Yohan makes it, and Hatem starts! Game On! Fulham v Newcastle

toonsy

It's 'Game On' at the Cottage
Welcome one and all to the ‘Game ON’ article which will take us through every twist and turn of the visit to the rather picturesque Craven Cottage where Alan Pardew’s men will do battle with Martin Jol’s Cottagers.

It’s not been a bad start to 2012 has it? As Shamrock pointed out in his fantastic match preview, we’ve won all of our fixtures, including that one against some second class (well, we made them look second class on the night) outfit from Manchester, and signed one of the most sought after strikers in Europe. To add to that, we’ve still not seen any of our key players leave the club and are actively trying to retain the services of Captain Coloccini, who may have a new impressive defensive buddy if rumours are to be believed!

All of that pales into insignificance this afternoon though as the focus shifts towards what happens in 90 minutes of football in West London. Thing is, as our resident statto pointed out in another one of his expertly composed “Stat Attack’s”, we don’t exactly have the best record against Fulham. They are yet another one of our bogey teams.

However Newcastle have become quite adept at ending these hoodoo’s in recent times. I mean we recently beat Manchester United for the first time in a decade, we beat Blackburn earlier in the season after about eight years of failing to do so, we won at Stoke away and Bolton away – both grounds where we traditionally do pretty badly. You get my point.

We’ll see what happens today but no doubt the lads will have been boosted by the arrival of Papiss Demba Cisse. The level of competition, especially for our strikers, has been ramped up a few notches and now they must show their worth or risk being left behind in terms of the first team. Plus they have the bonus of knowing that if they can keep in touch with the top five or six whilst Cheik Tiote, Demba Ba and Cisse are away at ACoN then we will be in a cracking position when they come back and can challenge those European spaces.

Anyway, that’s enough waffle. Both Shamrock and NUFC_stats have provided more than enough background on the match without me going into more so I’ll leave you to have a gander of their articles instead of me going on and on and on…

The match is being broadcast overseas so there is a good chance of picking up a stream although, as ever, the quality will be hit and miss. If you do manage to stumble across a good stream though why not share it with your fellow Mags and leave a link to it in the comments section below? It would be most appreciated I’m sure.

Right now though it’s Game On, and with NUFC knowing that a win would guarantee 5th place ahead of the Arsenal v Manchester United match tomorrow the carrot is already on the stick and the lads know what is on offer.

Howay the lads!

Fulham: David Stockdale; Stephen Kelly, Brede Hangeland, Philippe Senderos, John Arne Riise; Steve Sidwell, Danny Murphy (c), Clint Dempsey; Damien Duff, Bobby Zamora, Bryan Ruiz

Subs: Neil Etheridge, Matthew Briggs, Chris Baird, Aaron Hughes, Kerim Frei, Marcel Gecov, Andrew Johnson

Newcastle: Tim Krul; Danny Simpson, Mike Williamson, Fabricio Coloccini (c), Davide Santon; Hatem Ben Arfa, Danny Guthrie, Yohan Cabaye, Jonas Gutierrez; Leon Best, Shola Ameobi

Subs: Rob Elliot, Shane Ferguson, James Perch, Ryan Taylor, Dan Gosling, Gabriel Obertan, Peter Lovenkrands.

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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667 thoughts on “Yohan makes it, and Hatem starts! Game On! Fulham v Newcastle”

  5. I’ve realised why I’m doing **** on the predictor league, I’ve been putting down the results “I want” instead of the results ” I think”….that being so, I have Bolton down for the win 😀

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  7. All we gotta do is pack in this long ball ****.
    Just because it worked against Manure.
    It just keeps giving the possession back to the opposition.
    WTF happened to the slick passing we was supposed to be gonna play?
    But I dont know anything as I’m not a real fan.
    Stupid life, having to work on a saturday morning.
    Doh !

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  9. Look on the bright side lads ‘n’ lasses who’s gonna be sniffin round our players after todays showing

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  12. Sometimes its good to get a reality shock, but I think the lads lost concentration 2nd half. Looking forwards to Tenerife and all that.
    1-0 at HT and we thought we had it sown up.
    It could be worse, we could be makems. (**** that 😈 😈 )

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  15. lets hope its a one off,there going out for some sun now,hope they leave shola oot there for gods sake how anyone rates him is beyond me,impact player bullshit even,please some club take him 👿

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  16. Serious question, Does anyone who were wanting Senegal to do well, still want that or would you prefer them back asap?

