Demba Ba: Newcastle United’s hottest hitman in recent times.Below is a table comparing the main statistics of all of Newcastle United’s main strikers who have played in the Hughton / Pardew years. There are six, Shola Ameobi, Peter Lovenkrands, Andy Carroll, Leon Best, Demba Ba and most recently of course, Papiss Cisse.
Please note that this is for Premier League games only. Championship stats have been excluded as they would obviously give the players who played a full season in the lower division an unfair advantage. As well as that, cup games have also been escluded too to make as level a playing field as possible (if you’ll pardon the pun). I think you might find one or two surprises in there, which was partly the reason I did this post in the first place.
I suppose I could have included Kevin Nolan too, as his goalscoring and assist figures would also stand up with the names below after Chris Hughton moved him further forward into the “hole” as they say, however this one’s for strikers and Nolan has always been a midfielder, albeit a highly attacking one in recent seasons. (more…)
Lovenkrands: A story of turmoil, tragedy and success.The last in the series of our player reviews for the 09/10 season will take a look at our strikers and how they have done this season.
We have already worked our way through the team starting with goalkeepers before moving onto have a look at our defence and midfield. Our strikers have been very important for us this season and have combined to score over half of our goals this season, 47 of them in fact, and they have been spread pretty evenly between the various front men. For the first half of the season we spent our time playing mainly one striker with Kevin Nolan in an attcking support role, something that has probably helped Nolan score so many goals whilst limiting the chance of any strikers hitting the 20 goal mark. Still, it’s a team game as the saying goes, and as long as the ball is hitting the back of the net I don’t really care which player scores them. Let’s take a look anyway. (more…)
Maggie bird v Baggie bird. Who'll get the juicy 3 point worm?Newcastle United take on West Bromwich Albion in a crucial top of the table encounter on Monday night at St James Park. With the Toon drawing the Baggies in the FA Cup 4th round, the two teams are forced to play each other twice in the space of six days.
We will be looking to extend our unbeaten home run of nine wins and three draws at SJP but Albion will be a real test for the lads. Recently knocked off second spot after a defeat at home to in form Nottingham Forest, Roberto Di Matteo will be looking to his team to win the two games they have in hand
over Forest to position themselves back in second place.
Di Matteo was a great midfield player, who, you will remember, enjoyed a very successful playing career with Chelsea and Italy before being forced to retire following a horrific injury. His first steps into management in 2008 with Milton Keynes Dons proved successful, as he led the League One club to within two points of their second successive automatic promotion while they played attacking, attractive football. (more…)
The Bensham Van Basten: Not for sale.News yesterday of a bid for one of our young, local lads – Andy Carroll – from Bolton Wanderers as their new manager Owen Coyle seeks to add numbers to squad in a bid to stave off relegation. A cheeky £2 million bid has said to have been lodged.
Andy Carroll has been an important player for us this season so far. Whilst he hasn’t exactly been prolific in front of goal, he has had the knack of unsettling the opposition defenders, perhaps allowing other players scoring opportunities by creating space, like for Lovenkrands on Wenesday evening.
With 4 goals in 18 appearances this season, Carroll is far from the finished article and has attracted his fair share of criticism from fans for an alleged altercation on a night out in Newcastle’s Blu Bamboo bar in the Bigg Market – a hotbead of chavs, slappers and sexually transmitted diseases – and that’s on top of another transgression a while back! I personally feel that if he can knuckle down and work on the mental aspect of his game off the pitch, and learn some composure in front of goal on the pitch, then we are better off keeping hold of him. Manager Chris Hughton seems to be thinking along the same lines, saying:
“They are wasting their time with Andy – He is not for sale!”(more…)
Perfect Peter‘Tell me ma, me ma…’
Well maybe not yet, but after Newcastle cruised to a 3-0 win over Plymouth in our FA Cup 3rd Round replay, it’s hard not to get a little carried away. But then again it’s hard to imagine the opposition being such pushovers in the next round. And the hardy group of Argyle fans, perched in Level 4 of the Leazes, looking for all the world like the last, unwanted one in a box of Milk Tray, amongst a sparsely populated Leazes, must have been bitterly disappointed with what their side offered, or didn’t as it were.
But however horrible Plymouth were, Newcastle’s win was emphatic and the scoreline should really have been more damning, though it benefitted yours truly that it wasn’t, as 3-0 pocketed me a nice little return on my modest flutter. And tonight it wasn’t just about the result, which was impressive, but the way we went about the game.
Hughton made seven changes to the previous game, as Danny Simpson was left out of the squad and made way for the returning Enrique. Steven Taylor replaced Tamas Kadar, although he was due to replace Coloccini, until Kadar picked up an illness close to kick off. In came Nolan and Gutierrez, as Guthrie and Smith made way, the latter apparently not passed fit after coming off in the original tie. Carroll and Lovenkrands replaced Ameobi and Ranger upfront.
After a slow five minutes, we started looking hungry and determined, and Peter Lovenkrands marked his comeback, after just ten minutes, chipping the ball over the keeper after a clever run onto a lovely ball slipped into the box by Gutierrez. (more…)
