Newcastle v Tottenham – Premier League match preview

toonsy

Can we put on another Sho against Spurs?
Well finally it’s here! After months of waiting for meaningful football the Premier League returns, but what will the season hold for us this time around?

Time will tell on that, but right now we have Tottenham Hotspur to take care of as they roll up to St James’ Park with a new man at the helm looking to arrest an alarming run of form at the Cathedral on the Hill.

Andre Villa-Boas is the new man in charge at White Hart Lane these days and he will bring his Lillywhites to Newcastle looking to improve on a rather abysmal league record that has seen them win just three games on Tyneside since the inception of the Premier League, with the last win coming way back in 2004! Since then there have been six meetings between the two sides in the North East with Newcastle tasting victory four times and the spoils being shared on the other two occasions.

Newcastle

New signing Vurnon Anita is fit and ready to play a part although I’m not sure whether he will be given the nod from the start having only arrived from Ajax yesterday. It’s possible though, and both manager and player have said that he could be an option due to his fitness levels built up with Ajax, and they know far more than many of us do.

Besides that the news for Newcastle is pretty grim. On the plus side, Fabricio Coloccini and Papiss Cisse look like they will be fine to feature. However Demba Ba is struggling with a shin complaint and Yohan Cabaye, Hatem Ben Arfa and Cheik Tiote have trained this week but all have question marks over their fitness. Sammy Ameobi is definitely out.

Tottenham

The thing about Tottenham is that they are kind of rebuilding at the moment, and it’s a work in progress. Luka Modric is unlikely to play as he waits to finalise his protracted move to Real Madrid, but it’s up front where they have a problem with Jermaine Defoe being their only recognised first team striker at the moment.’Elsewhere Scott Parker is out but aside from that Villas-Boas has a full squad to choose from.

Final thoughts…

I’ll skip the history as I got carried away with myself and covered it earlier, so now it’s straight onto thoughts about the game itself.

If it wasn’t for the injuries I would be confident of a win for our boys to kick the season off with. This is not to say we can’t get a win regardless, but missing a few of our players hits us quite hard in certain areas and it kind of balances our Spurs’ relative weakness in attack.

Well I say weakness, but they still have Jermaine Defoe who has proved he is a top striker over the years and always seems to love playing against us, as does Rafael van der Vaart and Gareth Bale. However the one area where we are going to be at our strongest is in defence with a first choice pairing of Fabricio Coloccini and Steven Taylor flanked either side by Davide Santon and Danny Simpson protecting Tim Krul between the sticks.

It’s midfield where I worry though, especially in the centre and even more so should Yohan Cabaye and Cheik Tiote fail to make it. Personally I think Tiote will make it but Cabaye will miss out thanks to a lack of football in pre-season owing to tiredness, something that Tiote has managed to avoid while playing games throughout pre-season so his fitness should be at a higher level. If neither make it what are the options? Dan Gosling? Vurnon Anita? James Perch? I think so as I don’t think any of our young lads like Mehdi Abeid or Gael Bigirimana will be thrown in just yet.

Up front it’s simple really. No Demba Ba means Shola Ameobi will partner Papiss Cisse up front but before people scoff just remember Shola’s rocket from last season against the same opposition where he came off the bench and rescued a point for us. Shola Ameobi as a front two leaves me feeling less pensive than just playing Shola Ameobi up front on his own, put it that way!

In conclusion the time for talking and debate is nearly over, transfer speculation can take a back seat for at least a day or two and we can concentrate on that green piece of grass in the middle of St James’ Park once more. It’s been a long time coming…

Howay the lads!

Venue: St James’ Park
Date: Saturday, 18th August, 2012
Kick-off: 5:30pm – Live on ESPN

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.

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288 thoughts on “Newcastle v Tottenham – Premier League match preview”

  1. Migrant living is a whole new experience. You always carry some sense of being alien with you.

    ‘You can only play with the hand you were dealt with.’ 😆 😆

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  3. Newkie, were you here in the 1960s? I can tell you that things have moved on since then – although you wouldn’t know that reading some of the newspapers and hearing some people talk.

