The Newcastle United Blog

50 responses so far ↓

• 1 ToonDownSouth // Feb 26, 2012 at 11:32 PM

  Actually Ed, the FA Cup runner up can also get in to Europe.

  So we need to hope that both finalists are ‘top 6′ teams.

• 2 JackButler // Feb 26, 2012 at 11:38 PM

  No doubt the Bin Dippers will melt the cup down and weigh it in for scrap

• 3 JP...from The Rock // Feb 26, 2012 at 11:43 PM

  Interesting. I think we’ll clinch a top 6 spot that will eventually bring us European football. To think I made a bet way back in September is amazing. Tbh ever since we went on that unbeaten run I never doubted it. Now that we have Cisse who is a natural goalscorer and Liverfool have won the Carling Cup it would be a massive disaster not to clinch a shot at Europe.

  It’s a disgusting feeling knowing Carroll aka Judas and Enrique have won a winners medal so soon after leaving us after doing hardly anything for Liverfool. Oh well we’l get em next year.

  HWTL

• 4 ToonDownSouth // Feb 26, 2012 at 11:44 PM

  They’ll probably melt it down to plate a statue of that retard Dalglish.

  I’m just glad we’re not the club with the messiah complex anymore!

  Luckily for us, winning that cup will keep him in the job for another year.

• 5 IrishToon009 // Feb 26, 2012 at 11:44 PM

  whats the story with the other finalist? If the winner is in champ league etc does the runner up get the place or does it go to extra league europa league spot?

• 6 ToonDownSouth // Feb 26, 2012 at 11:48 PM

  Irish

  See comment #1

• 7 IrishToon009 // Feb 26, 2012 at 11:53 PM

  So does that mean both teams in FA final get in or if the winner is already there the runner up gets it?

• 8 FootballPsycho // Feb 26, 2012 at 11:55 PM

  I’m sure we don’t need Liverpool to finish above us for 6th and 7th to get into Europe; surely all that is now required is that Liverpool play either Chelsea or Spurs (preferably Spurs) for that to happen…?

• 9 ToonDownSouth // Feb 26, 2012 at 11:55 PM

  Yeah, if the winner is already in then the runner up gets it.

  Currently, if we finish 5th or 6th we get into the Europa League.

  If we finish 7th, then we need to hope that both finalists of the FA cup are teams that finish above us. Realistically, that’s only 2 from Chelsea, Spurs & Liverpool as everyone else is out!

• 10 SurefootedShola // Feb 27, 2012 at 12:03 AM

  The only cup win good for NUFC, is a NUFC one.

• 11 Brutooon // Feb 27, 2012 at 12:10 AM

  I was supporting Cardiff City all the way. I hate watching Carroll and Enrique celebrating !!!

  If Liverfool is no 4 then the Europa League is given to Cardiff?

• 12 joe // Feb 27, 2012 at 12:13 AM

  Come on guys.. Credit where it’s due. Daglish is still a good manager, maybe not for us, but he is for Liverpool. He is to them what Kevin Keegan was for us. I only started watching football while we were under Daglish so I missed the Keegan era. So Kenny Daglish was basically the first manager of Newcastle I knew! He did make a mistake with us though, trying to change the whole squad instead of just tweaking it.

• 13 FootballPsycho // Feb 27, 2012 at 12:15 AM

  TDS

  How is 5th or 6th currently good enough for Europa; surely only 5th is at this moment in time? 6th is only good enough also if Chelsea play Spurs in the FA cup final

• 14 LewSpi // Feb 27, 2012 at 12:15 AM

  Rather than all of this confusing ‘runner up’ places etc, is it not just easier for us to finish 5th?

• 15 ToonDownSouth // Feb 27, 2012 at 12:16 AM

  Surefooted

  I’m fairly sure that is incorrect – at least in 99% of fans eyes.

  See this article :/

• 16 ToonDownSouth // Feb 27, 2012 at 12:18 AM

  LewSpi

  Unfortunately teams can’t just pick where they finish

  I’d love it, I really would, but we’re currently not up with Chelsea & Arsenal. Our squad is too thin and our manager has a lot to learn and work on.

• 17 GeordieCoaster // Feb 27, 2012 at 12:19 AM

  @Brutooon The runners up rule doesn’t apply in the League Cup, so if Liverpool finish top 5 the Europa league spot will move down to 6th

• 18 Brutooon // Feb 27, 2012 at 12:20 AM

  The Europa League will be given to Cardiff City if Liverpool finish 4th spot and above. (Champion League)

• 19 ToonDownSouth // Feb 27, 2012 at 12:20 AM

  joe

  You think that after spending £100m, winning the Carling Cup and currently being 7th in the league is good?

