Newcastle v Everton – Match preview.

toonsy

Everton the visitors to SJP.
Newcastle have the chance to claim their second league double of the season when Everton make the trip to St James’ Park for another Saturday, 3pm kick-off.

Cast your minds back to September and you will no doubt remember that Newcastle managed to outplay Everton in their own back yard. The score was only 1-0 that day thanks to a truly stunning strike from Hatem Ben Arfa, but it could have been more had the referee not missed a blatant elbow by Screech Fellaini and a blatant foul on Kevin Nolan by Seamus Coleman that would have seen the young Everton defender see red for bringing down the last man and would have resulted in the Toffee’s conceding a penalty that would have put the game beyond doubt.

It’s all in the past now, but it was a fantastic result won by a fantastic individual goal which was backed up by a fantastic team performance. Unfortunately, it counts for nothing tomorrow though.

Joey Barton is fighting to be fit enough to resume first-team duties, as is our very own man in the mask, Shola Ameobi, who has trained all week and is apparently becoming more accustomed to his new headgear.

Stephen Ireland was close to making a comeback this weekend but unfortunately suffered a knock to his thigh in training which will mean that he won’t be risked. Hatem Ben Arfa is back in light training although won’t feature for the first team for some time yet whilst Danny Guthrie is probably just too short on match fitness to return to action. Dan Gosling and Alan Smith are out with injury whilst Ryan Taylor, thankfully, starts his three game suspension as punishment for his wild lunge at Johan Elmander against Bolton last week.

The big dilemma regarding trying to name a team is just who we are going to play on the right wing if Barton isn’t fit enough to play. We could try Jonas on the right with Lovenkrands on the left, or we could play as we did against Bolton when we went down to ten men and play three at the back with Simpson and Enrique operating as wing-backs. For the puposes of my selection though, I am going to assume that Barton is fit enough to feature. That will leave us with a team that looks a bit like this:

Newcastle: Steve Harper, Danny Simpson, Mike Williamson, Fabricio Coloccini, Jose Enrique, Joey Barton, Cheik Tiote, Kevin Nolan, Jonas Gutierrez, Peter Lovenkrands, Leon Best.

As for the away side, Everton will be without Tim Cahill and Marouane Fellaini for the trip to Tyneside. Both players will be a miss for them as they are both important players to Everton. Mind you, they will still be a danger and will offer a threat against us even without those two players.

There is no doubt that they will be smarting at being dumped out of the FA Cup to Reading during the week, so Newcastle will need to be wary of a backlash from the blue bindippers as they seek to put things right for their fans. FA Cup exit aside, their last league match was a 2-0 victory over the “massive” unwashed in which one time Toon target Jermaine Beckford grabbed both goals. Their team for that day was named as follows.

Everton: Tim Howard, Phil Neville, Phil Jagielka, Sylvain Distin, Leighton Baines, Seamus Coleman, Mikel Arteta, Marouane Fellaini, Leon Osman, Jermaine Beckford, Louis Saha.

This is the 160th meeting between the two sides, and it’s currently Newcastle who hold the upper hand with 63 wins compared to Everton’s 62. It’s been 51 games since Everton last lost back to back matches, although they haven’t won at St James’ Park since the year 2000.

Newcastle have lost just one game out of the last nine matches and haven’t won a home game since the 5-0 victory over West Ham just over two months ago. The record of not winning a 3pm Premier League home game now stands at two years and six months.

Newcastle have acquired the most yellow cards in the league this year (59) whilst Everton have yet to be awarded a penalty this season. I don’t like stats like that, especially with Howard Webb taking control of the game tomorrow afternoon!

I believe that this will be another tight game. The lack of crucial players for Everton should hopefully tip the balance of power in our favour, but unfortunately these little facts tend to kick Newcastle in the balls and we ultimately end up not taking advantage of the situation. This is why I’m not predicting anything!

Howay the lads!

About toonsy

A lifelong Newcastle fan and current webmaster of this very 'blog who has the sole aim of creating a place by Newcastle United fans, for Newcastle United fans.

View all posts by toonsy →

You may like these posts

104 thoughts on “Newcastle v Everton – Match preview.”

  1. Personally, I’d take a draw here, even with no Cahill or Fellaini. This 3pm jinx concerns me and this is the sort of game we don’t win at home anyway.

    I wouldn’t be happy losing though. Draw or a win for me.