    And, btw, we didn’t vote to keep the Queen; we voted against a certain type of republican system. It was a matter of staying the same or having a politician’s republic.

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  4. Love Troy’s ambiguous saying. I suppose he has had a lot of practice at using his hand for playing 😀 😀 😀

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  5. Bris-nah mate, it was like, 96-2000 😆

    Oh right, was it actually a change of political system? I thought it was just like a “head of state” formality kind of thing. Still, whenever I’m out there I’m surprised by how many people don’t mind them. Thought that was one of the bonuses of Australia personally, less posh bastards 😉

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  6. Yeah, basically, it was to change the head of state to the Governor General. Many wanted a president, many wanted to vote for the president. Some, like myself, would have preferred to change the whole system and do away with the states. Some wanted the GG to be elected, some wanted the GG to be president of the House. There were many variations, so it was easy for the PM to divide the vote by putting forward a non-question that nobody particularly wanted, and get what he wanted – no change.

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  7. Bris-Ah right, yeah that sounds pretty complicated. It’s a safe bet people will tend to stick to what they know when there’s a complicated thing in politics…or even if it isn’t, bit like the lib dems trying to change the voting system here to the Alternative Vote system 😆

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  8. ‘Thought that was one of the bonuses of Australia personally, less posh bastards 😉 ‘

    When I meet some I’ll let you know 😆

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  10. @moreno

    Me likewise and I’m still highly sceptical of them.

    I’m always waiting for the next underhand tactic.

    I believe they should return the ground back to its original name unless SD pay for the privilege as no other company are going to put their name to it.

    Apart from that they’ve certainly got their act together over the last two seasons.

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  11. “Brothers don’t necessarily have to say anything to each other-they can sit in a room and be together and just be completely comfortable with each other.”

    Wooo hoo hoo hoo hoo : 😆

    Not if you are Troy & Blackley. 😆

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  14. “When brothers agree, no fortress is so strong as their common life”

    Antisthenes quotes (Greek philosopher of Athens, disciple of Socrates, 445-365bc)

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  15. Moreno – as you know I’ve always believed in and understood what they were trying to achieve – yet I aint smug 😆

    ST – you’re bang on about Big D – he used to lord on about how we were doomed and he was Captain of the Neggers – now you have him cornered like a little rat he is screaming and squirming, and if I might say being very rude and disrespectful – shame on you Big Dave 😆

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  17. Whoop, match day! Bring ’em on!!!!!

    Looking forward to seeing these boys in action…. particularly Magic Marv and Anita. Wouldn’t mind seeing Obertan on as a sub and playing like he apparently has in the pre-season!

    2-1 Cisse and Obertan to score 😎

    Also, pub day 😀

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  19. My feckin fence blew down last sunday.. my car was broken into last night and while I was having a break & bite to eat for lunch (from fixing my fecking fence).. some ******* drove up in a Ute ( trayback car) and stole my wheel barrow from the roadside verge. If it wasn’t for the footy tonight, I would be ready to murder some one.
    Just a question around my adventures with the criminal element…. Batty isn’t holidaying in Oz is he? 🙂 🙂

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  20. ******! Rudely awakened from my pre-football sleep by a woman, South African. You doing anything she says. Me: just preliminary meditation for the kick off. She: what kick off? D’oh.

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  21. Shame about the wheelbarrow Oswaldo.
    That’ll be you without transport now then 👿
    …was it insured?

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  22. @aussie

    Woo hoo hoo hoo hoo! 😛 😛 😛

    I know i shouldn’t laugh but I’m howling 😆 😆 😆

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  23. Glory be,the footies back 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😎 😎 😎 😎 😎 😎 😎 😎 😎 😎 😎 😎

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  24. AMF kna it wasnt batty mate he was up on the church roof last night ime his witness i was holding the touch for him,anyway he woundnt break into your car,he would just take the whole show,and your fence wood is bring a canny price at the mo 😀 😀
    looking forward to see toon line up 😀

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  26. Rodz, yep, I will have to walk everywhere now… Its upsetting as the barrow was a family heirloom that I purchased last year 🙂 🙂

