This
week we’ve been trying to come to terms with the derby defeat. All sorts of
stuff in the press, contradictory and hypocritical.
Loads
to say about Balotelli. Nothing about Rooney escaping being sent off. Nothing
about Atkinson pulling Ya Ya back when through on goal, but lots on the rags
having a goal wrongly disallowed. Lots on Nasri but I don’t recall similar
criticism of Rio when he gave the ball to Bellamy for the 3rd that
time and when he gave that lazy backpass out for a corner which led to our 4th
in the 6-1. Nothing about how we went gung ho at 0-2 and nearly succeeded
whereas when they lost 6-1 it was because they went gung ho at 1-3. Nothing on
Atkinson not adding 7 minutes of added time. Also it’s now OK for players to
taunt opposition fans and not have repercussions ie Crerand on 5Live and Martin
Samuel reporting that Neville was right to taunt Liverpool fans (he did this to
us also) but when Adebayor did this after he was racially abused all match by
Arsenal fans he was condemned countrywide and received a ban. Finally Gareth
Barry has had a one match ban for things he said to Clattenburg. WTF is going
on?
Looks
like Vinny’s out tomorrow here’s the It’s A fix extract :
17)
SATURDAY DECEMBER 15TH NEWCASTLE (AWAY) KO 12.45PM
Third season back in the Prem. Last pot the 1969
Inter Cities Fairs Cup, recent connection is Shay Given, and this is the 153rd
league meeting.
Last
season, at The Etihad in November it was a 3-1 City win,
Balotelli (41 pen) Richards (44), Aguero (72 pen) with Gosling (89) getting
Toon’s consolation.
Crowd was 47,408 with 1685 Geordies.
Up at Newcastle it was, of course, the penultimate
game in the title race, the Blues winning 2-0 with YaYa (70.89) scoring the
goals to take us to the formality of a home game v QPR and the title or so we
thought though it all came good in the end.
Crowd was 52,389 with 3,176 Blues
This
season so far : They’re currently in 14th place with 17
points from 16 games and 3 wins 1 draw and 3 losses at home.
In the Capital One Cup they went out 2-1 at O/T in the 3rd
rd
In
the Europa league they’ve played teams you’d expect in the rags Chimps
league group - Atromitas 1-1A, 1-0 H; Maritimo 0-0A, 1-1H; Brugge 2-2A, 1-0H:
Bordeaux H 3-0 and lost 2-0 away.
In
the FA Cup they’ve drawn Brighton away, again, in the 3rd
rd.
Form
at Newcastle : In the last five we’ve won 4 and drawn 1.
For
City it’s : WWDWW
Groundwise: No change to the Sports Direct Arena now renamed St James’ Park (where
did that come from - Exeter?) not Wonga Park though!
We’re again in the corner of the Sir John Hall
stand, level 7 very high up. Tickets are : £42/34
St.
James Park Capacity:
52,387 (3,000 for City)
Comment:
Makes a nice change to go North but the early kick
off means an early start. The Europa league seems to be taking its toll and
they’ve slumped after the highs of last season which resulted in giving Pardew
an 8 year contract. Ba and Cisse are still dangerous but you’d expect City to
continue their good form up there and take the 3 points. As for the departed Andy
Carroll, he’s never looked right in anything other than a Newcastle kit.
WWTWTWShite:
Averaged 16,001 in 1980/81 and are up to 50,460 this
season – a few thousand higher than ours, which no doubt they’ll remind us of.
Away
day Zines : The Mag (swaps with KK and is later passed on to
Geordie Bryan in The Oddfellows) They
reckon we were the most smug and arrogant fans to visit St James’s last season,
so not always on the ball as I recall us singing “we never win at home, and we
never win away……..”
True Faith, Talk of the Tyne
Pubs/Parking:
Plenty of pubs, on street parking, and local car
parks.
Sat
Nav: NE1 4ST
Nicely back on track, where we ever off it? Tevez and Aguero start and loads happens, guess Mario will be back next week. Nasri was very good and a real shame when he went off. Garcia ok today and YaYa more like we'd expect. Kolo and Natasic did fairly well, but the height issue very apparent. Zab immense as always.
ReplyDelete36 points gathered, nearly safe from going down!
Yes, just four more should do it. If Mancini needed any more evidence as to what Tevez and Agero can do, this was it. Not only that I think the confidence runs down the side with as you say Nasri having probably his best game untill he went off, Yaya, Zab, Nastasic all great and buggar me, Kolo Toure MotM?? I couldn't understand why he was chosen ahead of Lescot, but he had a great game. Yet when Lescot came on, he looked like a man mountain, so I hope the rumours that he's going to Everton are false. We need to strengthen around what we have not lose players.
ReplyDeleteRe Lescott, at the moment Kompany injured, Micah out until Jan/Feb/2014? Kolo off to Africa in Jan. If Lescott allowed to go in Jan, we'd have Kompany, Nastsic and, err, no other centre backs. Surely there's no way Lescott can be allowed to go, even though Mancini seems to see no future for him. However, Mario can keep on messing up and there's no problem for Roberto. He even sees Mario here after Roberto himself has moved on!
ReplyDeleteThat 1st half was reminiscent of Spurs away last season. Fabulous performance, which merited a much bigger scoreline. I’m still totally baffled by the decision to leave Tevez out last week, especially as I thought he was one of the few successes in Dortmund. Oh what might’ve been! It was nice to see Kolo do well but I couldn’t agree with the MOM decision. I thought Yaya, Silva and Zabaletta (who I thought should’ve kept the captaincy) were all slightly better. I gather Balotelli is taking the club to an FA tribunal this week. Surely the end of the road is nigh and I desperately hope we can offload him and get Falcao in January.
ReplyDeleteDisagree slightly about Tevez and Aguero. Obviously it's our best combination, especially when defending from the front, but I still don't see any evidence of a partnership in the RVP and Rooney mould.
ReplyDeleteThe game should have been over after thirty minutes, but wasn't because too many times our forwards weren't in the right position for a tap-in, preferring to wair for the pull-back or run towards the corner flag on a complicated overlap.
Silva's best game in ages, but I wish sometimes he would use the overalpper as a decoy and put his foot through the ball