  They’re below us, a team who have spent a net -£25m since Dalglish took over!

• 20 Brutooon // Feb 27, 2012 at 12:21 AM

  GeordieCoaster

  Tq for the clarification mate

• 21 ToonDownSouth // Feb 27, 2012 at 12:21 AM

  Brutoon

  Liverpool will surely not finish 4th. They’re dreadful.

• 22 Brutooon // Feb 27, 2012 at 12:21 AM

  Liverpool spend about 100million, struggle to beat cardiff city

• 23 Brutooon // Feb 27, 2012 at 12:23 AM

  ToonDownSouth

  they won’t finish 4th place as long as they keep on playing Andy Carroll !!!

  But i am concern about our team:
  1) struggle the last 4-5 games
  2) always conceding goals

• 24 joe // Feb 27, 2012 at 12:25 AM

  Im not basing my judgement on one game. Regardless of how bad his transfer dealings have been, he still managed to win a trophy in his first full season. Unlike a lot of people here, I’ve got nothing against the guy, and I’m just saying he is a decent manager. Unless he keeps buying our players that is!!

• 25 Brutooon // Feb 27, 2012 at 12:28 AM

  When Kenny Daglish is our manager, he screw our team !

• 26 StuW // Feb 27, 2012 at 1:11 AM

  When we look decent in a cup, the manager or players always say ‘We can have a run in this comp’, and the next round we are out. Form goes out of the window in the cup, Cardiff proved that.

  Still, we can still finish top 6, which is where we should aim for, and anything higher is a bonus. We have put distance between ourselves and 8th. A couple of good signings in areas we look weak(CM, CB, RW) and we can push harder for Europe next season.

• 27 davybtoon // Feb 27, 2012 at 1:27 AM

  4th is still up for grabs is it likely we will get it no but we’re only 3pts off it with both arsenal n Chelsea to play we can hav a big say who finishes there, we finish anywhere between 4th n 7th its been a great season with some blips but every team has them apart from city this season

  If staylor was fit we wud hav 4th spot tied up nearly the difference in the defence since he’s been out Is huge is unreal such a great player

• 28 lee1892 // Feb 27, 2012 at 1:39 AM

  Brutoon – The Europa League will be given to Cardiff City if Liverpool finish 4th spot and above. (Champion League)

  That is incorrect. Those rules apply to the FA cup but not the league cup. Cardiff can not get into europe and Ed’s article is correct.

• 29 boing123 // Feb 27, 2012 at 4:33 AM

  I reckon we have to hope hard for a Spurs-Liverpool-Chelsea FA Cup final. From our form since the unbeaten run ended, 7th place looks like the most likely outcome. After the defence stopped putting up superhuman performances in the absence of Saylor, the team has looked at best an upper mid-table team.

  Just look at our record against the big 6: 1 win, 3 draws, 4 losses. 6 points out of a possible 24. The lack of quality has really showed when we played against the top teams.

  Earlier in the season, we have been able to pick up points against the weaker teams. Now, we’ve dropped important points at home against the likes of Wolves, Swansea and West Brom. The lack of creativity and penetration is all too obvious when teams opt to sit back and defend.

  Bottomline – we have improved this season, but there is still a significant gap in quality between us and the big 6.

• 30 Brutooon // Feb 27, 2012 at 5:56 AM

  tq for the clarification ICE1892

• 31 NEWEXPATMAGPIE // Feb 27, 2012 at 6:11 AM

  I don,t wish to doubt you Ed but could you check your facts!

  I believe that the League Cup winners are,nt entitled to a europa cup place!
  I know that you state this in your artikle but i have serious doubts that this is the case?

  I believe that as far as Europa cup placings regards, our League cup is of no significance for the winners and also the runners up get Diddley squat !
  Someone needs to go on the net and check exactly what the case is here ( namely you Ed ).

  Plus: I worry seriously about us even finnishing with a top ten place in retrospect of our last few performances, which will probably have some of you calling me names on here! But if we don,t start winning games again soon, we are gonna start sliding down the table! Big Time!
  This would be an absolute travesty taking into account the first half of the season!

  The African cup of Nations has really screwed us up this year, and i feel that with any future signings, the fact that certain players just leave for weeks, this should be taken into consideration when looking at prospective transfers!

  You also state that Carroll and Enrique would never have got a winners medal with Newcastle if they had stayed! Now then! Liverpool paid big money for these players so, you could say that the money paid went towards them winning this competition!
  To your average Pool fan, well its been six years since they won anything but a win for Newcastle in any major competition in UK would mean one hell of a lot more to your average Mag, than a cup competition win for Liverpool, if we started signing players for 35Mil it would,nt be long befrore we would start winning things too! but this is,nt going to happen! Look at Man Shitty! Carroll played shite in the game itself, however! Enrique was better and his value is by far more than that of Carroll,s !