    Ice, thanks for setting my mind at ease 🙂 🙂

    The cop last night actually said that bad things happen in three’s… I wonder if she stole it 🙂 🙂

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  27. Aussie Magpie Fan…….you probably half-inched the wheelbarrow yourself mate…come clean about it .. 😉 😉

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  28. Brisvegas…you know women “You doing anything ?” has 50 ways of being interpreted… 🙄 …oops only talking about my woman, maybe Safee’s are different… 😉

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  30. Eminem, we have the metric system here, no way I ‘half-inched’ it mate 🙂 🙂

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  31. Well just a few hours to go and THE SEASON KICKS OFF and all things that matter and we hold dear returns . Oh yeah their is the wife and kid , nearly forgot 😆
    My prediction for the game a Cisse double and one from HBA in a 3-1 win .

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  32. I can feel a 1 all draw coming on today for some reason…. want us to win tho 🙂 🙂

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  33. Axel, I like you’re optimimism mate, if that was the end result the Quayside and the Bigg Market would go ballistic tonight !…. 😆

    Hope you had a canny time at the Den Haag game, never had a chance to crack on with you about it…

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  34. AMF ime not covering for richie mind, the rat bag never shares nowt.
    if marv plays think we might see a show from him imo 😉

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  35. Off doon Munich toon in a few hours to watch the game in the pub with the one other toon fan living in Munich… 😉

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  36. Aussie I just hope we have more luck against Spuds than you are having, but you know what they say you reap what you sow 😉
    Stardy get back to Jabba before you get in trouble you bull shitting little pug nose weasel.

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  37. Here’s an intresting one , just been reading in a dutch newspaper that Douglas now has his dutch passport and his club are lining up Boyota (man city) on loan as his replacement . No teams have been named in the report but it seems he will be on the move soon . Just putting it out their because Pardew has said he hopes for 1 more signing before the window closes .

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  38. Ice, so your saying that you would finger Richie……….. in a police line up 🙂 🙂 🙂

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  43. MUNICH MAG it was good too be at the game ,we got into the Newcastle section of the ground , but you did not miss much entertainment wise . Poor game Ameobi had a good goal disallowed but apart from that no real action . Hope after we beat the greeks we get a Dutch , German ,Belgian team so we can get too a real game .

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  44. AMF well you would need a bloody big room for a line up with,you know me if the price is right we have a deal 😉 😉

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  46. been reading in to the type of player Anita is, anyone else think it will be more like this
    ———Tiote——–

    ———Anita——-

    ——-Cabaye—–

    Tiote destroying everything in sight, Anita dominating the midfield, linking things up, and Cabaye pulling the strings with the attackers?

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  48. I Love Mike (how I dislike typing those words): From what I saw of a few Ajax games on DVD it’s more likely that Anita would play behind Tiote.

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  52. long time since i have posted..
    Nice to see the end of what i call a too long break from football.
    I think the game will end in a draw, but am crossing my fingers for a win!
    HWTL

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  54. What I’ve seen of Anita, him and Cabaye could be treading on each others toes as the “ball playing central midfield hub” of the team…. there again a few years ago we didn’t have one, now we have two of them … 😆 😆 😆

    Wehey the lads, flippin heck has my watch stopped…. 😎 let’s get the party started…. 😀

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  55. Crying shame that winnie Johnson has died without ever being able to bury here son, The law in this country is an ***.

    Ian brady should have been beaten and tortured to within an inch of his life until the sick **** told police where Keith bennett was buried.

    Anyway im digressing any news on the injury front sky werent even mentioning Colo and Tiote in their injury doubts list does that mean they have been passed fit ??

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  56. @B&B

    Hello Bumbling Boris, that’s your new name in my phone book list. 😆

    First let me give you a brief understanding of my thoughts regarding your latest posts which were in response to me slaughtering you. 😉 I must say Boris, you really did dig that hole even deeper. 😉

    Despite the fact I disect our original posts and highlight the obvious change in tone of the posts, caused by you, describing my posts as a pile of ***** and reeling me in like a catfish, you choose to defend yourself and advise me it was lighthearted. You state that if I had said those quotes you wouldn’t have a problem.

