Game On! Newcastle v Fulham

toonsy

Game On at St James' Park
Game On at St James’ Park
Newcastle take on Fulham this afternoon in what is one of our most important games of the season.

With just seven games remaining United find themselves just three points off 18th placed Wigan and time is running out if we are to ensure we don’t suffer another relegation.

Results yesterday mean that it’s technically possible for us to end the afternoon in the bottom three should we lose and other results go against us. Aston Villa are now level on points with us whilst Sunderland could overtake us if they pull off an unlikely (but again not impossible) victory at Stamford Bridge. Meanwhile Wigan visit QPR where a victory for the away side combined with a defeat for us and a five goal difference in the scorelines (say we lose by two and Wigan win by three for example) would see us drop to 18th place.

That’s the worst case scenario though. Looking up, a win would see us jump to 13th place ahead of Stoke and Norwich whilst a six-goal swing between the results of our game and West Ham’s visit to Liverpool (again as an example, say we win by three and West Ham lose by three) would see us jump into 12th ahead of the Hammers on goals scored.

Before looking elsewhere it’s important that we get ourselves sorted. Win at all costs is the message of the day as getting points on the board is all that counts and goal difference would only be important at the end of the season anyway.

We are the home side and the pressure is on us to get the victory, but we’re up against a Fulham side who are unbeaten in five and with players like Dimitar Berbatov they have the ability to cause problems. Martin Jol will no doubt have a plan to frustrate us and should they manage to do that in the first 20 minutes or so it’s important that we keep our heads and carry on.

You can read even more build up to the game in my match preview which is viewable by clicking here. It details injury news for both sides ahead of the game, outlines a brief history of the fixture between the two clubs and dishes out some rather interesting statistics along the way.

The game itself is not being shown live here in the UK although it is scheduled for overseas broadcast. That means that those who aren’t going to the game or those currently in a country not showing the match (like me in Belgium) will be looking to watch the match online so if anyone happens to come across a decent stream then please feel free to leave a link to it in the ‘comments’ section below.

Team news will be provided by my good self assuming I have no problems at work so I’ll endeavour to add the team sheet in, in full, at the very bottom of this article.

Which neatly wraps this up and now it’s over to the players and management to put us through the mill once more. I just hope that after 90 minutes all the pain, tears, anguish and tantrums are worth it and we have a priceless victory to celebrate!

Howay the lads!

Newcastle: Tim Krul; Danny Simpson, Steven Taylor, Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa, Davide Santon; Sylvain Marveaux, Moussa Sissoko, Yohan Cabaye, Jonas Gutierrez; Yoan Gouffran, Papiss Cisse

Subs: Rob Elliot, Mike Williamson, Vurnon Anita, Gael Bigirimana, Gabriel Obertan, Adam Campbell, Shola Ameobi

Fulham: Mark Schwarzer; Sascha Riether, Philippe Senderos, Brede Hangeland, John Arne Riise; Stanislav Manolev, Eyong Enoh, Giorgios Karagounis, Damien Duff; Bryan Ruiz; Dimitar Berbatov

Subs: Neil Etheridge, Aaron Hughes, Kieran Richardson, Emmanuel Frimpong, Urby Emanuelson, Kerim Frei, Hugo Rodallega

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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412 thoughts on “Game On! Newcastle v Fulham”

  1. that ***** player that we should sell just got us a fuking massive 3 pts 😆

    Santii I’ll leave the online hardman ***** to you as it makes you look a bit of a walter 😳

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  7. Newkie, Wigan still have another half to kick Redknapp while he’s down – and put Sunderland in the relegation zone.

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  11. Man what a brilliant never say die attitude from the toon. It would have been a travesty if we had of lost that game, and the best team won by a mile. Well done the lads,and what can you say about Cisse !!! Immense finish, I just wish to flock we could give the bloke some support up front !

    Shot of the season so far is Pardew losing his cool and going radgie in the John Hall stand after Cisse’s goal ! Absolutely BRILLIANT !!!!!