  Finally, we were bloody awful on saturday against Wolves but their was something else that i noticed while watching the game live on the box here in Holland. This was how still our support was in the stadium! I heard the Wolves supporters, but where were ours? this was a home game for goodness sake, if we want the team to play well then we need to shout and scream and roar on the terraces and not sit still like cardboard cut-outs while the lads play abysmally. Am i the only one on here who noticed this!

  If the lads don,t start performing i can see us losing big time against the Mackems next Sunday! Oneil will of seen our last few fixtures and will have his players wound up accordingly! Lose against them and we will slide to 7th or 8th place again! And this will be our lowest position since, uum, September i think!

  I remain optimistic and am hoping that the players snap out of their trances and start winning games again !
  And also that Pardew starts looking at his tactics and timing when it comes to substitutions, the first Wolves goal on saturday was partly to blame on the timing of his first subs!

• 32 NEWEXPATMAGPIE // Feb 27, 2012 at 6:15 AM

  Bruto @ 30:

  ICE 1892 ?

  Post it up on here so everyone can read it !

• 33 mylestoon // Feb 27, 2012 at 6:57 AM

  32NEWEXPATMAGPIE

  You need to check your facts! Birmingham city qualified for Europe this year when they won the league cup last year!

  Also, how did fulham qualify for Europe this year when they didn’t finish in top 7 last year or win a cup.

• 34 Klatoon // Feb 27, 2012 at 6:59 AM

  After the wolves debacle,i honestly hoped there would be no more talk of Europe….although qualifying for Euro competition would help our transfer dealings (allure to continental players). I know we cant make it with our current form but if it helps replace Willo and Simmo,hey count me in…Europe here we come

• 35 obatoyou // Feb 27, 2012 at 7:22 AM

  so, as the table stands at the moment, we are not in europe :S

  we need to overtake arsenal, or hope the FA cup final contains two of chelsea, tottenham and liverpool.

  on the plus side, the situation doesn’t change if liverpool overtakes us in the league.

• 36 Grafton83 // Feb 27, 2012 at 7:39 AM

  @mylestoon Fulham qualified through the fair play league that’s completly seperate to league positions as far as I’m aware.

• 37 Doilatoon // Feb 27, 2012 at 7:42 AM

  If you look closely on the trophy,you can see mickey mouse

• 38 Indian Magpie // Feb 27, 2012 at 7:44 AM

  mylestoon,

  Fulham qualified bcoz of fair play rules, it was initially given 2 blackpool who were relegated

• 39 Solaidback // Feb 27, 2012 at 7:51 AM

  For a heads up, even if Cardiff had won the League cup beating Cessepool, they wouldn’t have got into Europe because they’re classed as a Welsh club & the League Club Europa position is for English clubs only…. sounds daft I know but if they had won, then they would have had to pertition Uefa for a position in the Europa League like Cessepool did when they won the CL but didn’t qualify the season after….. thus meaning it would have been better for the Toon if Cardiff had won yesterday because the League Cup winners Europa League place would have gone to the 6th place PL team… so it would be like this:

  1st CL
  2nd CL
  3rd CL
  4th CL qualifiers/Europa League
  5th Europa League
  6th Europa League (as described above)
  7th Europa League if FA Cup final is between two clubs in top 5…

• 40 Oleg G // Feb 27, 2012 at 8:12 AM

  Don’t care that they won. I don’t think we need charity. Hated seeing them win yesterday. We should be strong enough to finish in a Europe spot and if we are not good enough, then we should try again next year.
  This is in our hands. We are 6th place, 3 points from 4th. We will be responsible for our finish and no one else. I want us to fight for 4th-6th place and that’s that. (Although maybe 4th is not good for us as our quality is not high, but we just should fight for it anyway, because this is what sport is all about).

• 41 redondo77 // Feb 27, 2012 at 8:31 AM

  based on what i’ve seen vs wolves, our team doesn’t like to score as many goals as they possibly can and they seems to be lack of ambition since their target (safe from relegation) already achieved. The team being already 2 goals up, they seem to be “let’s defend what we have”. What I don’t understand is after the score is 2-2, we dominated possesion and attack more, why they don’t do that from beginning is beyond me. If we have mentality like Wolves yesterday, we would have won the game by 5-0. I hope that it has nothing to do with dressing room or contracts situation.
  We have better player than last year, but last year we hammered the scums 5-1, whu 6-1, etc.
  Yesterday was wrong, it’s just wrong! it really pissed me off watching it.

