It’s another important game for Newcastle United today, even more important because of our dismal performance against bottom placed Derby County on Sunday.
The good news is that Big Sam has almost a full squad to choose from. Since Babayaro has left the club we’re not sure if we have any injuries apart from Stephen Carr with a hamstring problem, and Peter Ramage, who is steadily recovering from his ACL knee operation. We hope Peter will be available before the end of the season.
We are now near the bottom of the PysioRoom.Com Premier Injury League Table right now.
Wigan, like Derby have a new manager in Steve Bruce, who is a local lad with his family still living in Newcastle. Of course Steve was offered the Newcastle manager job when Freddy Shepherd sacked the great Sir Bobby Robson in 2004. But Steve at that time elected to fulfill his contract at Birmingham City.
Wigan are second bottom of the league with just 13 points from their 18 games. They have won 3, drawn 4, and lost 11 games while scoring 18 goals and conceding a whopping 34 goals. At home they have won 3, lost 3 and drawn 4 but have scored just 5 goals and conceded 15. That record has to give some hope to Newcastle surely.
So there’s no reason we can see that Newcastle cannot recover from the disaster of last Sunday and capture all 3 points. We also have all our defenders to choose from (except Carr), so we should be able to put out a strong defense.
We’d like to see a back four of Beye, Faye, Taylor and N’Zogbia. We have N’Zogbia at LB because we’ve just about given up hope of having Charlie scare the living daylights out of defenses out on the left wing.
We’d like to see the team playing in a 4-4-2 formation and think we should give Smith and Viduka a chance up front and give young Oba Martins an earned rest, for a change.
So here’s an attacking team we’d like to see Big Sam play today:
Given
Beye Faye Taylor N’Zogbia
Milner Butt Emre Duff
Subs: Harper Cacapa Geremi Barton Martins
That’s a strong and skillful side that should be able to get us the win, but we’re really not sure what team Sam will come up with today. But please let’s play the players in their normal positions today. We’ve played players way out of position for far too long.
It’s unlikely that England striker Heskey will make the team for Wigan. Wigan’s most dangerous player of late had been Marcus Bent, who scored a hat trick in Wigan’s only win in 15 games against Blackburn. He looked sharp in that game and will be full of confidence today. He also scored a goal against Fulham recently.
And it may be that former Newcastle player Antoine Sibierski will be in the side, but the Frenchman, who is an admitted Newcastle supporter, has not found the net since very early in the season. It turns out that Wigan have beaten both Sunderland and Middlesbrough this season, so it would seem appropriate that Newcastle take the win today.
If we are to win we think we’ll need to keep a clean sheet, and we’ll go for a 2-0 win. That would be a very nice Christmas box, if a little late.
What do you think? Let us know.
Let’s know what team you would play – and take a crack at the result of today’s game – thanks.
14 comments so far
Richard
Dec 26, 2007 at 11:17 AM
Comment #1Its a good team Ed on paper but we have only 9 players could be difficult? haha
adam
Dec 26, 2007 at 11:24 AM
Comment #2good team. 9 players might be enough richard, remember titus is playing!!
Indian toon
Dec 26, 2007 at 11:30 AM
Comment #3will be lucky to get anything outta this game as most relegation dogfighting teams like wigan willl be hopin to take maximum home points to survive. a draw is most welcome whereas a loss will bring sam a step closer to get sacked!!!
micepie
Dec 26, 2007 at 11:52 AM
Comment #4Don’t do that!!! It’s best never to predict any scores, let alone a Toon win! It’s feeding the jinx cat.
Best just to hope that we play well, and see THEN what happens!
clinta
Dec 26, 2007 at 12:01 PM
Comment #5I agree with indian toon, won’t be as easy as your comments suggest. I think we’ll get a point though 1-1 perhaps. agree with the 4-4-2 formation but would play cacapa in place of faye, whose hardly match fit, i feel cacapas done well since returning at fulham. fully agree with midfield selection especially playing milner on the right, would love to finally see that, hopefully with duff back in the team will get to see this, but will duff start today? is he fit enough for that?
Ed Harrison
Dec 26, 2007 at 12:03 PM
Comment #6mincepie – you could be right about predicting the score – if we do get beat today – kill me – please 😀
obafemimartins
Dec 26, 2007 at 12:13 PM
Comment #7if we concede 2 goals against a team who have only scored six in total (derby) how are we going to stop a team who scored five against blackburn
scott 9
Dec 26, 2007 at 12:20 PM
Comment #8yes that is a good team ed i agree having emre in there makes up for butts shit passing
Hadrian
Dec 26, 2007 at 12:25 PM
Comment #9areet .
feeling optimistic today , but i always do before kick of anyway , only tobe brought crashing back down to eather normally in the first ten mins with the toon 😛
im going for a 2-1 newcastle .
Graeme
Dec 26, 2007 at 12:43 PM
Comment #10Would be happy with a performance today, whatever the score. Just watching a game of football would seem like progress!!!
Dragoner
Dec 26, 2007 at 12:56 PM
Comment #111-0 to the toon
Tom_Toon
Dec 26, 2007 at 1:10 PM
Comment #12knowing sam tactics, 3-0 loss to us.
JENSON BUTTON
Dec 26, 2007 at 1:17 PM
Comment #13villa 1-0 against chelsea. motivation maybe for us.
pcbl
Dec 26, 2007 at 5:29 PM
Comment #14“So there’s no reason we can see that Newcastle cannot recover from the disaster of last Sunday and capture all 3 points.”
Serves you guys right for being so cocky.