    Wow! I certainly do have a problem with it and don’t play the victim in all this, (as this is how you are coming across) when I pursue a point to the end to make you realise you are wrong IMO.

    You repeatedly shout for help from others, hoping that others will back you up and as I’ve stated it comes across cringeworthy. You’ve stated a few times that people know what I’m like on this blog in that I pounce on bloggers statements.

    If you really take a step back and analyse over a period of two or three years of posting on here, you would recognise that I pursue those that use derogatory terms to others for no reason.
    I know virtually all the bloggers on this site now and how they post. There are ongoing fueds which you may not be aware of.
    There have been a number of posters that I dislike, not because of their opinions but there vile comments they make towards others. Though this has lessened over the past year, i do put that down to myself and Big Dave pursuing them until they get sick of using such terms.
    Dave does it in a different way, far more maturely whereas I take the **** and try and ridicule them.

    Other than one moment of anger, I have never used a derogatory vulgar remark towards anyone first. If I have, it will be seldom and it will be in response to them using such terms towards me or others.

    To me, it’s a sign you have lost the argument and you haven’t got a decent answer, so you abuse them. Thoug a lot of bloggers accuse me of winding people up, again, the only ones I wind up are those that are WUMS themselves and enjoy the banter (Aussie for example) but its never vulgar as you have shown. Other bloggers who accuse me of winding them up conveniently forget the vulgar abuse they showed towards me initially and I have a select few that I target with **** taking humour because of that.

    You will never see me ridicule anyone who I has not provoked me initially.

    You say this is a relentless crusade to prove a point.
    Too right it is. Everytime I hear you shout for help from others having started the abuse i dig in deeper. It makes me cringe.
    Stand up on your own two feet and deal with the issue yourself.

    Troy abides by the Blaydon & Ryton district blogging FairPlay rules 2009. 😀

    Background and scene set;

    I move onto your very poor attempt to justify all points I criticise you for in my last damning post I sent you.

    You pose a series of statements @114 which have
    all been explained by me already and I fail to see how you need to go over it again. It’s as if you havent read my explanations. Have you? I’m beginning to doubt it.

    @118 you ramble and it’s mainly about me missing the main points and putting words in others mouths to shoot them down.

    You have actually accused me of that before and I asked you to give me an example. You really did make a fool of yourself when you came up with 3 examples in which I didn’t do such a thing. I’m not surprised you brought it up again, as your memory seems to be like a gold fish. It’s almost as if you are cutting and pasting each long post and rejigging a few words. You must try better Boris. 🙂

    I love the bit where you try to defend yourself against me accusing you of muddying the waters by trying to change the subject onto wage caps and you say, ” How do you think it sounds when you do not think I or anyone else can hold down two separately running threads?

    Well I’ve just ducked my head under the cold shower to see if I’m dreaming. 🙂 nope ! I’m not! 🙂
    Have you actually seen our discussion over the past 96 hours on one issue. I can see I can’t do it when I’m discussing anything with you, as I’ve learned over the years, you will introduce a third a fourth a fifth debate to run alongside all in attempt to muddy the waters.

    Have you never noticed me over the years always saying, let’s go back to the original point, keep on track, I’m not talking about other issues until this one is settled? You must have? Why do you believe I say that? Why do you believe I get frustrated with you?
    Why did I point out that you diverted the main issue in the debate about my opinions whether the money should be spent.

    You actually tried to justify why you did that and stated it was still part of the original debate.

    It wasn’t . Can you not see how? It simply wasn’t, isn’t, will never be.

    I would be more than happy if we had finalised the original debate, whether we came to a point where we had to agree to disagree but not beforehand. It simply doesn’t have anything to do whether the money had been spent or not.

    Hold on I just need a sniff of laughing gas.
    Woo hoo hoo hoo:-) 🙂 🙂 that’s better.

