Game On! WBA v Newcastle – Toon turn to attack

Game on at The Hawthorns
Welcome one and all to yet another Sunday afternoon ‘Game On’ article, which this time will see us do battle with Roy Hodgson’s West Bromwich Albion.

Generally speaking we rarely turn up these days when we travel to the Hawthorns, but with the incentive of cementing 6th place and catching up with 5th place should we finally put in a performance that we know we are capable of.

Speaking of putting in performances, West Brom have become rather adept at doing such a thing against us. We used to strike fear into them and pick up points at home and away, but times change and so have our fortunes against the Baggies in recent years.

No more background or build up is needed for this match. It’s been done in the previous couple of days and you can read it by clicking here or here. The first one is our now regular stat-attack while the second one is my match preview. Cast your eyes over both if you have the time.

Team news is below but now it’s up to the boys of NUFC to do the talking where it counts – on the pitch. Hopefully they’ll give us something to cheer today.

Howay the lads!

West Brom: Ben Foster, Billy Jones, Gareth McAuley, Jonas Olsson, Liam Ridgewell, Peter Odemwingie, Youssuf Mulumbu, James Morrison, Keith Andrews, Jerome Thomas, Marc-Antoine Fortuné

Subs: Luke Daniels, Paul Scharner, Simon Cox, Shane Long, Chris Brunt, Craig Dawson, Nickey Shorey

Newcastle: Tim Krul, Danny Simpson, Mike Williamson, Fabricio Coloccini, James Perch, Hatem Ben Arfa, Danny Guthrie, Yohan Cabaye, Jonas Gutierrez, Demba Ba, Papiss Cisse.

Subs: Rob Elliot, Davide Santon, Mehdi Abeid, Dan Gosling, Haris Vuckic, Shane Ferguson, Shola Ameobi

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.

431 thoughts on “Game On! WBA v Newcastle – Toon turn to attack

  1. RITCHIETOON next season the monkey will be off our backs Fa Cup and Europa league double and Pardew will be given the freedom of the city 😀
    As for Kadar , i just don’t get how that lad could of fallen by the wayside , he had /has Talent what the **** happened .

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  2. Axel – a real shame, looked great every time i saw him. Manny he didn’t have the work ethic or had a bad attitude, maybe pardew just didn’t fancy him, saw something in his game that he didn’t like. Hope he goes on to have a good career, never heard him say a bad word.
    By the way, what are your thoughts on this maher lad we were linked with during the week, didn’t see you commenting at the time but meant to ask you.

    FSOTC – true but willo could turn himself into a tailspin even without the help of suarez/bellamy

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  3. FSOTC @ 375 I don’t want to take owt away from our boys but if the bin dippers arn’t as hot on the attack im sure a defence without Colo will even that up a bit 😥

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  4. Anyone know about the fitness of Bellamy? He’s been out for their last few games I think, and has arguably been their best player this season.

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  5. DUBTOON maher has incredible skills and would love us too get him , but he needs built up . The lad is as light as a feather but does get stuck in as well , he would be an asset to the team but would at this minute in time not get ahead of HBA or Cabaye . He has the skills of HBA .

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  6. TGS – I agree Cisse is very like Andy Cole – a natural instinctive goal scorer – he is going to be a legendary no.9 IMO. 5 goals in 6 games (Andy Carroll 5 in 35 games over the last season and a half)

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  7. High praise axel. He’s still only a teenager isn’t he? Surprised he’s not being linked with bigger clubs than villa etc then. If he has that sort of talent surely he’d cost £10m?

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  8. DUBTOON thats why clubs shop in holland the most dutch clubs including Feyenoord and Ajax are skint .Dutch talent can be got cheap in terms of the sort of money english , german , spanish and italian clubs pay . I would for us to get Mayher , Strootman Luuk deJong and Pieters from Holland totaal cost around 25 million

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  9. What times MOTD on and have any of you oversees lads used Expat Shield before and if so does it work?

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  10. richie
    suppose not, sorry 😆

    why couldn’t it have been willo that was injured, he’s **** 👿 Its incidents like this that we get annoyed about because it wouldnt have been as much of a problem if we’d bought a cb in january. Its not that I have a problem with perch at cb, its that we don’t have colo to recover willo’s constant stupid mistakes, and to make up for them with match winning/saving tackes 😥

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  11. Axel
    yeah and for that you could get Llorente (god I love that spanish SOB :mrgreen: ) but spanish player like english players (except spaniards more deservedly so) are unbelievably expensive to buy. 🙁

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  12. When we’re on the front foot, like we were in the first half, we’re a match for anyone. When we start dropping deeper and deeper, we look so shaky its worrying. It says something that we fans can’t even be comfortable at 3 – 0 up.
    With Colo out, we now have to go at every team on the front foot. Best form of defence is attack.
    Well done to Benny. His first time pass at the edge of our box that led to the goal is what he has been needing to do. He showed today the right mix of passing and dribbling. The challenge now is consistency.
    Another good performance from Jonas at the back.
    The pundits are too quick to right off Cisse in one on one situations where he has time. It wont be long before he’s putting them away. Just keep up the service to him.

