Pardew takes on his former club.Date: Saturday 22nd March 2014. Time: 15:00. Venue: St James’ Park. Referee: Lee Probert. UK TV: None.
Hot on the heels of defeat at Craven Cottage, we face lower table opposition again this week as we host Crystal Palace, which is of course where Alan Pardew played his football between 1987 and 1991.
Back in December we beat Crystal Palace 3-0 at Selhurst Park thanks to goals from Yohan Cabaye, Hatem Ben Arfa (penalty) and Danny Gabbidon (own goal), so we’ll be looking to do the double over them on Saturday.
The league form for both teams from the last eight games looks like this:
P
W
D
L
F
A
Pts/Max
Last 8
Newcastle
8
3
1
4
6
15
10/24
W|D|L|L|L|W|W|L
Crystal Palace
8
3
2
3
6
7
11/24
W|W|L|W|L|D|L|D
As the above table shows, Palace’s form in the last eight is similar to ours, although they’ve conceded far fewer goals. We can’t really argue that we’ve had tougher games either. In the last eight games we’ve faced three top half sides (Spurs, Chelsea and Villa) and so have Crystal Palace (Arsenal, Man Utd and Southampton).
A return to winning ways tonight?Tonight sees a cash strapped Crystal Palace making the long journey to St James’s Park.
With all kinds of gossip surrounding the London club regarding Administration. Another source of gossip is their very talented young winger, Victor Moses, who has been the subject of much transfer speculation as the club seek to balance their books. The word going around is that he will almost certainly NOT be playing in tonight’s match, by order of the Administrator, probably for fear of injury.
As for ‘wor lads, of course much of the gossip will surround our two new arrivals, central defender, ‘Big’ Mike (not that one) Williamson and fleet footed flanker, Wayne Routledge. Will they take their bows before the evening is over? Of course, the other big question is, will Newcastle make a return to winning ways after the weekend ref fiasco against West Brom?
For more background on the game, check out the excellent match preview by Geordie Deb. A full match report by NUFC Blog’s very own man in Level Seven, Bowburnmag, will no doubt make it slow winding way on to these pages in the fullness of time too. (more…)
Hard times at the Palace.With the announcement that Crystal Palace have finally succumbed to their financial difficulties, being reportedly £30 million in debt and having gone into administration, you would guess that their players and staff may not be in the best frame of mind for a visit to St James Park tonight to take on Newcastle United.
You’ve got to feel sorry for Palace, as yet another long establised football club faces very difficult and uncertain times. Only 2 points off the play offs earlier today, they now face a 10 point deduction and suddenly the season could turn into a relegation battle. I’m sure Neil Warnock must despair as Palace have lost just twice in their previous 15 games in all competitions and are currently on a very good run of form.
The squad, depleted through injury, has left Warnock turning to several young players who have risen to the challenge admirably. Only last weekend they managed to force a replay in the FA Cup when they drew 2-2 to Premier League Wolves. (more…)
Carroll: "Raring to go for Palace".Good words today coming from two of our players, Andy Carrol and Kevin Nolan, with both of them saying the best thing to get over a defeat is another game, and that comes in the shape of Newcastle United’s home encounter with Crystal Palace on Wednesday evening.
Both lads are understandably annoyed with being eliminated from the FA Cup on Saturday, but are determined that it won’t affect The Toon’s promotion push and are seeking to use the defeat as a springboard to pick up the teams league form. Scouse Nolan said:
“Going out (of the cup) is a blow, but we can only look to our next game.”
“The fans were great at West Brom and that can only drive us on, as can this result.”
“We are still top of the league and we’ve got to finish off the job. This can inspire us to do that. We’re going for it.”
With the injury to Shola Ameobi, the onus could now be on Andy Carroll to help score the goals to keep us top of the league. His 2 goals on Saturday were excellent, and could be just the confidence boost the Gateshead born hitman has needed. Speaking of ending his 3 month goal drought, Carroll said: (more…)
Scouse hitmen at work. Even though I live in London, usually, I’d rather be flayed alive than travel to South Norwood, the home of Crystal Palace’s Selhurst Park. It’s an absolute mare to get to, either struggling though all the worst that London traffic has to offer, or making around 73 changes on the train. Even so, there seemed to be a good crowd of Geordies in the away end, around three and a half thousand apparently. They were in good voice, with a little bit of rather predictable anti Ashley chanting, but some great support for the team
It seems that Crystal Palace are still in denial about being relegated in 2005, as the Premier League theme started blaring out of the PA before the game commenced, the old 2005 one too, which added a stuck in limbo feel to the proceedings.
Ameobi and Nolan got the game underway, and just while I was settling in, the custard boys go and bang one in. The ball was passed around nicely for a minute or so, then Gutierrez made an beautiful chipped pass back to Nolan, who proceeded to thread it very skillfully through the legs of the Palace keeper (Flavahan) for the best possible start to the game. (more…)
