Same old Shola, always scoring.Many thanks to “ToonBano” from the Toon blog www.toonbano.com for his fourth guest blog here – wt.
As we managed to fall over the line to a 1-0 ‘win’ over QPR its got to be said that was one of the worst games of football I have ever seen in my whole life. Which was caused by mainly two things a) QPR being one of the worst teams that have ever shown up at St James’ Park and b) Our defensive starting line up. Those two miserable things cancelled each other out into an insufferable bore fest that would kill anyone’s Christmas spirit no matter how jolly they were feeling prior to kick off.
But this kind of performance from us on our own patch against a completely inferior side is no surprise whatsoever to all of us, or it shouldn’t be. It’s a typical Alan Pardew performance which we have come to expect in his 2 years here as manager. We didn’t exactly ‘win’ that game on Saturday afternoon but just managed to get the ball into their net on that bare minimal occasion, as the opposition had no chance of doing the same to us. QPR were hopeless. We were not much better. (more…)
The return of big Sam, big Andy and Kevin Nolan.Venue: St James’ Park, Newcastle. Date: Sunday, 11th November. Kick off: 3:00pm Referee: Mike Dean (the Wirral). UK TV: None.
Good afternoon and welcome to our “match banter” feature for this afternoon’s game against West Ham.
Today, around 50,000 Geordies and a few Londoners will gather to watch Big Sam’s long balls and Alan Pardew’s long balls clash. As I mentioned in my previous match preview for the game, Newcastle United and West Ham are two of the biggest “route one” teams in the Premiership, so expect to see quite alot of “mortar fire” into both teams’ penalty areas this afternoon, and possibly a fairly tight contest between the ninth and tenth placed teams in the Premiership, as though Big Sam’s teams may not be they most entertaining to watch, they are usually tough nuts to crack.
Of course, today’s game will see the return of no less than three ex-Magpies, Big Sam, Kevin Nolan and Andy Carroll, so let’s hope that they all get a real Geordie welcome! (more…)
Big Sam's tactics board, or Alan Pardew's?Venue: St James’ Park, Newcastle. Date: Sunday, 11th November. Kick off: 3:00pm Referee: Mike Dean (the Wirral). UK TV: None.
In case you are one of those who have successfully deceived yourselves that our manager’s real name is Alan Pardiola, and today’s fixture will be a match between a cultured, elegant passing side of fancy foreigners against big, “long ball” Sam, well think again!
As we go into this game Newcastle and West Ham are currently the two biggest “route one” sides in the Premiership. Looking at my OPTA stats, which defines long balls as passes of over 25 yards, Newcastle United and West Ham are the two biggest long ball merchants, with 17.5% of Newcastle’s total passes being long balls, and 17.9% of West Ham’s.
To put this into some kind of perspective, the percentage for Swansea City (our next opponents incidentally) is 9.7%, which is even bigger gulf than it sounds. Of course, this is not to say that the lower the percentage, the better it is or any nonsense like that. As the great Mackem Buddha of football, Bob Paisley, once said (and also Michael Laudrup more recently), “it’s not about the short pass or the long pass. It’s about the RIGHT pass.” Though the great Dane could say that as he could pass a ball 30 yards on to a team mates foot (and from a tight space too) effortlessly! (more…)
Hughton will need to gets his troops mobilized again.Life is good for Newcastle fans right now. Winning our last three games on the bounce has ensured that we have been walking around with a spring in our step.
Newcastle must ensure that we are doing much the same tomorrow!
You see, I’ve been waiting for the inevitable kick in the teeth to come along, but it hasn’t. We won away at West Ham, so I expected us to slip up against Sunderland. We beat Sunderland, convincingly, so I was expecting us to get a hammering at Arsenal. We won that, and, well you get the point.
Newcastle now begin a run of two ‘winnable’ games, starting tonight when Sam Allardyce brings Blackburn to St James’ Park, followed by Fulham coming to town on Saturday, and the first match of those two is ideally placed to give us Newcastle fans a massive kick in the teeth. (more…)
Smith to Blackburn?The Chronicle reports that Big Sam might be taking Alan Smith off our hands. However, he may only take him on a season long loan at Blackburn because he’s nervous about Smith’s £60,000/week wages, which is annoying because it was Big Sam who signed him for us on that wage.
At the bottom of The Chronicle’s article there’s a quote from Jonathon Brill, Ashley’s PR man, about the sale of the club: “There are a number of interested parties and there are no deadlines imposed by anybody,” he said. If Ashley is hoping his PR man is enhancing his image with terse statements like that, he’s wrong.
A club spokesman apparently also added: “I’m afraid there is no further news regarding the sale of the club.”
Today’s player complaint is from Steve Harper who tells The Journal:
“The players are very disappointed with the situation. Obviously what happened at the back of last year, to fall a goal short was demoralising.
“Players like structure and discipline and at the minute the structure is up in the air. The players don’t know whether they’re going to be here or elsewhere come the start of the season – none of us know at the moment.(more…)
