Newcastle v Tottenham – Premier League match preview

Newcastle v Tottenham
Newcastle v Tottenham
Newcastle play their first home game since the 3-0 loss in the Tyne-Wear derby and go looking to set the record straight after another 3-0 defeat away at Chelsea last weekend.

This season is in danger of fading into nothing with no cup competitions to aim for and the ghastly (from a club perspective) prospect of qualifying for the Europa League seemingly beyond us. It kind of feels like when you pop into a shop just before it closes, you know when all the staff just want to lock up and ****** off. That’s how I’d describe how I feel about the rest of the season anyway.

Having said I’m still a fan, as we all are for our sins, and we still have games to play and points to try and pick up so I’ll always want United to win, including tomorrow against Tottenham. You never know, perhaps it might spark some inspiration into a fanbase that is rapidly losing some of the passion expected from Newcastle fans?

Newcastle:

Loic Remy serves the last of his three game suspension having previously sat out the defeats to Sunderland and Chelsea. Cheick Tiote, Fabricio Coloccini, Mathieu Debuchy, Papiss Cisse, Yoan Gouffran, Gabriel Obertan and Gael Bigirimana are all said to be injured although Tim Krul is fine after appearing to pick up an injury at Stamford Bridge.

Tottenham:

Erik Lamela, Sandro and Vlad Chriches are out but Andros Townsend is available once more after returning from injury as a substitute against Everton at the weekend.

Previously…

Against the odds, and despite an attacking barrage from Tottenham, Newcastle go looking for a league double over Spurs thanks to a goal from Loic Remy securing a 1-0 win at White Hart Lane back in November last year.

We have a good recent record against Tottenham and have not lost to Spurs at St James’ Park since August 2004 – a 1-0 win for the visitors. A total of 71 games have been played here in the North-East with United winning on 30 occasions and Tottenham taking all of the points in 22 of those 71 matches.

Overall it is Tottenham who shade the head-to-head having won 60 of the 143 meetings to date. United have won 52 times with 31 draws making up the numbers.

Stats and facts…

Newcastle have lost their last three league matches at St James’ Park. They have not lost four in a row at home since 1987.

They have had just eight goalscorers in the Premier League this season, fewer than any other side.

United have won just one of the last seven league matches. The other six resulted in losses with no goals being scored.

Tottenham have lost just two of their 12 Premier League away games this season – away at Arsenal and Manchester City.

Only Jose Mourinho has picked up more points than Tim Sherwood since the former Spurs player took over the managerial reins at White Hart Lane.

Final thought…

Well on the plus side, my new keyboard seems to work so I’m back in business in terms of being able to write articles and stuff like that.

On the other hand we’re in poor form and I’ll probably end up writing about another loss come full-time. Sorry to be pessimistic and all that, but it’s how I feel. The sale of Cabaye was always on the cards and I’m not surprised by it one bit, but the failure to acquire a replacement (again not a real surprise) seems to have sucked the life out of things. That and the derby defeat and everything else that is going on really.

We made a cracking start to the season but now it looks like it will all be going to waste. It doesn’t matter in the boardroom as they are happy that we’re pretty much secure for life in the Premier League again next term, but as fans you have to wonder if this is it?

Howay the lads!

Date: Wednesday, 12th February, 2014

Time: 7:45pm

Venue: St James’ Park

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.

289 thoughts on “Newcastle v Tottenham – Premier League match preview

  1. KIM ime about 12mil from toon,strong winds very heavy rain,dont know about game,dont mind rain but wind spoils game,you better look out 100mph winds forcast for your area 😯 😯

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  2. its very windy up here, a bit of sleet and heavy rain. Us Geordie boys will be ok. Not sure about those Frenchies tho 😯

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  3. I was up in the north west last week and it was 42 degrees most days with about 80% humidity. Feckin murderous weather.. and sweaty balls! 😆

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  4. Aussie – I have in the past mate. I also believe that we bid for Grenier and it was the player deciding to stay at Lyon rather than an insufficient bid that stopped us from getting him.
    I know what you mean though, not everyone will believe it – but I still think a better line of communication from the club would allow us to have better arguements 😆

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  5. Aussie@158, bit too much info on the sweat front there mate 😆

    Ice@154, Yeah it’s bloody awful here already, there is a bit of a lull at the moment but you just know more coming. 🙁

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  6. Richie, my sweat was dripping on the football when I was kicking it around! What are you on about? 😎

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  7. Still have Lew at home too for the second week ,very difficult pushing a heavy wheelchair in driving wind and rain I can tell you.

