Kevin Nolan scored 18 goals last season, but when you laud the former Bolton player for that, the critics say yes – but that was in the second division.
Kevin Nolan – Newcastle captain supreme
Well so far this season back in the Premier League Kevin has 7 goals in the first 10 league games of the season, which isn’t too bad at all, and he’s Newcastle’s top scorer so far this season, one ahead of Shola Ameobi and two ahead of Andy Carroll.
Kevin is also top scorer in the Premier League right now, along with Florent Malouda of Chelsea and Carlos Tevez of Man City – all on 7 goals.
And before the trip to the Emirates this Sunday, Kevin rightly says there is a need to get some payback for our defeat 9 days ago at St. James’ Park in the Carling Cup, when our second eleven lost 4-0.
Kevin told the Evening Chronicle today:
“There are no easy games in this league, especially Arsenal.” “We’re going to go there with a game plan. And hopefully it works as well as it did in the last game.”
“We do have confidence that we can go there and get a good result.” “We owe Arsenal, I think. We conceded a sloppy goal, then a few things didn’t happen for us. So we’re keen to put things right.”
Nolan has experienced success against Arsenal in his Bolton days, when Bolton, under manager Sam Allardyce, pulled off both Premier League and FA Cup wins over the London powerhouse.
Nolan continued:
“Arsenal didn’t like playing against us back then.” “But this is a totally different team to the one I played in at Bolton.” “That’s no disrespect to Bolton then or now, but this is just a bit different.”
We’re not sure whether Kevin is inferring that Newcastle are a better side now than Bolton were then, when he had those wins, but it will at least be a chance for this Newcastle side to see how good they are against a top European club side.
We didn’t do too well at Old Trafford in the first game of the season, but the lads seem to be learning quickly from their games in the Premier League, and we at the very least, expect the game on Sunday to be a lot closer than the Red Devils game, when we were well beaten 3-0 – and it could have been a lot worse.
A point at the Emirates on Sunday would stretch Newcastle’s unbeaten streak to 4 games, but it will be a very tough game.
Comments welcome.
7 comments so far
Solaidback
Nov 5, 2010 at 2:02 PM
Comment #1The way I see it is, against Manc Usa, we had quite a few players who’d not played at this level, plus we didn’t have Tiote either 🙂
The game against Arsenil 9 days ago was against our second string players, not our first 11, so they had an easy run at us, which I think will play in our favour, as they’ll not take us seriously this game having walked the last & we can catch them on the hop, hopefully getting 3 points for our travels.. 🙂
Moreno
Nov 5, 2010 at 2:12 PM
Comment #2I reckon play same back 4 as usual.
I would have smith and tiote just sitting defensive mid with barton and jonas on the wings.
Nolan behind Carroll.
We need to be strong in the middle of the park and stop arsenal playing. Wind them up with a few strong challenges early on from smith and hit them on the break or grab a set piece goal.
I don’t rate Guthrie what so ever so far this year, too important a game to risk a bad performance
Solaidback
Nov 5, 2010 at 2:27 PM
Comment #3I say play the same 4-4-2 eleven that beat the Muckems, play the same way & I think we’ll get summit out of the game, go back to 4-5-1 & we’ll get walked over again!!!
Moreno
Nov 5, 2010 at 2:39 PM
Comment #4nah Solaidback
completely different circumstance.
The makems shat their pants due to the St. james’ atmosphere, you cant goto emirates and expect the same result just because its the same formation and team
mushy
Nov 5, 2010 at 2:59 PM
Comment #5My take on the situation:
Arsenal are good up front, sensational in midfield, but only average in defence.
Newcatle are average in defense, canny in midfield, and pretty good in attack (given the service).
Somehow, if we are to get anything out of Sunday, we need to engineer a strategy that gives our forwards as many chances as possible to put their defence under pressure.
Packing our midfield with holding players in an attempt to shore up our defence will not work for 90 minutes. Arsenal are simply too good; they will pick us off with relative ease.
Gan for it, I say.
Brutooon
Nov 6, 2010 at 2:56 AM
Comment #61) don’t play alan smith, tiote is enough alone
2) If we play with 4-5-1 (dropping either Carroll or Ameobi) we should play with Jonas-Barton-Tiote-Nolan-Ryan Taylor
Reason is that Ryan Taylor can provide backup for danny simpson with, tiote-barton-nolan control the centre. Jonas will run the whole 90 mins and will get some free kick or even another penalty
Rotonda heights
Nov 6, 2010 at 9:18 AM
Comment #7Ed
I think Nolan means we are more a footballing team than Allardyce produced but hey that wouldn’t be difficult. Allardyce, Pulis etc = kick people and hoof it.