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  13. B&B. agree, i know the whole “half the job is getting in the position” is a bit of a cliche but i think it’s completely true, the fact he’s scoring anyway is awesome, once he is firing on all cylinders we will have one of the most feared strikeforces in the league.

    I’m not too worried about Ba, only one of the strikers need to be scoring each game, if just one of them scores in each game then that is 19goals each for a season, that’s how we should look at it.

    Well done Perchy, it has really been a season where squad players have shown their usefulness, in years gone by we had big names players that didn’t give a toss, now we have fringe players contributing greatly to our seasons, he’s joined Best, Guthrie and Raylor for me as a valuable member of the squad.

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  14. Anybody else think though that as good as we looked going forward today (esp first half) that ba’s goals will be limited coming in from the left. I’m sure he’ll still get a few but will he be happy to sacrifice himself (too strong a word)?
    He and cissé seem to thrive in the same positions around the box and maybe we do need to choose one to play through the centre and move or drop the other, but if Ba doesn’t like it, he’ll get plenty of offers to play in his preffered role elsewhere

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  15. Its the first time i have seen benny talk today after the match , sounds a really shy lad ! if we can keep him fit for next season i can see him getting 10+ goals for us !! what a player !! love him

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  16. Also nice to see Pardew praising his play and also his attitude off the pitch. Wonder if he keeps this up he might get a place in the France squad? Would be really gtood for the lad.

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  17. @Army
    A lot of people (myself included), weren’t sure whether Benny would be a big goal getter, delighted to be wrong.

    According to fpl:
    1050 minutes played (since he signed)
    5 goals
    5 assists

    Also bearing in mind that he has had a jittery, injury plagued start to his career here, you could barely say he is settled in the league yet. Really impressive stuff.

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  18. Tiote has missed 13 games this season, think because it has been spread out we forget how many occasions the big enforcer has missed.

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  19. Conceded 25 goals in the 13 games he has missed.
    imagine next season with him and Saylor playing every game along with a trio of HBA/Cisse/Ba 😯

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  20. Very pleased with that first half, and second half we hung on there. Ba, Cisse, Benny; is a front 3 that will cause you problems, whoever you are, Woy. And we showed some good counter attacking! for first time in a while. Benny is capable of losing the ball and wasting possession but he is also capable of absolutely walloping teams and he did just that with the counter and goal. Cisse confirmed what I said earlier, get service to him and he WILL SCORE, the chances he has missed make him look human but he is a fantastic finisher, another difficult finish and he put it away like it was nowt.

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  21. I’ve said it for ages. Build the team round Barfa!

    I want to hear the Barfa critics who called it wrong.

    Come on! I know who you are. Is it going to be name and shame or is it going to be graceful? 🙂

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  22. HBA is too inconsistent imo to build a team around. Liking the 4-3-3 type formation, flitting into 4-4-2 when defending.
    But people usually say HBA’s role is behind the striker and I don’t think we can accomodate that.

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  23. @Troy
    I’m pretty sure the “Barfa critics” usually stated that he has to knuckle down and find a place to play in Pardew’s formation not the other way round. Pretty sure that is what has happened 😉

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  24. ST @408 agreed, not on a regular basis at least.

    Troy – i think it took more than a half dozen good games for you to change your mind about cabaye. Keep performing like he is and he won’t have many doubters for long

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  25. He tracked back, ran, worked hard to get back and help Simpson, that was encouraging. His attacking is special, but his all round game looks to be improving, he looks to understand the league better but he is probably just getting to full match fitness, he is not dumb and he knows what he has to do to succeed in this league, give the guy time after his broken leg. He is a special talent and he loves the toon, what more could we ask for? this guy is up there with the best in the league on his day.

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  26. I for one wasn’t convinced he would live up to the hype, but am glad i’m being proven wrong 😛

    The way Pardew said he only saw him as a “behind-the-striker” type player, I just couldn’t see him ever getting a run of games. It has taken simultaneous injuries to Obertan, Raylor and Marveaux for him to get his chance. Thank god he’s taken it!!!