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  17. Well a 2nd half to forget as far the toon are concerned 🙁
    I’m an optimistic person so I’ll focus on the positives rather than the negatives. First half I thought we were excellent, played some lovely football and dictated the game. Guthrie and Ben Arfa took their goals well but it was a disastrous second half. Our defence just went missing in the 2nd half and Fulham’s strikers took their chances well. It’s good to see us creating chances, if we can keep it tight at the back like we have done, I’m sure we’ll get back to winning ways. Chelsea dropped points and Liverpool are losing at the minute, could have been worse on that front.

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  19. serious ansa Richie – I hope they dont make it past the group stages.
    But ya kna they will probs make the final with that awesome strike force 😆

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  20. The FA have just announced that if anybody passes in the Brighton match to Ameobi or Best they will be booked for time wasting

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  24. BB….that’s what I think too, just a few were saying they hope they do really well/win it so they’ll come back “buzzin”….I want them to personally do well, but their teams to do ****.

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  25. cheers ice.
    He looks shell shocked, but said some true things.
    .
    Most upsetting for me was that once the tide had turned against us, we didn’t have a plan to wrestle back the initative and it just got worse.
    We needed a player like Barton today to kick *** a bit.
    The one thing that is lacking from Colo’s captaincy imo

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  28. Pardew basically blames the defence, but it was more than just that.
    SURELY TO GOD he can see how utter shyte Shola is. 👿
    Its like we play with 10 men most of the time. Would have been better to play Best upfront on his own and 5 in midfield.

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  30. A bit like Freiburg then 😕
    How can they be bottom of their league with the best striker in europe ❓
    😳

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  32. BB….aye but he probably more or less single handedly kept them up last season…tho Munich would be able to tell you more, even if he wasn’t actually there 😉

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  33. @MsiDouglas
    Mark Douglas
    Tomorrow has good news on the defensive front as Pardew closes in on two January targets; plus updates on Prior & Guthrie’s contract #nufc

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  35. BATTY we need sumit m8 after today,well it wont be tomkins hes signed a new contract at w/ham today 😉

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  36. Maybe the plan of the poor cb showing was to convince Ashley to open his moth eaten wallet again 😉

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  42. Bolton 3-1 Liverpool FULL TIME. We have not lost position, so all is still rosy. We have had a major f up and got away with it. Just need to get back to usual standards in the next game. 🙂

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  52. Cant see Samba going to QPR. It was contradict the reasons he wants to leave Rovers – sick of being in a dogfight! Spurs would make sense.

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  58. Actually the Liverpool result has made me even sicker, it was a golden opportunity to put daylight between them and us and to close the gap on Chelsea.

    I would expect Man Utd to win tomorrow also which would have put us into 5th clear by 3 points…fuming.

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  61. Franky…aye, it’s both annoying and a bit of relief at the same time. We could have been better placed now, but the other side of the coin is we could have been alot worse off too, mixed feelings at the moment 😕

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  62. Franky – thats twice we’ve had the opportunity to put points between us and failed 👿

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  63. At least it’s not just us who have had a bad day at the office.

    I actually think it’s pretty obvious now that our back up players just aren’t good enough or at best just not constant enough. Strolla and Best are just pathetic in my opinion – one good game in ten is not good enough. Williamson too has serious limitations. He’s not good on the ball and if anyone runs at him he’s in trouble.

    Still, i’m happy with the way things have gone so far and a few additions to the squad to replace the above will put us in a stronger position for next season.

    Lets not forget we’re still in a great position to finish top 7. 🙂

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  64. Liverpool were expected to win, so no opportunity lost as it never existed. Also, the less talk about closing Chelsea down the better. We are not a top 4 side, have not been for a long time and dont deserve to be. Lets keep our feet on the ground and eye on the ball – 6th would be a great achievment this season. – Maybe even sneak 5th if we are REALLY lucky, but that’s just dreaming. Arsenal’s squad is excellent, loads of injuries – i’m talking 10 plus – and their team is still better than ours.

    Plus Stoke messed up, meaning we still have that breathing space. Results went our way today (except our own of course!)

    If we finsh 6th this season i’ll be absolutely chuffed, 5th i’ll be ecstatic!

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  69. maybe jabba should give smiths shirt he has to shola they both are **** but it might stop him playing 😉

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  70. Shamrock…aye but winning today, with Liverpool losing would have brought 6th(poss 5th) that bit closer, don’t think anyone’s mentioned 4th…apart from your good self of course 😉

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  71. How many more games does suarez have to miss?
    They are **** without him.
    With any luck he will get injured first match back

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  72. Rich, Somone said earlier about catching Chelsea and there have been a few over the last week or so going on about the Champions League – proabbaly thanks to Sky beginning to include us as one of the teams chasing it!

    I know the majority have their feet on the ground but a few have been unclipping their space boots!

    I’m just glad Liverpool & Stoe lost, means it’s staus quo. Could have been worse.

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