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  8. Sharpy, yep any line of communication from the club would be a good thing. Too much cloak and dagger stuff and all we are left with is Pardews pearls of wisdom!

    Kim, you deserve a medal mate!

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  9. Aussie ,there was a time a hunky guy got my pulse racing, now it’s pushing his chair in gale force winds 😉

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  10. Think I’d rather have the wind and rain than the blizzard we’re expecting my way tonight….

    Don’t expect much today obviously but would like to see de jong get one to get his confidence going. Maybe pair him with Cisse tonight if he’s available…..

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  11. CC – He won’t learn re the cups. He’s done for the last three years. Brighton twice and was it Stevenage when Tiote got sent off? Always makes changes in the cup games and when you have a squad as small as ours it means there aren’t many good players coming into the team.

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  12. Alan Pardew praises patience of Mike Ashley and Newcastle fans

    Newcastle United manager Alan Pardew has thanked the club’s fans and owner Mike Ashley for their patience as he approaches his 150th game in charge.
    The Magpies boss is the second-longest serving manager in the Premier League, behind Arsenal’s Arsene Wenger.
    Pardew reaches his milestone 150th game on Wednesday, when his ninth-placed side face Tottenham at home.
    “I’ve had days when the owner and fans could easily have made things even more difficult than they have,” he said.
    “Now I want to get to 200 games with some silverware.”
    In the last three seasons, Newcastle have finished 12th, fifth and 17th in the Premier League, and the 52-year-old said he was proud of his league record since being appointed in December 2010.
    Pardew’s Newcastle record
    Barclay’s Premier League manager of the month for November Alan Pardew

    Games: 149 Won: 57 Drawn: 36 Lost: 56

    “I’ve obviously had some emotional games here that I’ve lost, particularly the Sunderland games and the FA Cup games, but the league games outside of that I’m proud of because I’ve enjoyed it,” Pardew told BBC Radio Newcastle.
    “The fans here feed on the enthusiasm I have for the game, and if we can get the right investment during the summer I genuinely think we can make an even stronger impact than we’ve had this year.”
    The Londoner added he believed his side could still finish above seventh-placed Manchester United in the chase for European qualification.
    “Part of my job is to try and motivate the side with any incentive I can find, and Manchester United not winning gives us an incentive to chase them and try and finish as high as we can.
    “Last Saturday, looking at that Chelsea team and my team, it’s a daunting task when they’re on top form. But if you can catch them on an off day, or when they’re not quite right and you’re at your best and have everybody available, then you can beat them. We’ve proved that.
    “We’ve beaten Man United, we’ve beaten Spurs and Chelsea, so we have to try and hang on to that, that when we’re right we can beat anyone and I never don’t think we can.”
    Although Pardew’s side were beaten 3-0 by Chelsea at the weekend, Pardew said the experiment of playing defender Davide Santon in midfield, following the transfer- window sale of playmaker Yohan Cabaye to Paris St Germain, had been a success.
    “We want to have a platform for next year. I’ve already said our style will change a little without Cabaye, but I need to see these players, and I do need to see certain situations.
    “Davide Santon’s midfield performance [against Chelsea] . . . forget about what it looked like to the naked eye, his stats were very good, which is great news. It gives us a player we can put in there now.
    “If we have an injury late in the game, for 20 minutes or something, Davide can play in there. Or we want to shore it up a little bit towards the end of the game we know he’s competent, and has the confidence of doing it against Chelsea. His pass rate was fantastic, as good as anyone at Chelsea.”

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  13. Alan Pardew
    Games: 149
    Won: 57
    Drawn: 36 Chris Hughton
    Games: 76
    Won: 40
    Drawn: 19
    Lost: 17
    Lost: 56

    is this forward or backwards 😕

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  14. Ice, Aye if they can get any fans to stand in there 😆 , they get more useless with every passing year. Talk about no ambition they personify it, very sad. Though got a good win on Saturday to be fair.

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  15. Ice ,They can’t use it for football matches though mate it’s for Bristol Rugby games ,just a small block, looks cool though.

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  16. KIM oh below the belt lol,i went to a few games there while i worked for 6mths down there,didnt do a lot for me i must say 🙁

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  17. Ice @174

    how can you compare the two. The vast majority of CH games were in the championship..

    Its like saying Ally McCoist must be better than every premier league manager with his win record at Rangers. Chelsea should hire him and sack that other waster.