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  27. SloanosTrumpet – pretty thin argument that, sorry but HBA’s game has changed only in so far as he has accommodated the extra load of duty demanded in an English prem league team. AP has indeed built his team around him in case you hadn’t noticed, today it was adjusted to give him the space and opportunity, and today the baggies are enjoying a life with an extra hole. Job done, Alan pulled his killer off for reasons of misplaced mercy imo. HBA displayed the same infuriating nuances as ever.but the sheer impact of his running and vision has started to take over. Just eat your words, it’s less painful in the end. Really. 😈 .

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  28. Tsunki but we were constantly told his best position is behind the front two, which isn’t what he is playing..? I still thought he was playing in a sort of rw free role position.

    I will eat my words though, I didn’t think he would get his chance till next season until Pardew had fully worked out how best to fit him in, but whether it is because of injuries or choice is irrelevant, he has shown that full fitness/half fitness, defensive qualities or not, he is just too devastating to leave out.

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  29. Awww darn! Sorry SolanosTrumpet I totally misread your post. just take my rant as agreeing with you. Oops. 😥 Less beer, more careful reading.

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  30. @ 414 yep totally on board there (still cowering here mate) no he’s not ‘in the hole’ these days, seems a new free position has finally opened up where the space he leaves gets closed up by Cabs and Guthrie, the midfield is kinda 5 man then 3 then 4 and I sort of like it that way, they couldn’t get a grip on us and our movement across the field was devastating at times. Notice how HBA instigated the big switch across field? I want more of that – they were caught with ther shorts round their ankles whenever that happened. When do you remember us switching play across the pitch like that this season eh, eh? 😆

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  31. I just can’t believe how close we are to having a phenomenal team. Imagine an attacking display like today with the defensive resolve we showed at the start of the season.
    😯

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  32. Williamson and Perch train together and get up for Liverpool, you can do it lads get in the zone, both good players on their day, get behind the lads.

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  33. Aww man it’s just our defence we just don’t have the numbers to keep an awesome back line, but the midfield is starting to get a grip of itself and whatever the final piece of the jigsaw is, it was in place today, fantastic workrate through the centre, and our forward line is now on a par with Citeh imho for sheer scariness. I stick by that. What a day. 😀 😀 😀

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  34. Hang on, somethings missing – ah yes, that’s it – the ‘Pardew is a lame tactitian’ clan. I’m sure they will be back again one day. 🙂

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  35. Well I know I came on hee late but i have to go and get up early in the morning to taunt my mackem workmates. Nighty night. Ha ha ha ha Liverpool ha ha ha Andy Carroll ‘please tell them I didn’t want to leave’ ha ha ha ‘sewpakev’ agreeing with J Redknapp about our awesome first half ha ha ha Jose Enrique ‘big club’ ha ha ha ha ‘King’ Kenny and his ‘Whites Only’ dressing room sign . . oh my word please my sides….. 😆 😆 😆 😆

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  36. Q1 – Is Mike Ashley proving he is the most forward thinking and clever owner in the PL?

    Q2 – Is it time for all fans even the Big Dave type to get behind the whole club and let bygones be bygones (on all sides – with the exception of NUST 😆 )

    I feel that if the last few naysayers take a chill pill – we may well see the good times roll once more. It could be a similar era to the Entertainers. Some of our play today was fantastic. Big shout to the unmentioned heroes of Cabaye, Ba, Jonas and Perch – they put in a shift and a half of quality. Hatem was unplayable – to think what he will be next year is unbelievable! Viva le France!

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  37. everybody knows the bird is the word, lol.

    …in fact lol myself fucking stupid.

    I lold so hard today I almost popped my lol glands.

    lol 😆

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  38. Noel Edmonds has no face.

    Honestly.

    Tape Deal or No Deal the mora, and try to watch it again.

    Tellin yiz, he’s a vampire. Nee ****.

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  39. I have a small investment within Noel Edmonds’ beard. The Woodlice Honey Trading Company (TM)

    …must admit, a divnt agree with their ethos, burit brings the coin in. 😎

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  40. ….also, anar a shudnt be saying this like, but Noel Edmonds’s spunk actually works pretty well as degreaser. Strites, pisses through rust like **** through an ****.

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  41. Ben Arfa will always play best in a free role behind the front two or as part of a front three that are mobile and fluent enough to be able to accomodate swapping positions.
    It’s the type of player he is and has been the whole time.
    Many of his better attacking runs came through the middle yesterday.
    Ba and Cisse have both shown themselves totally capable to cover the ground needed to play that way.
    I still don’t quite understand why it took Pardew so long to change it.

    Maybe he was listening to the ‘don’t change from 4-4-2 because it got us this far’ camp.

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