      (Quote)

  2. Think we should be going for the win , they should be fairly toothless going forward tho saha seems to have found his scoring boots

    3 Point would be a massive step towards our main aim this season which is to stay up and hopefully give us a platform to challenge for a top 10 spot and maybe the europa league

      (Quote)

  3. I think it’s a game we should be winning, so it will probably turn out to be a draw or a loss.

    I do have doubts about our ability to score goals as we do tend to create a fair few chances but jiust don’t take them.

      (Quote)

  6. We will win tomorrow cant believe so many have so little faith in us 😀
    Batty whats your prediction for the game ? if you dont mind sharing it with us on here 😉

      (Quote)

  7. Toonsy-

    Yeah, that penalty stat worries me too. I’m still hopeful of a Toon win. Think this will be a game like Brum. Scrappy, but I think we’ll nick it.

    2-1, the Toon.

      (Quote)

  10. Let’s remember though- when Toonsy predicts a win for us, the opposite has been known to happen. Frequently. lol 😈

    So, yeah. Glad he predicted nowt haha

    Dog- how ya doin’ man?

      (Quote)

  14. i’m going for us to f’kin thump the bastards!
    4-0, two goals in the first 10 mins, flying start!

    COOOOMMMMEEEEE OOOOONNNNN!

      (Quote)

  15. Toonsy thank god for that as you were shocking 😀
    Ice just fancied a change for a bit and after seeing KK on Batty’s I thought I would put up one of my fav’s from the entertainers 😉

      (Quote)

  19. just been sent this from son,

    Malta FootballNews
    Real Madrid boss Jose Mourinho escapes knife attack at La Coruna airport

      (Quote)

  25. HWTL. Great chance to get another double. Cahill, Fellani and Saha are their 3 main players and ALL of them are out apparently. I think we will win tomorow, great chance to go 2 points above the mackems with them away down the gunners.

      (Quote)

  27. DJG – Seen nowt official on Saha so left it out of preview.

    Reet, work calls. Catch you all in a bit 🙂

      (Quote)

  35. Well, here is another stat waiting to even itself up. NUFC have not benefited from an Own Goal this season.

    Once again, if NUFC can keep the door closed for the first 10 minutes, Everton will struggle to get a result. Right now, they are as thin on the roster as the Toon, but I think NUFC have just a little more quality available.

      (Quote)

  40. Lovenkrands worries me. Doesn’t threaten enough. Strangely although Ranger has never scored a premier league goal I would be happier with him starting.
    Three nil tomorrow, Best, Nolan and Ranger
    Happy days

      (Quote)

  43. DAVE dont worry mate toonsy will sort it if he thinks its worth his breath,and we have enough bother with richie 😀

      (Quote)

  49. Ice I thought your mate was better than that, I didn’t mind the **** that I got of him but I dont think Toonsy deserves any of his cheap digs 👿

      (Quote)

  54. Ice what I found was while your views are simular Worky will be ok with you, But when your views differ then its back to the sad little man that likes to try and threating people with banning when you wont back down. But then the internet can do that to people that dont normally have balls to threaten you face to face.
    As I said all along I have never said anything to him on the Blog that I wouldn’t say to his Face, But I would be pretty sure that he wouldn’t have came of with half the **** he came of with to my face as he did on the blog.

      (Quote)

  59. DAVE nee worries mate,you let it go,its your right,and we havent got many of them left either 🙁

      (Quote)

  65. That fat lad Kolo Toure took his wifes diet pills and now he’s gonna be banned for a year…you gotta laugh though but !..should lay off the pizzas if you ask me…

      (Quote)

  67. Sorry. Had to leave a comment after that. No doubt it will get deleted so I managed to grab a screenshot of it before it gets “eaten by the spam filter”

    Nice to know that they are rattled 🙂

    I’m not surprised by Craig as he was only having a laugh. Chuck has commented on here before. Check about us at the top, then site history…….

    As for Worky, if after near on 700 articles that is all I end with then fair enough. It says more about him that it does about me 🙂

    It will make it even more satisfying when this place takes off 😉

      (Quote)

  68. aaah Big D…now I understand…that’s big where I come from…!….

    The other blogs are just envious of toonsy cos he gets loads of hits, even on a bad night….

      (Quote)

  70. Dave…I used to comment on both blogs but now can’t be arsed with the other because of the kind of **** there tonight, 90% 0f the time there was only one person keeping that blog going and all he gets as thanks are sly digs…..confirms the stamp of the man for me like 🙁

      (Quote)

  75. Munich – I can back it up as well as I still have the e-mails regarding the server switch. End of the day, they can’t expect to poke the bear and not get a reaction. They could have left it alone and there would have been no problem, but they had to ingratiate each other by slagging me off.

    Like I said, after nearly 700 blogs that is apparently what you get.

      (Quote)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *