Game On! Newcastle United v Manchester United

Game On at St James’ Park!
Amidst all of the rumours about stadium renaming, there is the small matter of a football match to consider this afternoon.

St James’ Park will be rocking once again this afternoon as Manchester United come to town, and with an international break coming up after this game it’s a match that both sides will be wanting to win.

Really it’s a match that needs no build up. It’s one of the bigger games on Tyneside owing to our previous tussles with Manchester United in the mid-nineties, plus there is the fact that over the years they have been the team to beat in the Premier League which makes them a scalp in the eyes of most teams. Call it a symbol of their success.

Anyway, whilst I do respect Manchester United and all they have achieved over the years, it’s Newcastle United first and foremost that is the priority of all of us this afternoon as Alan Pardew and his own (proper) United side look to build on the promising display against Bordeaux in midweek.

The match preview for this game is located here so you’re just one click away from everything you need to know about the fixture including injury news for both sides, stats, facts and random thoughts about the game itself.

We are live on Sky Sports this afternoon which is great if you aren’t able to get to the match to watch the game. If you have Sky Sports then obviously you’ll be laughing but if you don’t then there are dozens of overseas channels showing the match so I anticipate no issues regarding availability of streams. As is always the case though, if you find a particularly good one then please feel free to share it with your fellow NUFC fans and post a link to it in the ‘comments’ section below.

Which neatly wraps this up. Team news, as ever, will be posted below as and when it becomes available.

Howay the lads!

Newcastle United: Steve Harper, Davide Santon, Mike Williamson, James Perch, Shane Ferguson, Hatem Ben Arfa, Yohan Cabaye, Cheik Tiote, Jonas Gutierrez, Papiss Cisse, Demba Ba

Subs: Jak Alnwick, Danny Simpson, Gael Bigirimana, Vurnon Anita, Gabriel Obrtan, Sammy Ameobi, Shola Ameobi

Manchester United: David De Gea, Rafael, Rio Ferdinand, Johnny Evans, Patrice Evra, Michael Carrick, Tom Cleverley, Shinji Kagawa, Danny Welbeck, Robin van Persie, Wayne Rooney

Subs: Anders Lindegaard, Scott Wooton, Antonio Valencia, Paul Scholes, Anderson, Ryan Giggs, Javier Hernandez

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.

226 thoughts on “Game On! Newcastle United v Manchester United

  1. We need a Hero…oh wait here he comes!!!! SHOOOOOOLLLLLAAAAAA. I have just advised everyone at work to put their money on a Shola hat-trick and a toon win. Then we can all retire and live happily ever after.

    It’s a banker

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  2. You can defend Pards as much as you like, but if game after game the players come out looking utterly **** in the first half then he has to take some blame.

    Apart from that. I think he got his tactics wrong again…

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  3. What has to give before certain starting XI players are dropped due to poor form? How many reality checks are needed before we change our style of play?

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  4. Jj – apart from dreadful defending on corners, pards changed to 4-3-3 and we played much much better. Blame is most on the players and a litlle on the staff since their tactics on defending corners obviously doesnt quiet work.

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  5. We can only hope the international break gives us some precious time to get players fit again cause our defensive play is really suffering.

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  6. Hahahaha,
    I guess Shola’s longest ever run of form is over too.

    He did well for two or three games in a row. Looks completely useless again.

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  7. APP
    You only prove my point.

    Why does Pards have to change his tactics every fecking game after a shocking 20 mins. Because he clearly gets it wrong in the first place.

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  8. Pards has to start earning his stripes now, the team has been **** all season so far, he really needs to sort out this whole Ba ans Cisse debarcle, and 442 really isnt working for us

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  9. Cabye and Tiote, Cisse and even Benny to a point just didn’t do their job today. Defense? Well they were *****…

    Some dodgy decisions that we knew would come with Webb as ref …

    Oh well…

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  10. How is Rooney MOTM he did nothing all game. Didn’t contribute to the goals, just made some tackles in their half.

