NUFC’s “big hitters” return at just the right time

Mr T returns
It’s probably not escaped your mind, but if it has let me remind you that Newcastle United can field pretty much their strongest side against Wolves on Saturday.

That is the first time such a luxury has been afforded to Alan Pardew since the turn of the year, with the last game all of our “big hitters” were available for being the 3-0 thumping of Manchester United.

Since then we’ve played five league games, winning three, and two FA Cup games, winning one and losing the other against Brighton. If you take the cup results out of it then it’s not actually been a bad points return considering we’ve had a mashed up team with none of our first choice strikers or central midfield available for at least three of those games.

That will change when Wolves come to town on Saturday. The rudderless Wolverhampton outfit are currently without a manager after the sacking of Mick McMackem, which is a shame for us as he is still yet to beat Newcastle as a manager! Various successors have been linked but as yet there has been no new appointment at Molineux, but even if there is between now and Saturday they will have to contend with a very different animal in Newcastle United.

Returning we have Cheik Tiote and Yohan Cabaye who will give us some much needed bite in midfield. Danny Guthrie and James Perch just aren’t in the same class as a partnership unfortunately. On top of that we’ve had a rest and a couple of weeks training together after the White Hart Lane debacle which will stand us in good stead, especially with Papiss Demba Cisse becoming more accustomed to life at his new club.

In short, Newcastle expects. Whilst most fans know there is no such thing as an easy game as far as we’re concerned, a fixture against a team sat in the bottom three, without a manager, with a virtual full strength team to chose from in front of a packed out Sports Direct Arena St James’ Park is one we must surely be looking for three points from.

Do that and we could be sitting as high as 4th (depending on results) heading into the Tyne-Wear derby!

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.

55 thoughts on “NUFC’s “big hitters” return at just the right time

  1. Following from the previous thread Toonsy, I thought of him straight away but then he said:

    Matt Spiro @mattspiro

    Not Knockaert, not Giuly, he is young, but not a kid. Not gonna say more for now #NUFC

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  2. I watched the match Angelofdeath but I cant recall any defending from Chelseas centre halves all game 🙂

    Yeah toonsy good to see us get a big game players back. Be interesting to see if Guthrie gets a start. Thought I read somwhere that if he doesnt start he was not going to sign a new contract. Pardew said Cisse is starting!

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  3. Cant see anything but a Toon victory on Saturday.

    We can beat anyone with our strongest 11 and Wolves are in turmoil at the mo.

    3-0 Toon! 😎

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  4. Don’t like being too confident but I can’t see anything other than a win. Put in the same effort and commitment as we did against the mancs and we will win comfortably.

    I think we will see the full impact of Tiote on Saturday. We will also see that Tiote is simply irreplaceable.

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  5. Just while it’s quiet. Off the topic. The St James Park issue has been raised in Parliament this morning and it’s been described by the 12 Tyneside MPs as Corporate vandalism.

    Put that in your pipe and smoke it Mr Ashley. 😯

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  6. Without sounding too much like a cliche walking , i think we will win but the players have to turn up on the day and perform , no easy games and Wolves are fighting for survival and all that.

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  7. Hopefully Liverpool vs Scum game is a draw, then a win would put us 11 clear of Scum and 5 clear of Liverpool… 😀

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  8. Troy do you think political pressure will force Ashley to undo the name change?
    Or do you think its just 12 politions looking to get easy publiciaty and trying to appease their area to get voted in next elections? Are any of the 12mp any good in getting **** done?

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  9. Gary, these are exact but more or less…

    Games with Tiote we concede 0.8 goals per game.
    Games without Tiote … conceded over two goals per game.

    Just shows you difference this man makes.

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  10. Glad that they said it Johno Toon but i reckon it’s just slimy politicians trying to get some easy votes. Definitely wouldn’t surprise me anyway.,

    I’m going for a repeat of last season 4-1
    SO excited for the game 😈

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  11. I very much doubt it will be the same as last season.

    Wolves will not approach the game like they did last year when we were newly promoted. I expect them to play like they did at Spurs; very defensive.

    I would take a dogged 1-0 win.

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  12. Not sure how many of you seen this but:

    Matt Spiro @mattspiro

    Newcastle close to sealing a deal for a Ligue 2 MF player. Cant say who it is right now but interesting move. Should happen in next few days

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  13. Dan4, what’s Spiro like? Reliable? Likely a youngster a la abeid but good to see their working at these things early doors.

    I’m optimistic about the weekend (hard not to be) but I’m wary too with all the expectant. As well as we’ve done this season we’ve rarely blown teams away like we did at times last year so not sure about these 3-0, 4-1 predictions. I’d gladly take a 1-0 too and then try to stop this sunderland bandwagon

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  14. On Napoli v. Chelsea, I watched the match and thought that David Luiz was immense beside his one moment of madness that led directly to Napoli’s third goal.

    Mind, it’s hard to say that a CB who makes a horrible mistake has had a good game, but Luiz was doing very well without getting any support from Cole. Ivanovic and Cole were shocking IMO, which was a bigger reason for the loss than Cahill or Luiz.

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  15. The Kid, yeah him and Santon would be quality full-backs.

