last eight Premiership games, they have lost six and drawn one, winning a solitary game against bottom feeders Reading. To put it sequentially their Premier League record (most recent first) has been L|L|W|L|D|L|L|L. Of course our form was similar until recently, however the record for our last eight games makes slightly better reading now as it is L|W|L|W|W|L|D|L. Whilst that is hardly spectacular, it is an improvement. This slight upsurge in forms means that although we are still 15th, a convincing win by two goals or more would see us rising as high as eleventh (where Stoke are now), although one of the teams we would overtake, West Ham, would still have a game in hand. Even so, it would be great if the lads could pull it off. Here’s hoping! (more…)
Will Stoke throw in the towel again?Venue: St James’ Park, NE1. Date: Sat, 21st April, 2012. Kick-Off: 3pm. Referee: Andre Marriner (West Midlands). UK TV: None.
Good afternoon Geordies, and welcome to our regular match banter feature for this afternoon’s game.
Unfortunately, this time the Magpies have to face the biggest, ugliest, dirtiest and generally most dislikeable team in the Premiership. I am of course referring to Stoke City with their towels, five minute long throw ins, ever changing pitch sizes and robust percentage football.
Last time, the Magpies rightly made them look ridiculous by taking their own towels to the Britannia Stadium for long throw ins on a pitch which had been deliberately reduced in size to give them an advantage over their technically superior opponents. When Ryan Taylor played them at their own game with some long throws of his own, they didn’t like it at all and one of them responded in typical Stoke fashion, by trying to kick him in the testicles. More on that from much esteemed site user, Stephen C, in this video interview for Sky. That game of course was a 1-3 victory for the Magpies. Here’s hoping for more of the same at St James’ Park this afternoon! (more…)