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  11. AndyMag,

    Really? I have just been looking at text xommentary and they seem to think he was instrumental in 2 of the goals? Media bias? 😕

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  12. Neville going on about how it definately wasn’t over the line, was just as over as the Everton one yet the pundits were bitching about how lucky we were. Bet they don’t even talk about the penalty incident.

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  13. jj – the formation didnt really affect our defending on corners?? Think he chooses the 4-4-2 to protect the full Backs. Although i agree with you, that 4-3-3 is the formation for us.

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  14. Moreno
    My mistake, thought VP delivered the corner. Still believe he wasn’t MOTM though. Would say Perch if anyone.

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  15. I thought Santon at RB and Fergie at LB was a breath of fresh air, proper attacking intent up both flanks. Can see that working against the lesser teams. We played Manure at a bad time today and had a makeshift central defence. Otherwise I think we could have got something.

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  16. APP

    Who coaches the defending from set pieces. Players didn’t have a clue what to do or where to be, all pointing fingers at each other – again, Pardew needs to sort it out.

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  17. Jj – agreed on that one. Although i think that has much to do with colo and saylor missing.

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  18. DJG,
    Agree. The balance with Santon attacking down the right was much better.

    I enjoy Fergie down the left but not as a fullback, as a winger.

    For me Ben Arfa is far more effective behind the front man “in the hole”.

    I though Cabaye was decent today.

    Personally I hope our interest in Debuchy is dead and we focus on bringing in a quality natural left back and a pacey strong centre back.

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  19. Willo was awol for the 1st one, and I have to disagree with Toonsy I don’t think it was Jonas as he was screaming at someone else to pick him up

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  20. Well, this is why we had our luck against Everton because today we got **** all. Mainly-set pieces are a joke. Both attacking and defending, if Manure had all our free kicks and corners they’d have stuck three more past us

    Willo lost his man for one, it was great movement but he still needed to stick with him but got beat fair and square. Jonas however-what the **** was he doing? Signalling to nobody, not telling anyone to mark him just vaguely inquiring, and then allowing him to run past him unmarked? That’s a joke.

    I thought halftime also came at a bad time for us, we were all over them for 25 min of the first half but halftime juttered us and allowed them to regroup . Then they just constantly seemed to have an extra man 😕 Paid us back for last year

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  21. It’s okay. So when i watch the match no matter who wins i will be happy. Newcastle win my heart happy. Newscastle lose my wallet happy. 😕

    I have another bet slip that bet newcastle win 3-2,payout is $150. 😯

    After minus cost price of $20,i earn 95+35-20=$110.

    😐

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  22. For me our biggest miss is Saylor in defense. He is immense at set pieces. A genuine powerhouse.
    Colo excellent in general play. They compliment each other superbly. Pity they hardly ever play together.

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  23. Cant really say is a mistake,but fergie shouldnt be playing LB. But who else can play there?

    Jonas? Are we really missing the type of enrique+Jonas combination down left?

    Frankly,Santon plays best at right back.

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  24. NEWKIE
    Agree with that. How many weeks have we been saying set pieces need to improve? Hate to say it but we could have beat them with Andy Carroll today I feel. They just overpowered us at both ends and with the dark side getting beat 3-0 by another Manchester team today I just hope O’Neil doesn’t decide to batter us in the air.

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  25. Aod – think fergie worked well as a lb in 4-3-3. He got in more crosses than enrique and jonas put together. (Exxagturated i know)

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  26. To be fair, most teams would have struggled against Man U in the first 20-25mins today, let alone our make shift defence.
    It was all about who got on top early on today and Man U beat us to it. We have to learn from that coz the Scum will look at today and try and do the same.
    I had the same expectation about today as I did against Norwich last season when our defence was equally diminished.

    I want to kick off and bang on about not having the defensive cover, but what’s the point?!

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  27. I hope Anita improves his game. Could be the first dud of Pardews reign.

    Passing is terrible and his play isnt much better. looks decent at rightback tho.

    A game to forget, defo not the same team of last year.