    Hughton i think had a better win % than Robson but is clearly a worse manager

    .

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  18. SANTI I am comparing nowt,your the one saying ime comparing not me,i just threw that out from a report,dont put words in my mouth,get your facts right before you dive in and make youself look a ****

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  19. Thats not a comparison?? lmao I think i will need to go and find out what compare means i have had it wrong all these years 😳 😳

    Show me the report it is shown like you put it with Forwards or backwards captioned underneath… .. 🙄

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  20. actually its on the NUFC mad site and you think its important and true enough to copy and paste it.

    i don’t know whats more embarrassing really

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  21. SANTII please dont make any more comments to me i have better things to do with my time than read your ****,thank you

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  22. hahaha believing rubbish like that 😳 😳

    Thats fine don’t read my **** you obviously have better things to do like read the fine articles over on nufcmad 😆

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  23. Ice@178, I spent years and lots of money following city up to around the late 70’s but got so disillusioned with the whole situation and then started working so couldn’t get to Saturday matches anymore. I always thought we were/are too small a city for one team tbh, we really need one big team for the whole city to unite behind .

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  24. Santi , I would argue it’s actually harder to win games in the fizzy pop league ,it’s notoriously hard to get out of that league and to do it with record points is an amazing achievement by manager and players.

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  25. SANTII for the last time show me where i said i agree or disagree with that report,now go a learn how to read,my last comment to you

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  26. ICE – tbh, NU-mad is one site I automatically filter out on NewsNow; it’s just full of the worst, misleading, desperate gash trying to get clicks.

    As for the game, I’m with Toonsy – “meh” pretty much says it.

    Incidentally, did anyone hear my piece on Wrighty’s show on Absolute on Saturday? Can’t really remember what I said, but I was on for a long time! Would like to know if I did ok or came across as a monging *******.

    Again. :mrgreen:

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  27. KIM i always thought the two clubs should join up but easy for me to say,dont think each set of fans would agree,but imo only way to move forward,do you think they would accept that,bet you wished you saved that money now lol

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  28. MDS, City have been mismanaged for as long as I can remember no matter who runs the **** club, lost count how many times they almost went bust 😳

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  29. Kim-surely you don’t believe that, given we had a wage bill probably five times the size of the next closest team and several PL or International class players?

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  30. Come on people – while I am a big admirer of CH as a person, turning up with the squad we had in the fizzy was like arriving at the Tour de France on a Kawazaki. We did well, but bloody hell – so we should have! I think our squad was worth as much as the next 10 teams or something like that.

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  31. Ice, The rivalry is quite fierce between the two, but I wouldn’t be adverse to the two teams joining to form one good side/club say Bristol utd, sounds cool, others hate the idea, but they both have a long history and I can’t see it ever happening tbh.

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  32. As for the article, I can sympathise with many who feel the season is over and can’t get up for the game-that’s fair enough. For me, I look forward to every newcastle match, be it pre season or europa league qualifier I will do my best to watch a game. I feel with the squad the way it is and with all the negativity flying about we don’t really have a big chance of a europa spot. Saints are back on track and while Manure are constantly embarrassed they still have some quality players.

    For our remaining matches I’m just looking forward to seeing which squad players step up and which don’t-any that don’t i’d expect to be rid of come the summer.

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  33. Newkie, Whumpie, Shhh, don’t spoil my illusion 😆 Anyway you still gotta beat what’s put in front of you, ask any big team who go out to a top club in the cup 😉

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  34. Whumpie-exactly, we didn’t even beat the record points that an average reading side achieved a few years ago. And Di Matteo’s WBA side constantly outplayed us, didn’t they trash us 4-2 in the F.A cup that season? And then completely outplayed us again in the match that got hooters the sack. I don’t really care though because we got promotion and had some good times with Hughton but that’s long gone.

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  35. Kim-Hughton did a good job getting a battered squad together don’t get me wrong, he’s a very nice bloke and no question he was a great fit for us at that time. But is he a good football manager? Birmingham lads rate him over Clarkie but that’s not huge. Most in Norwich want him gone completely, he’s had time to build a squad and spend some money there and they don’t look so much better for it, imo.

