Game On! Newcastle v Bolton – Captain Colo returns

Game on at St James' Park
A quick turnaround awaits Newcastle United now as they go looking for their fifth win on the spin against Bolton Wanderers this afternoon.

After playing patiently and diligently in our 2-0 win away Swansea on Good Friday, Alan Pardew will know that this time around the onus will most definitely be on us as the home side to ask the questions.

Bolton are teetering above the drop zone at the moment with just a single point separating them from 19th placed Wigan. Coming to St James’ Park on the back of a 3-0 home defeat to Fulham a mere 48 hours ago, Owen Coyle will be keen to see his side recapture the kind of form which, previous to the Fulham game, had seen him side win three games in a row.

As we’re getting towards the “business end” of the season and now we know where we are aiming for, I thought I’d add a little look at who our rivals have today. For the sake of clarity I’m discounting anything above third and below sixth! In short, Tottenham host Norwich City at White Hart Lane in another 3pm kick-off, whilst Chelsea travel to Craven Cottage to take on Fulham this evening with kick-off at 8pm.

If we better Chelsea’s result we’ll go fifth today and if both sides win we’ll stay sixth by virtue of goal difference. That kind of needs addressing as it effectively gives the teams above us an extra point such is the difference between our goal difference and the rest. A good hammering of Bolton today would help that a treat of course, but it’s also games like Tottenham and Fulham away which have hampered that particular stat.

For a more in depth look at the fixture you can peruse my match preview by clicking the blue text. Basically it discusses team news, injury news, form and previous meetings, with a few fun stats thrown in there for good measure.

That’s just about it really. Oh yeah, for a change we’re not being broadcast live here in the UK so if you happen to find a useful link where people can watch the match, and are willing to share it with your fellow NUFC fans, then please feel fee to paste the link for it below.

Team news will be featured below…

Howay the lads!

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

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

Bolton: Adam Bogdan, Gretar Steinsson, David Wheater, Tim Ream, Sam Ricketts, Chris Eagles, Mark Davies, Darren Pratley, Nigel Reo-Coker, Martin Petrov, Kevin Davies

Subs: Jussi Jaaskelainen, Mikel Alonso, Zat Knight, Ivan Klasnic, David Ngog, Marvin Sordell, Ryo Miyachi

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.

372 thoughts on “Game On! Newcastle v Bolton – Captain Colo returns

  1. We seem to have difficutly to play as in the game against Norwich.
    We just hold the ball for the moment.
    Come on we need a goal

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  2. Can see Ba being replaced and frustrated again, he has been a weak link in the front three today… Just seems short on confidence.

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  3. why we change to 4-4-2 today?
    Yes just need patience if we score 1 after its good.
    Someone has a good link? Because my link to much lagg

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  4. We’re not looking great today, although Bolton have spent most of that half hiding with 10/11 men behind the ball constantly. Very dull to watch. We’re struggling to make the quick break as theres a full squad to try and run it through, benny, ba and cisse all look a bit out of sorts to me today.

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  5. Big Dave-agreed, time for one of Pardy’s half time talks, been a while since we needed one this badly

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  6. Also don’t understand the 4-4-2 formation.

    Ben Arfa is far less effective… And if it was done to shift Ba more into the centre then he really hasn’t proves himself because he was the weakest player this half.

    Also Jonas is far better in the 4-3-3 formation than playing 4-4-2 as an outright winger… Because he cannot cross. We look completely in effective down either flank unless Santon is overlapping.

    Can’t understand changing a winning formation especially against a shore side…

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  7. You wanna know the best thing about this half I phoned up this girl to ask her out and she said yes! that’s the only decent things that’s happened ( plus she’s friggin’ hot! )

    lets hope the footie gets better soon!

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  8. Everything just looks flat today and not much is coming off. Even our shots are bouncing off our own players out of play 🙄

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  9. Mind it’s not easy trying to go through a whole team. Guess that is how Swansea felt on Friday 😆

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  10. Sorry all- I’m at work and trying to follow along with the live text. there seems to be confusion over the formation- are we playing 4-4-2? If so, why would pards dothat after our recent successes? To placate Ba, perhaps?

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  11. Why change something that has worked as well as the 4-3-3 has in recent weeks ??

    Stick demba on the left and Jonas in the middle why should the team suffer because Ba’s ***** moaning…

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  12. Typical Toon really ,just as you start getting excited ,wet fish in the smacker like. 🙄

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  13. Mind it’s not easy trying to go through a whole team. Guess that is how Swansea felt on Friday
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    It’s good we don’t play Swansea (aka The Welsh Barca) every week. We might end up top of the table but we’d lose the possession battle in a shameful manner 😉

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  14. I think both sides are waiting for something to happen… and the fans too..
    I think it is going to take a moment of magic to break the deadlock..
    I think I am I am thinking too much…

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  15. we seem in difficulty for the moment, maybe we will come back to ours 4-3-3 because for the moment Ba is ineffective playing in support of CIsse and Jonas is ineffective and Benny must stay too much in the right and is ineffective to. Game very boring, we need a fucking goal because we need this 3 points.

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  16. MDS – Indeed. Being top of the table wouldn’t matter one bit unless our possession was at an acceptable level 😉

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  17. Perch off, Fergie on

    Harsh unless it’s injury based? Players worse than Perch on that pitch!

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  18. Toonsy-I think its just to give us some more attacking threat rather than who’s played badly, in the hope that more attacking play will bring out the best in our strikers…

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  19. Okay so the game opening up isn’t good for us. We’ll probably be grateful for a point

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  20. if we got a goal I’d be so happy

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  21. Bolton the better side today. Why we get outplayed by **** like Bolton is beyond me.

    We still have the individual skill to get through though…

    I fear Pardew changed to 4-4-2 to please Ba and I think it was a mistake.

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  22. We need to take some corners short. This looping balls are way too easy for Boltons giants…
    Use your brains lads.

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