Game On! Swansea v Newcastle – Santon starts at left-back!

Game On at The Liberty
It’s Game On again right now as the Easter fixture schedule springs into action with Newcastle travelling to the depths of South Wales to take on Swansea City.

Newcastle go looking or a fourth win on the spin, something not achieved for a good few years, but it won’t be easy against a team who have capacity to cause damage and who will be looking to get back to winning ways after two defeats in a row.

It’s an excellent game in prospect, with much being made of Swansea’s slick possession game coming up against our pacey and creative attack. We can win, but we’ll need to be on top of our game right from the word go to get something from a ground which has proved fruitless for Premier League “big guns” like Manchester City and Arsenal.

Of course something that may tip the balance in our favour is the fact that we have something to play for still, with Europe on the agenda for Alan Pardew and Co. Swansea are safe and have little to play for other than pride, so maybe that is something that can work in our favour? Maybe not? Who knows? It won’t be long before we find out though…

Team news will be featured below and will be updated as soon as is humanly possible. For a change I’m actually off today so Big Dave and Jobey and the rest can put their feet up and let the master take the reins once more.

For more background, build up, analysis, stats and facts ahead of the match you need look no further than our very own match preview. You might have missed it earlier as I posted another article about ten minutes later so if you haven’t had a read make sure you do so. Mind if that’s not enough then make sure you have a peek at NUFC_stats’ marvellous “Stat Attack”.

And that just about wraps it up…

Howay the lads!

Swansea: Michel Vorm, Angel Rangel, Steven Caulker, Ashley Williams (capt), Neil Taylor, Leon Britton, Joe Allen, Gylfi Sigurdsson, Nathan Dyer, Wayne Routledge, Luke Moore.

Subs: Gerhard Tremmel, Alan Tate, Garry Monk, Josh McEachran, Mark Gower, Scott Sinclair, Danny Graham.

Newcastle: Tim Krul, Danny Simpson, Mike Williamson, James Perch, Davide Santon, Yohan Cabaye, Cheik Tiote, Jonas Gutierrez, Hatem Ben Arfa, Demba Ba, Papiss Cisse.

Subs: Rob Elliot, James Tavernier, Shane Ferguson, Ryan Taylor, Mehdi Abeid, Dan Gosling, 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.

414 thoughts on “Game On! Swansea v Newcastle – Santon starts at left-back!

  1. Richie-I know what you’re getting at, obviously they should be disappointed and I can understand/respect that, it is a good sign like you say. But the slumped shoulders, the lack of running? To me strikers get hungrier, they don’t just “expect” the ball to be put into their feet and allow them to score. Just hope Ba doesn’t expect that from us after the first half of the season where we geared our game towards him.

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  2. Newkie…..he’ll be fine trust me……though I did say he’d score today 😳

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  3. Newkie
    Couldnt agree more, for all the press about them being a modest barcelona, swansea couldn’t buy a goal, their attempts were generally rubbish.

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  4. Richie-Agreed. Spurs and Arsenal tend to dominate opposition and then slice through them, City were doing the same earlier, thats exciting. Barca keep the ball even more so but can turn on the magic. Swansea just seem to tap it around and expect a gap to open-well it didn’t happen against us and it didn’t happen against the other really well drilled team in the league-Everton. Strong hints for the rest of the league in how to play against Swansea.

    But my main point, how can Joe Allen get it over Cisse for example 😯

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  5. I do worry though, like those muppets on the BBC live twitter thing have said, what if big teams do come in and try to pillage our squad?

    You could easily see Tiote, Cabaye, Ben Arfa and Cisse getting £20m bids at least this summer and along with Ba’s release clause – what do we do?

    Can you see Ashley rejecting £100m plus transfers this summer or do you think he’ll sacrifice one or two to try and buy top quality for the rest of the team?

    If so, I think Ba is the first sacrificial lamb in all situations here and his drop in form and attitude aren’t helping his case to stay. I only hope we sell him to PSG so he isn’t going to hurt us.

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  6. jesus the more i think about it…what a bloody good job pardew has done this season!! incredible…we also have three very winnable games to come which could be massive if we get 6 to 9 points our of!! must be favourite for manager of the season

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  7. Fifth place and even fourth is becoming a real possiblity because of Chelsea’s schedule the next few weeks…

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  8. Looking at a previous post were wolfie says the bookies have it at 80/1 for us to win 2-0, Cisse to score first 😆 if anyone bet a tenner on it they would be very happy indeed :mrgreen:

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  9. Cabaye class. Hope the remaining neggers can now ustand why we need to sell players to develop and grow .. not always, but sometimes. It might be the case that we will sell Ba and replace him with someone else .. so be it .. have faith in MASH.

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  10. Richie-Aye I hope so, should be fine. The one good thing I thought was that it would cool interest, well now it all seems to be on Cisse 😯

    Andy-exactly, don’t get me wrong the one touch passing shows good skill and their movement is good but its not that entertaining. Commentators purred about their patience after conceding a goal. Well I’d be fuming if I was forced to watch that “patience” translate into not actually penetrating the opposition defence with all that possession until the last ten minutes.

