Game On! Tottenham v Newcastle

Game On at the Lane
Game On at the Lane
Good morning! Well it was morning when this was published so don’t get funny if you’re reading this after midday!

An early start awaits as United head off to White Hart Lane to take on Andre Villas-Boas and his in-form Tottenham Hotspur outfit.

I don’t like Villas-Boas, purely for comments made after Chelsea took all three points at St James’ Park last season. That was the match David Luiz escaped a red card for hauling down Demba Ba in the third minute. Being the last man Luiz should have walked but the referee failed to send him off. It didn’t matter as Villa-Boas and his disrespectful trap insisted they only needed ten men anyway, even though they had twelve!

Anyway, let bygones be bygones and all that. That was then and this is now, and while Tottenham have been impressive of late the upturn in fortunes for United can’t be ignored. If this game had been just a few weeks ago I’d have been dreading it but now I have a sense of hope. Call it blind optimism if you will but I’m certain that even if we don’t manage to grab a positive result today it won’t be for the lack of trying.

The match is being broadcast live here in the UK and around the world so if you’re not heading off to White Hart Lane or don’t have access to any of those channels then the chances of picking up a stream are pretty good. Once again normal rules apply and if you know of a decent stream then by all means feel fee to leave a link to it in the ‘comments’ section below.

The match preview is online here for you to peruse at your leisure. It features injury news, stats, facts and a some background behind the fixture. For team news you will need to look below as it will be published as soon as it becomes available. For now though it’s game on!

Howay the lads!

Tottenham: Lloris; Walker, Dawson (c), Caulker, Naughton; Parker, Dembele; Lennon, Holtby, Bale; Dempsey.

Subs: Friedel, Vertonghen, Gallas, Assou-Ekotto, Livermore, Sigurdsson, Adebayor

Newcastle: Krul; Debuchy, S.Taylor, Coloccini (c), Santon; Cabaye, Perch; Gutierrez, Sissoko, Gouffran ; Cisse

Subs: Harper, Yanga-Mbiwa, Anita, Tiote, Marveaux, Obertan, 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.

253 thoughts on “Game On! Tottenham v Newcastle

  1. The lads put in a decent effort, I thought, but Spurs were just too good on the day. Still, we played with some good spirit, and that’s encouraging. A couple of wins in the next few games and we’ll be right.

    We seemed to lose our way a bit when Gouffran went off; he was MotM for us imho. Bale and Parker for them. Marveaux didn’t bring a lot to the table.

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  2. Defeat has little to do with Pardew and everything to do with Coloccini going in half hearted on Bale. He needed to steam in and take the ball + man. He let us down today.

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  3. ive no beef with Taylor for losing a footrace with Bale…

    his fault came earlier when, after not getting enough on his initial header, he stuck his **** out and waved his hands instead of going to the ball

    (i think he thought he was sheparding the ball to Colo, sometimes with taylor it’s hard to tell what he’s thinking)

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  4. No question, Bale the difference plus Spurs are a pretty good team pushing for Top 3, not bad, we were in it until the end. Being a true fan, 7 minutes to go and I thought we could still win it!

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  5. I thought Saylor and Colo’s miscommunication was culpable for the 2nd goal. Tough loss, but not a complete disaster. A reality check, more like it. And Shola even stepping on the field… well, we clearly need more striking options. Oh, and Cabs could easily have got a red card.

    Any news on Gouffran’s injury?

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  6. I think we can take some hart from todays game ,we were not out played and i see us picking up enough points if we keep that effort up until the season’s end . Bale was the difference today between the 2 teams ,still we have HBA to come in soon and that will be our difference attacking . Thought Krul was poor today and the ref got the free kick wrong for their first goal ,look at the replay colo did not touch him their was day light between them colo slightly pulled out of the tackle .Thought we got nothing all game from the ref .Lets hope other results go our way this afternoon

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  7. ash1001 says:
    February 9, 2013 at 14:42

    Not going to dwell on it, but AP and Perch lost us that match,
    AP for his tactics, and Perch for just been Perch and no more than League 1 standard”

    Statistics from the match:
    (Pass success %)

    Shola Ameobi……..100%
    James Perch…………97%
    Fabricio Coloccini…91%
    Yohan Cabaye………84%
    Moussa Sissoko……82%
    Sylvain Marveaux…..82%

    all other players between 60% and 80% with the exception of:

    Mathieu Debuchy…..58%
    Tim Krul…………………33%

    http://www.whoscored.com/Matches/615189/LiveStatistics/England-Premier-League-2012-2013-Tottenham-Newcastle-United

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  8. Team doctor says he thinks its 50/50 whether Gouffran injury is a break or just just serious bruising. 😕
    Really hope its not a break. He has been superb for us.

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  9. Chris G

    You failed to mention that of Perch’s 30 passes today, 50% were backwards, so those stats flatter him. However, he was decent in open play. His **** up was the lack of effort (one mistake) for the first goal.

    I like Perch though. Doesn’t mean I can’t be critical when he’s made a horrible blunder.

    Also, Gouffran was our best player today and he’s not mentioned in the passing stats. Marv is and he was ****. So they don’t really prove anything IMO.

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  10. FSOTC
    Quote from Pardew.

    Those stats say, Cabaye, attempted 7 long balls and 7 were accurate. Colo five long balls with four accurate.

    That’s the difference between a quality player passing long and a player who simply hoofs it and loses possession.

    Willo was bad at that, but Krul is proving even worse. 70% of his passes were to the opposition. Not good enough. His kicking needs serious serious work.

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  11. http://www.squawka.com makes Williamson out to be a world beater on passing and interceptions etc so do not place a lot on those sort of statistics, think we did not do too bad today but do think we should have done and man marking job on Bale (sat on his boot laces so to speak), maybe Obertan could have done it, but he is a good player.

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  12. I think Marveaux is better in centre.

    But he is too inconsistent.

    Looks like Mignolet is keeping mackem in their game with saves after saves.

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  13. FSOTC – Sissoko was knackered after 45 mins against Villa, so please explain why him tiring at 70 mins or so today is a result of poor coaching?

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  14. Anyone who is calling Pardew need to get a grip. The same people never gave credit to Pardew for the previous two wins but yet it seems to always be his fault when we lose… Go and just get a life!

    We look very light up front I’m afraid – that was always the risk by only bringing in Gouffran. Hopefully HBA’s return will come at the right time, but we need to get Cisse scoring.

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  15. I didn’t think they ran out of gas through reasonable effort so much as we over committed (as we always do when chasing a game) and tired against one of the fastest teams in the league.

    I agree that we do often ‘tire’ but I wonder how much of it is fitness and how much low morale when losing (we didn’t seem to tire against Chelsea, funnily enough).

    It’s definitely an area we need to look at, but I can’t really fault someone for getting tired after 97 minutes of chasing round the likes of Asso-Ekotto, Lennon, Bale, Walker etc.

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  16. Sissoko for me was brilliant in the air. He held the ball up well despite being quite quiet.

    Gouffran was excellent really hope he wont be out for too long 😕

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  17. That’s fair and I’m not trying to single anyone out, really. Just wondering about the fitness coaching. Someone on here said that Cabaye hires an additional personal fitness coach, which seems odd.

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