    To conclude and to keep to the original point of where the money is? I maintain that there should be a surplus of transfer fees available IRO £25m to £30m. (I’ve explained why and no need to do again). You suggest that is what is happening. Pardew is getting money provided.
    It was only the start of this month we allegedly bid £13m for Carroll, £6m for Douglas, bought Anita for £6m , a bid in for Debuchy.

    I’m not saying we were after all to be bought but it’s credible that if we got Carroll and one other it would total IRO of £20m.

    Is that not an explanation that the money I’ve quoted all along is there?

    Finally, I chortle everytime you talk about me being worse in drink.
    I’m just wondering whether you consider yourself to be worse in drink? 🙂 pot, kettle 🙂

    Anyway, grandad Les whispered to me on his deathbed.
    ” keep that Brownlie off the drink, as he doesn’t half get drunk easy”

    He was a wise man Wor Pops 😉

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  58. I
    I apologise for my grammar as its all done on a mobile and its difficult to review.

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  60. Humpty, I can’t believe what I’ve just read @281. I absolutely despair.

    First, I have never known anyone write as much as that and say nowt. I invite anyone to read my last points to you (split up over three posts) and state whether you have addressed any of my points to you. You have ducked everyone of them. You’ve not just kept your head beneath the parapet, you’ve retreated 100 miles back to HQ. I hope I’m wrong nad you’re going to come back with a second post that you’ve already got prepared, fella.

    Second, I can’t believe your talking about “starting abuse”. You don’t have to swear to start abuse (and by the way I only likened your posts to a heap of *****, your last one being more of a mountain than a heap). I’d ahrdly call that abuse. The only thing that you see as abuse is the use of vulgarity. Real abuse is “bullying”, jumping on an innocent statements to embark on crusades, never seeing that someone else has a point; writing off their attempts to make their points or to seek clarification as twisitng and turning. I don’t get upset at you for that sort of abuse, but I do get infuriated at you at your complete inability to understand. I know when someone understand because they deal with the point I have made in their own way. It doesn’t help that you crow on all the while.

    The points that I have developed are far more interesting than going over the same ground, but you’re determined to not to allow the debate to move because you want to catch someone on a hook and show all the bloggers how clever you are. Now that is not just bullying but cringeworthy. There is nothing cringeworthy in appealing to others to help me out when I’m in despair. Strumpet helped me out, and I thank him for it.

    I expect you to stand up and be a man and address the substantive points I have made. First of all, you can declare your hand as to what your point is. Who knows, when I find out, I might even agree with it? I don’t know how many times I’ve asked to explain why it is not legitimate for the profit on the Carrol sale to be set against other losses of the same year, including losses on other player transfers. Your only response seems to be you have to look at the time from the Carroll sale. Nothing else counts. Why is that? If you say because that is what the regime said. I say so what? They’ve long said somethign different and that is my point.

    What time you setting off for the match?

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  61. CC@280 Agree mate ,I heard the news on the car radio and was cursing and swearing me head off about him. Right to the end of that poor womens life he had all the control ,the evil sod. Hellfire will be too good for that piece of ****. 👿

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  62. @Bumblung Boris

    This is another example of pinning the concrete to the tree. 😉

    You are simply mind blowing. If you scroll back thru my posts you will find that at a relatively early stage that I was aware that Lambias reneged on the original statement made by Ashley.

    Fully and utterly made clear that I knew what had originally been stated. I am fully aware of that and I sincerely hope your nugget noodle brain took that in when providing your responses.

    Not only did I emphasise that, taken all that into account and providing you with figures of wages saved from offloaded players and the £20m in sales must leave us with a balance of roughly £25m -£30m.

    Not only do I still believe that pot is there to spend now, it should have been made available last summer.

    The club gambled this season and not only took every fan by surprise but also the club.

    I’ve stated it’s backfired as the money that looks like is being bandied about with transfer bids for Carroll, Anita, Douglas, Debuchy all seem to suggest I was right. The figure was always there but they gambled and were cautious last summer.

    I ask you again, how can’t you see I’m right 😉

    All your questions have either already been answered or off track.

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  63. I’ve stated it’s backfired as the money they are using now should have been used when Pards wanted a CB.

    Sorry but I’m posting whilst getting ready for the match.

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