    Dubtoon, yeah he seems reliable, I’ve followed him for a while now. He said this as well:

    Matt Spiro @mattspiro

    Not Knockaert, not Giuly, he is young, but not a kid. Not gonna say more for now #NUFC

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  16. Toonsy good read and can’t wait now with them all back.
    Dan I would put Spiro down as just another twitter who is letting on he knows what is happening, like the other twatters on therethat think they know what’s happening looking for followers.

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  17. Nice article this one, and while I think it’s easy to underestimated the ‘wounded wolf’ on Saturday, we really should win. Let’s not get too excited about Tiote; he’s not played with his club for over a month and always takes a while to get going.

    Also, I’d argue that without Saylor, we’re not at our strongest. That guy – particularly when Tiote is out too – leaves a big hole to be filled in terms of sheer balls-out determination to win.

    But enough of the negative stuff – I’m going for 4-0 on this one. Cabaye and the Dembas all scoring. 🙂

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  18. Hopefully his confidence in saying the next few days means its true 😈 always good to know the club aren’t resting on their laurels. Give everyone a bit of a boost. A small one maybe, but still.

    Lee Clark interview on Sky. Seems to feel hard done by (rightly so) but not being disrespectful to the club. Class act. Would be happy to see him return to the club someday as manager, just give him a few more years experience

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  19. Whumpie – aye but Pards has been talking about him playing like a man possessed in training 😈

    hopefully metaphorically and not a side-effect from that voodoo healer he saw for that injury…..

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  20. Chelsea v Bolton on Saturday .
    Arsenal not playing.
    With Chelsea in turmoil it’s looking good to break in the top 4.

    That will really upset the premier. :mrgreen:

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  21. Johno 😆 mate I never seen 1 person on twitter get owt right during the Jan window, the only time anyone got it right about Cisse was at the last min when it was common knowledge

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  22. DAVE dont be cruel to poor old jay jay he does know about things like drinking,ginger hair,being short he no dummy 😆 😆

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  23. i would like pardew to give benny a try on sat,yes hes lost the ball a few times when maybe a simple pass would do (as toonsy thinks) but to be fair he only had best or shola to work with,try him with ba and cissie we might just see a diff imo

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  24. Seems to me the most accurate source of transfer news is the foreign press when we’re linked with one of their local players…

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  25. Far too many people on here sounding like we’re on for an easy win. No such thing. There’s nothing I want more than 3 points, and we’re fully capable of getting them considering the circumstances, but it’s the sort of game where in the past misguided confidence has come back to make us look a bit silly.

    Wolves’ situation is dangerous, do they put in a good shift for the caretaker, and maybe for a bit of pride, or do they become a shambles after a goal is scored against them?

    Could be a tricky afternoon, just hope we get at them and score early.

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  26. So we’re back to the usual issue of who to wrap around our obvious choice players. For me, that’s Krullo, Colo, Willo, Simmo, Dreamboat, Tiotank and the Dembas.

    Santon or Raylor? Benny, Jonas, Oba?

    Nice problems. 🙂

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  27. Whumpie would not include Simmo as an autostart.

    How about 4-3-3
    LWB Santon
    RWB Raylor
    CM Jonas or Guthrie
    AT HBA

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  28. Yeah come on Prem, that’s the spirit!
    let’s take some risks and put out a team that can hopefully win and play some decent stuff.
    .
    .
    .
    ———————–Krul————————

    Raylor—–Colo———Willow—-Santon

    ——-Cabaye—–Tiote—–Guthrie——-

    ——-Ben Arfa——-Ba——–Cisse——-

    Wool epiphany. It’ll be 3-0!

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  29. Not sure about Guti for Guthrie but I suppose which ever one started could be subbed for the other if they aren’t playing well.

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  30. If I were manager I’d be looking to have a team like this come next season;

    HOME:

    GK – Krul
    RB – Santon
    CB – Saylor
    CB – Colo
    LB – Olsson (£3m)
    MR – Redmond (£5m)
    MC – Tiote
    MC – Cabaye
    ML – Hoilett (free)
    ST – Cisse
    ST – Ba

    Subs; GK – Forster, DC/R/L – Yanga (£5m), DR – Clyne (free), MC – Guthrie, MR/L – Jonas, AMC/R/L – HBA, AMC/ST – Vuckic

    Total spend: £13m

    Sell: Best £3m
    Release: Smith, Lovenkrands, Simmo (If he continues to play hard ball).

    Net spend: £10m

    That’s just my personal opinion, though. Our squad depth would suddenly be very strong with the likes of Willo, Raylor, Abeid and Obertan etc not making my matchday squad.

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  31. I know what I Love Mike is saying about no easy wins but I’m with the majority, I think if we don’t pick up 3 points on Saturday then we don’t deserve Europe.
    Wolves are obviously without a manager but they also don’t really have a player who will rally them that I see and we should have too many “injured beasts” in the players who faced spurs, Tiote who lost the final and Cabaye who should be chomping at the bit to get playing again.

    Convincing 2-0 win for me.

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  32. statto/toonsy/anyone else.

    Just found this, seems to use historic data, probability analysis etc to project tables; show the importance of different games (eg can use to see what result we should want in a given match that’d be the best for our expected league position (average seed filter seems most relevant)). Clearly designed for American sports but some interesting information.

    http://www.sportsclubstats.com/England/PremierLeague.html

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  33. GARY WATSON
    good call bring back Forster let him and krul go head to head for the no1 shirt,think he will be better comp for krul meself than elliot fella meself 😛

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