• 42 jayphoto // Feb 27, 2012 at 8:37 AM

  really hoping we finish strongly! Got a feeling Ben Arfa will play more in the last 10 games and should only just be coming into his own! Cabaye should get fresh on the back of a month out and Papiss should get used to the pace of the game more and more each game! Downsides are Williamson has looked very poor, Jonas looks knackered! Still, a win against sunderland should kick start our season!

• 43 Spuggy // Feb 27, 2012 at 8:38 AM

  Strange, but our next few matches see’s us playing the three teams below us – a lot will depend on those 6-pointers for Europe. We play one of them teams every other game over the next 5 games.

  Really pleased we’re able to score at the front and Cisse is definitely settling quickly. We just need to stop the leaks at the back – boy have we missed Saylor.

• 44 jayphoto // Feb 27, 2012 at 8:42 AM

  saw in his interview, Pardew said he should have made the changes earlier against wolves! Does this mean he feels Ben Arfa should have come on earlier? I thought Ben Arfa was very poor against wolves, his touch was off and his decision making was terrible but I really think he needs to be given game time now! He actually looks to create things, we’ve not got another player like that, think its time he was judged after a 5/6 game spell of starting matches, like i said, iv not been impressed with him atall (i wasnt a huge fan of him at marseille) but anyone who knows anything about football knows its impossible to keep your game sharpness out if your only playing 30 mins here and there! Id love pards to go really positive against sunderland and play Ba, Benny and Cisse! I actually think even if it didnt come off he’d be applauded for giving it a go!

• 45 lordy_geordie // Feb 27, 2012 at 8:53 AM

  @39 I find that hard to believe.
  Welsh teams are not aloud in europe through England? What if they finished in top 5 of prem? Would they not be allowed into europe?

  As for our chances of europe im sure 6th is now good enough.
  If we finish 7th and Liverpool finish higher then it would go to 7th because 5th is good enough and because Liverpool won cup theyre already in so it would go to 7th.

• 46 LewSpi // Feb 27, 2012 at 8:57 AM

  So, first of all, we need Chelsea to beat Birmingham and Spurs to beat Stevenage to get into the Quarters.

  Then we need Chelsea to beat Leicester, Spurs to beat Bolton and Liverpool to beat Stoke.

  One of the 3 will then draw the other and the remaining one will draw either Everton or the Mackems (probably Everton.) in the Semi’s.

  I so hope the Mackems don’t get into the final, Jesus that would be a bad sitch, we’d have to pray for 5th.

  Birmingham v Chelsea Tue 6 Mar 19:45
  Tottenham v Stevenage Wed 7 Mar 19:30

  Everton v Sunderland Sat 17 Mar 12:45
  Stevenage/Tottenham v Bolton Sat 17 Mar 17:30
  Chelsea/Birmingham v Leicester Sun 18 Mar 14:05
  Liverpool v Stoke Sun 18 Mar 16:00

• 47 Geordiedoonsooth // Feb 27, 2012 at 9:00 AM

  I was hoping Cardiff would win don’t want scousers to win anything. We certainly need to buy 2 good fast defenders and get Saylor back to his best then next season we might just be able to have a real go at winning something. At the moment our defence just isn’t quite up to it.

• 48 derekm // Feb 27, 2012 at 10:53 AM

  To date Liverpool have spent a million pounds for every minute they had to play to win a trophy the top four are’nt interested in – puts the thing in perspective for me.

• 49 Crawfordladd17 // Feb 27, 2012 at 9:58 PM

  No one knows the rules I do

  5th place-No matter what Europa League

  Only only only the Carling Cup WINNERS not the runners up get into the Europa League unless that team is a Champions League team then 6th place get into Europe

  Then the FA Cup winners or Runners up depends
  If the FA Cup winners is Tottenham who will prob finish in the top 4 and they beat the scum Bolton Everton Leicester Stoke in the Final then the runners up get into Europe. But if the Final is Spurs and Liverpool then 7th placed team get into to Europe.

  And possibly a Fair Play team which won’t be us with us last even though i thought Stoke QPR Blackburn Wolves Bolton Wigan and Villa would be below us. Actually it is Swansea in 2nd as it stands with Tottenham in 1st with almost certain to be in the Champions League or Europa League at least.

• 50 Crawfordladd17 // Feb 27, 2012 at 10:03 PM

  also that is the table of national teams for the fair play with currently Norway Finland Netherlands getting the 3 extra places with England at 9th but played more matches than anyother league bar La Liga
  http://www.uefa.com//MultimediaFiles/Download/uefaorg/Respect/01/74/16/83/1741683_DOWNLOAD.pdf