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  11. Don’t know if anyones posted this but just read it on the beeb’s live text:

    M. Groomtings on Twitter: “Newcastle two points of Champs League, I’m starting to think we merely exist on the inside of Pardew’s Footy Manager save #BBCFootball”

    :mrgreen: 😆 😆

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  12. @Newkie, it;s always given to the home player by the ground commentator at most places, bit warped but fair enough.

    I really hope we don’t get dragged into Ba discussions on here, phrases like “attitude problem” when referring to him should be marked as spam, don’t want to here it. If people were expecting to maintain such form over a season they should get real and get behind him. Todays game aside he has been playing great despite not scoring.
    And to be honest, it was hard for most our attacking players to shine today, if Cisse hadn’t scored he would have been a lot more subdued and Benny was quieter than usual.

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  13. Andy@385 That’s what I said earlier ,Christ I so nearly put £10 on this morning but had a niggle it might be a draw 😥 Glad we won but really wish I’d placed that bet now.

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  14. There was a guy on radio newcastle before the norwich game who said he was going to back NUFC to win their next five games. If he put the bet on he will be watching the Bolton game from behind the sofa. Ando said it wouldn’t happen.

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  15. Newkie….It wouldn’t surprise me if they’ve went off who the stadium announcer said as MoM, lazy feckers 🙄

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  16. Solano-True enough it does happen most of the time, it just seems pointless. Maybe I missed out as I could rarely pick out who Joe Allen was, the only one I was worried about was Gylfi until Sinclair and Graham came on anyway 🙄

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  17. Dave…no point being greedy, you can’t take it all with you when you go 😉 😆

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  18. Richie-Aye probably, bloody nonsense like! God these self righteous hashtag twats on twitter really do my head in, the amount that comment to the bbc about how all newcastle fans are constantly unfair to Ashley…just give it a rest you’ll never understand 😕 and i’m “pro Ashley” apparently.

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  19. Hmm, reading quite a bit that Ba didn’t celebrate either goal, apparently 2nd one he just sat there like a sulk.
    That’s not really on tbh, i’ll defend a player going through a slightly rough patch to the hilt, but they have to both be giving it their all (which i think he is) & not being detrimental to team spirit (not celebrating a goal is massively **** form).

    I know some people will suggest his head has been turned a la Enrique but i don’t think it that. Fair enough if he isn’t happy at scoring but HBA has shown from the opposite flank that it’s not all about Cisse scoring.
    So Ba has two options, one involves giving up and throwing a paddy, the other is to be driven enough like HBA to improve your form and how you fit the team.

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  20. Solano-that’s exactly what I was getting at. I don’t expect Ba to still be scoring at the rate he was before, and I don’t expect him to be pulling a blinder every match out on the left. But his lack of celebrating in goals just seems a bit strange-Papiss is one of his best mates isn’t he? And its still a team game. I don’t expect magic, but I still expect him to put himself about. We need all 11 men on the pitch out there for these last remaining games.

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  21. I think Ba is experiencing what is known as “Woody Syndrome”.

    Papiss is Buzz Lightyear, he’s new, he’s exciting, talk of the toys(fans). Ba is Woody, old hero that is used to the lime light and has been somewhat shunned of attention by Andy and the other toys recently. What Woody needs to realise is that he is still loved by everyone and that he needs to get used to sharing the limelight.

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  22. Toonsy-quality. Was funny the amount that were saying he was ***** after the derby match. Look at him now :mrgreen:

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  23. Toby, I remember hearing someone betting on the toon to win the next 4 games (the last one being today to I think hes got it up)
    Absolutely fantastic for him and us.
    Bolton, Wigan and Stoke to come, this is getting mighty interesting !!
    If we stay 5th were in Europe, If we win a couple of those then I think we will be, as long as we dont lose to Chelski.
    I gotta say I never saw this coming but Im ever so glad I signed up for the 3 year then 10 year season ticket deal.
    Winning games, Good football (at times) and possible trips to Europe and football on 5 (Im not proud ,thursday night football for the toon will do me fine)
    Pardew seems to be getting the best out of his team and is changing games and doing his homework on the opposition.
    Long may it continue!!!
    HWTL 🙂

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  24. Under Saylor we had around a 33% clean sheet rate, under Willo it is closer to 50%, very vague stat open to interpretation obviously as we’ve conceded more with Willo, interesting though.
    I think Saylor is the stand out grit and attitude performer in the team, fully believe it’s why we didn’t suffer any collapses of letting in 5 goals or anything with him in the team.

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  25. “I still cant get my head round how they’ve managed to sign 2 strikers that are better than anyone we’ve had since Phillips in one ******* season.”
    .
    Ha Ha Ha. Classic

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  26. Great win today.
    Swansea is really the borest team I’have seen this year. I just was affraid of Sigurson who was dangerous in his control and shoot.
    Papiss is a killer before the goal.
    I think it was our tactic to let the ball to the opposition they are really not dangerous. Our back four had a good game, especially I was happy for Santon. Hope tiote is no out for too long.
    The difference is that if Swansea had benny and Cisse in their team they will be very dangerous but not with their player upfront.
    Just hope now that Man city beats Arsenal.

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  27. And seems that Benny has improved his defensive skills, especially very strong when he is shoulder against shoulder with opponents.

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