Foxes and Magpies to fight it out for top spot.
Posted on August 30th, 2009 | 32 Comments |
Ex-Toon caretaker boss, Nigel Pearson, now the man in charge of the Foxes, has ensured a good start to the season where they remain undefeated in their first four championship matches. If they win tomorrow they will go top,giving them something extra to play for.
With Shola already ruled out with a foot injury,another local lad from Byker, ex-toon season ticket holder and Newcastle mad Leicester City striker Steve Howard is desperate to play in tomorrow night’s clash at St James Park. It looks as if his prayers will be answered as he is likely to be passed fit following a recent hamstring injury.
Leicester are hoping to play their on loan left back, Ryan McGivern, a seemingly talented lad signed on Friday from Man City, where he struggled due to the competition for places. A couple of other new faces, Yann Kermorgant and Paul Gallagher, two loan signings in the past week, will also be in contention to join striker Matty Fryatt who has scored three goals this season.
Leicester have been allocated 2800 tickets for the match and at the latest count have sold over 2000, so a decent following for an evening bank holiday Monday match which is live on Sky.
The Foxes have contributed towards some very entertaining matches against the Toon over the years. Who could forget our 7-1 win in 1993 on a sunny Sunday afternoon in May our last home match of the season? Where Lindisfarne played and Newcastle paraded what was then the league one trophy after Keegan got us promoted. Or the home game in 1997, when Leicester, with 13 minutes to go, and winning 3-1, were rocked by an unbelievable Alan Shearer hattrick which saw the Toon fans walk away ecstatic after witnessing a remarkable 4-3 win.
Unfortunately Alan Shearer is not on the Christmas card list of any of the Leicester fans I know (being the closest team to where I live) due to the infamous head to boot, or boot to head incident on Neil Lennon in 1998 and the subsequent FA ruling that it was an accident, further fuelling the indignation of the Foxes fans! If Shearer was already installed as manager for tomorrow’s game it would certainly have added a bit more noise to the fixture but that scenario is looking increasingly unlikely.
Well we only need one point to go top but with all our first choice strike force out and a lack of loan or indeed any signings coming into to help bolster the ranks it looks like Nile Ranger will feel the weight of expectation as he is likely to toil upfront on his tod. Hopefully recent goals from Nolan and Taylor will have given them a taste for more and we need to see a lot of support for Ranger from our midfield, even Smudger as an ex-goalscorer might break his duck. It looks like Joey Barton will be back from injury and should have a place in the starting eleven.
Potential line up for the mags could be: Harper, Simpson, S Taylor, Collocini, Enrique, Smith, Nolan, Barton, Guthrie, R Taylor and Ranger.
With Leicester clearly taking time to find their goal scoring prowess by failing to score any goals in the first half of any championship games this season, it remains to be seen if we have the firepower to take advantage of this potential achilles heel. Leicester’s record at St James Park is very poor losing 37 of the 57 ties and winning only 7. They last played there in the premiership in 2004 when Sir Bobby was still in charge and Newcastle finished the day 3-1 winners when Shola again (can’t believe I’m writing that) found his way onto the score sheet.
Let’s hope the Toon do well. I’m off to the match tomorrow, so will no doubt see more of the travellings mags on the way and am predicting a 1-0 win. Comments welcome.
I fancy our chances, even without our 1st choice striking line-up.