Two of the best central midfielders in the Premier League will go head to head this afternoon at Anfield, when Liverpool and England captain Steven Gerrard makes his 600th appearance for his home-town club, and Newcastle’s French International Yohan Cabaye makes his 49th appearance for Newcastle, after joining from Lille in the summer of 2011.
Steven Gerrard in England colors – a great player
Yohan has today been interviewed in the Independent, and he has talked about the game today, and just how good Steven Gerrard is:
“I didn’t know that.” “I do know that it’s still difficult to play at Liverpool.” “I’ve played two times at Anfield and lost 3-0 with Lille and 3-1 with Newcastle last season. It was my shot that hit Daniel Agger and went in for an own goal.”
That happens to be the only goal credited to Newcastle in six visits to Anfield. The last Newcastle player to score there was Patrick Kluivert in a 3-1 loss in December 2004.” “For me, Liverpool are still a big team, a good team with good players. “
Unfortunately for them, they haven’t had good results, but that’s not the most important thing to us. We have to try to win the game and to have an ‘away from home’ mentality.”
“Liverpool have to react after that result against Swansea.” “We are wary of that.” “We have to play as a unit and fight for the three points.” “I came because the Premier League is the best league,” the 26-year-old says. “To play against Gerrard and the other big players and teams was the main reason why I came here.”
“I don’t want to disrespect the other players at Liverpool but for me, Gerrard is the key player. He’s the best player. He’s still excellent and his passing is very good. He can win the game for his team with his delivery or his finishing.” “When France played England at Euro 2012, Laurent Blanc told us that he was the best player and we had to look after him.”
“Two games a week has been difficult” “It means we have to work harder than we did last season. We know that. We must keep working in training and keep the right mentality.”
Newcastle may be catching Liverpool at a very good time or a very bad time, after their shock 3-1 loss at Anfield in the Capital One Cup to Swansea in midweek.
An early goal from the visitors could put some doubt in the Liverpool player’s minds, but we’ve never seen Liverpool give up this season, and they fight until the end – like any good side.
But with Steven playing his 600th game and the Reds wanting to make up to their fans for that embarrassing loss in midweek, it could be a bad time for Newcastle to play the Reds.
But Newcastle are a good side, and there have been signs in the last few games that our players are coming into top form, and we’ve also had a full week of preparation for this game.
We are upbeat about the possibility of Newcastle winning a league game at Anfield for the first time since April of 1994.
That has to be a big motivation for our players – and we can do it.
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7 comments so far
eaststandgeordie1982
Nov 4, 2012 at 9:16 AM
Comment #1We meed to get at them from the off not let them have to much of the ball, oh wait thats what we let teams do to us im going to say we will concede 3 again we always turn over at anfield.
tarie4
Nov 4, 2012 at 9:17 AM
Comment #2If we do win today, we move up to sixth one point from Everton in forth and an average start to the season turns into a ok start to the season, and we could kick on from there and go on a little run. We could to top 5 by the end of the month. But that has to start today. Comeon lads, Liverpool ate nothing special
SupaToonKid
Nov 4, 2012 at 9:19 AM
Comment #34-2-3-1 and we win/get a good draw or 4-4-2 and we lose/scrape a lucky draw.
I’d go for: 4-2-3-1 (what a surprise):
Krul
Simpson, S. Taylor, Collocini, Santon
Perch, Jonas
Obertan, Cabaye, Ben Arfa
Ba (Cissé if Ba out)
Subs:
Harper
Williamson
Ferguson
Anita
Cissé (Bigirimana if Ba out & Cissé starts)
Sammy Ameobi
Shola Ameobi
check the toastie
Nov 4, 2012 at 9:21 AM
Comment #4Quotes from Pardew after the game –
1. ‘We expected a bounce back from Liverpool after their bad result in midweek, they caught us a little cold, we werent at our best’.
2. ‘We couldnt quite get a foothold in the game, they keep possession really well, and we looked a bit tired, we werent at our best’
3. They have some world class players here, and we knew it was going to be tough, tactically we may have got it wrong from the start of the game, we werent at our best’
4. ‘They had a lot of possession and i thought we were comfortable defending our own box for 90 minutes, its a shame one of my unbeleivable players such as Benny or Cisse havent bailed my poor tactical knowledge out again, we werent at our best’
🙂
SupaToonKid
Nov 4, 2012 at 9:24 AM
Comment #5I do hope Marveaux has done enough to make the squad but looks unlikely. It looks good though that good players like Marv, Amalfitano, Abeid etc can’t even make the squad (depth improving).
Gateshead-Mag
Nov 4, 2012 at 9:27 AM
Comment #6cynical bunch on here mind hahaha
lets wait till after the game to be down beat IF we lose. and thats a big IF
q8igeordie
Nov 4, 2012 at 9:28 AM
Comment #7Haha … i still think we will lose today …..but im hoping for something similar to last seasons game at stanford bridge against chelsea