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  36. Newkie I wouldn’t say he’s any better/worse than Pards, he certainly did a good job uniting the side and getting us back up to PL, and seems a loyal and genuine bloke, I know there are a few on here who weren’t sad to see him go. I was disappointed he got the sack, but thought it was because a top manager was coming in to help us progress in the PL, then we hired Pards 🙄 😆

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  37. Kim-Aye, I was never part of an anti hughton crowd, people saying he let the team/nolan pick their favourites just seemed like ***** to me, the team picked itself because those players picked were generally our best ones. He did ok with transfers, our foreign ones were Carr but I thought Simmo was good business for 500k and Bestie ended up doing well albeit only under Pardew. Shocked when he got the sack and he had little support leading up to it but no way I’d be wishing for him back. Like you said I thought we’d be getting better…I thought we’d get Jol and I was happy with that but then he didn’t work out so well with Fulham so just goes to show you can’t predict everything.

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  38. Having said all that about the squad: CH did a cracking job – not only getting us back up but arriving with an enthusiastic squad who then proceeded to do pretty well in the PL. Given the state of morale and so on in the club at the time, I think he deserves a place in Toon history. He’s also got to be one of the few decent people working in football.

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  39. Newkie, Part of me thinks with managers it’s all about fit rather than class/previous accolades. They have to be the right fit for the club, like KK was first time around or Sir Bob. That understanding of NE culture and the fanbase is so important plus the ability to get along with the owner and have a mutual respect for each others jobs, all that filters down to the playing staff imo.

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  40. Whumps –
    Yeah, I think Pards is a better manager than Hoots (slightly), but Hughton gave us some awesome memories. The 6-0 and 5-1 will live long in the memory.
    I know it was route one, but I actually quite enjoyed the English tripod Carroll-Barton-Nolan.

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  41. Fucking hell I just cannot be arsed tonight. Decision time… On one hand were likely to play **** and lose and the weather is a fucking joke and on the other hand… 😕

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  42. Daniel Liam Brown ‏@DanielBrown666 · 2 hrs
    @MsiDouglas I have heard today, that this could be Pardews last game, it’s from someone pretty close to the club, anything in it do you know

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    Mark Douglas ‏@MsiDouglas · 2 hrs
    @DanielBrown666 Not heard that but am convinced things will happen behind the scenes in next 2-3 months. Not going to be quiet

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    8:13 am – 12 Feb 2014 · Details

    Daniel Liam Brown ‏@DanielBrown666 · 2 hrs
    @MsiDouglas and also apparently a new director of football will work alongside a chief exec with a head coach taken overs aged title. Also.

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    8:17 am – 12 Feb 2014 · Details

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  43. Pardew did say in his press conference that he’s enjoyed 90% of his time here and has had emotional games etc… Could have been a farewell speech? Doubt it though. Some journos would have got hold of the story first.

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  44. Kim-exactly,even the squad of players who they initially arrive with is a big deal, and the manner in which their previous coach left. It’s also why coaches are so keen to bring their own background staff in-everyone knows what each other can do, it can take years to really know how someone works/ticks and football is an instant results business, you don’t have time to gel really. I think Bobby is the only really top class manager we’ve had in my life time, KK was immense for us obviously but he never replicated that success elsewhere. So much of his success came with his initial ideas and belief, the form and confidence and good feeling that bred through the whole side. Much harder to have that impact time after time because other appointments i.e England automatically come with huge expectation.

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  45. Stuart-I’d thought that, and he constantly looks resigned now. Could be summit innit. Let’s just hope kinnear wasn’t giving up his duties in order to apply for the managerial position eh 😆

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  46. Sounds like wishful thinking to me but If there is anything in it. It is a good time to do it no pressure on us and there is a few staff spots to fill. We will know by the end of the week i guess.

    The pre game quote did lol rather longer than usual though i put that down to the big milestone than anything else.

    I lot on here will be dreading it if its true..

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  47. Stuart I thought the same thing.

    If we get hammered today I think there’s a chance he’s gone. Personally I’d prefer if it happened after the season mind when a (hopefully) proper DOF or Chairmen is brought in to make the new hire

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  48.  Retweeted by Mark Douglas

    GMP City Centre ‏@GMPCityCentre · 10 mins
    GAME OFF – Manchester City’s V Sunderland has been called off because conditions are deemed ‘unsafe’. #MCFC

    Nice little pile up of games for the unwashed coming along nicely 😆 :mrgreen:

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  49. Lloris; Walker, Kaboul, Vertonghen, Naughton; Dembele, Bentaleb, Capoue, Paulinho, Lennon; Adebayor.

    Subs Friedel, Dawson, Chadli, Eriksen, Townsend, Kane, Soldado

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  50. …hopefully we’ll have the wind behind us (switching direction at half time). Let’s see how many times Cisse gets flagged offside…

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