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  28. DJG-To be honest, our attacking from set pieces was poor all of last year as well. Even the vaunted Ryan Taylor can’t deliver a decent ball. We’ve got plenty who can shoot, but nobody who can drift one in like Barton did for us beforehand 😕

    I think we scored one goal from a corner all of last year. In the year we came up we scored 3 in our first home game. Says it all 😆

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  29. two centre backs a big miss today,willo just isnt up to premier league standard. Why pardew keeps playing this system i just dont know.jonas cant play in a three man midfield,having said that cabaye and tiote keep coming too deep for the ball leaving a big gap in the middle,hence the lack of service to the forwards. Bad day at the office

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  30. Newkie @ 206 I can never work out how with 11 pro players that none of them can consistently deliver a set piece or cross, I was a fan of Raylor but even his odds were maybe only 2 out of 10

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  31. MARK
    I thought he was coming on as a straight swap for Fergie at LB. He was totally ineffective in CM. Can’t understand that one, Jonas played to his 100% and was immense but I would have preferred him at CM in that case and Anita at LB.

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  32. Dave-Exactly, I don’t understand it either. Our only dangerous one was the one played along the floor to Ba from the corner-to be fair, I thought he should have put that one away, at least got it on target, but we might be able to pull one of those once a game if we’re lucky, we need to try something else. Teams are wising up to the short one with Benny too, although that’s still probably our best bet atm.

    The only assist Raylor ever had was the one where he shot the ball into Jonas’ **** and it bounced into the opposite corner wasn’t it? 😆

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  33. Agree with all on the set piece thing. It is dreadful in both ends and has been for so long. Hard to tell where in the process the fault is. Hell, stoke can excel at set pieces and they dont exactly have zidane talking theirs….

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  34. Newkie if im right we were let to believe that Cabaye was a cracking kicker of the ball but again apart from once or twice in a blue moon. then if it isn’t the short one to Benny we try the long one to Willo and it doesn’t work as he can’t get up for it or fouls to get it. But theses are highly payed top players and they can’t put the ball where they want it’s ridiculous

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  35. Big Dave – same thing can be applied to pro players only being able to kick with one leg. Hell, i am a soldier and aint being payed alot but i am expected to be able to do everything possible within a group.

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  36. APP tell me about it I was expected to hit a target 9 out of 10 times even at a 1000mtrs and these players are lucky to get 1 out of 10

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  37. Yeah it puts the definition of being a professional into perspective. But hey, they dont exactly put their lives on stake in afghan, being really challenged physically( they cramp up after what 90 mins?? ) and you could go on and on.

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  38. That’s the thing, set pieces are such a basic part of football. I mean, you can drop down all the leagues and see players putting in better corners than we do.

    Dave re the Willo thing-I agree, I guess its partly the tactic of putting it to Willo which is the problem, at least Cabaye manages to find him I suppose? But yeah, Willo doesn’t seem to attack the ball naturally and he can’t do anything if it falls to his feet, his knock backs looked like they were going to improve towards the end of last year but nowt has happened.

    When Shola’s on the pitch, try and get it on his head and we’ll see where we go from there.. 😕

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  39. APP 😉
    Newkie I never see Ba attack it much for being so big, Saylor isn’t bad at attacking the ball, but IMO our best player in recent times was Carroll both for and against 😉

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  40. Dave – think ive read before that you have served in NI ?? are you still active? Also Carroll is one of THE best set piece players in the world. We defo miss his presence.

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  41. Dave-I agree, I don’t think he or Cisse are that fussed with using their heads. They can do it obviously as any centre forward needs to be able to but you can’t really compare them to Carroll. Ba’s got a few but Cisse, a bit like his ground game, seems to scuff the easy chances….That being said, if he could somehow recreate that 30 yard header he had for Senegal I wouldn’t be complaining 😆

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  42. Was pissed with the route 1 stuff we were doing for a lot of the game, none of our players are suited to that, we’re a skillful team, play it along the ground. 😡

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