    HOWAY !!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  12. Beauty goal from Cisse, great turn and finish – Marvs MOTM for me
    Good effort and well deserved, Pards went kin mental, good on him

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  13. Santii
    April 7, 2013 at 16:52

    “Lol dave if he had put away his other 3 sitters or even seen marv the 4 times he has been wide open we would be about 4-0 up he is *****. you fucking mug”

    Righto. So now we want a striker who converts every f*cking chance? Doesn’t everyone. They don’t exist. That shyte player has scored 4 in his last 6 games. He’s also nudging 1 in 3 for this season where he’s been “shyte” and still has an average of 1 every 2 games during his time with us. Without his goals in these last few weeks we’d be 5 points worse off.

    Some people seriously need to get a fucking grip like. This constant Cisse bashing is utter ****. Always someone to blame 😕

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  17. Delighted with that! Think that’s our 4th win at home on the bounce. Would of been happy with a point, which it looked like it was going to be but delighted with that. Hopefully we take that into.next two games

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  21. Personally you can ditch the pretty football ethos and anything else idealistic. We need points then we can worry about that next season, but let’s make sure we get the points by ANY means, even long balls, if it means we stay up.

    We can’t afford to get complacent. We need to build on this. The player bashing needs to stop and people need to get behind them AND the manager until we are safe. Come on lads, we can do it.

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  24. whey beat them web toed inbreds from doon the road next week and we’ll be 8 points clear of them with 5 games left, even a draw wouldn’t be too bad a result, they need the win more than we do.

    Well said Toonsy@238 😉

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  26. Yeah toonsy cause its no ones fault we are playing so ****.

    We should of won that game comfortably. Cisse missed 2 complete sitters and should of given marvn 2 easy passes to be clean through. Fair enough he scored the winner but we could of wrapped that game up much sooner.

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  27. This whole Cisse thing has become a joke. From minute one against Benfica he was getting stick off the “best fans in the land” and it’s almost as though looking at his stats and scoring are irrelevant and wondering where we would be without them doesn’t even enter the mind.

    Just out of interest, who else is scoring goals for us at the moment?

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  28. Wellington-Aye just realised they kicked off an hour later, the buggers 😕 I don’t care who goes down now to be honest, just want us to batter the mackems 😀

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  30. FSOTC – 6 times in 3 games!

    Great win, class flick turn by Cisse for the goal.

    People saying they want Wigan to win, I’d rather see QPR win so we are further away from the zone. Would like to see Sunderland finish 4th bottom. Funny to see them go down, but would miss the derby day action!

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  33. Great result. Combined with scum losing…
    Personally, I thought Danny Simpson had a very good game ( can’t really understand the abuse he gets sometimes) and Marv was excellent. What a difference when he takes corners and set pieces instead of Cabs..!
    I aged a few more years during that game, some dodgy ref decisions so really though it was going to be another of those days…

    Happy happy! Toon Army! Onwards and upwards!

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  34. why on earth would anyone want wigan to win?

    QPR are no threat (they’ll be 10 behind us if they win) whereas Wigan are

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  35. FSOTC the difference is you take what we’re given some well they just whinge alot then try become keyboard warriors to try to hide their embarrassment 😳
    right off to get dinner in a real good mood because we got the 3 pts and the 1-0 I predicted so be back in a bit

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  36. Santii – IF Anita’s shot dipped under the bar. IF Gouffran had not have head his header cleared. IF this IF that. lot’s of them, not just Cisse. End of the day we grabbed three points when it looked nailed on we’d settle for one and to top it off the Party with Paulo didn’t get going today either.

    We aren’t high-flying in the league. Can we afford to be picky? I’m just fucking ecstatic we won

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  39. Head says ben afra should start against benfica and try to do a istanbul of liverpool and go through to semi.

    Heart says, Pardew better don’t start ben arfa or even play him against benfica. Give up europa. 😥

    Lads, any opinion of this?

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  40. For the life of me I cannot understand why Cisse should be untouchable and beyond criticism ? He scores brilliant goals, but misses a few half chances, and often makes poor choices. Surely we should be allowed to criticise him, it doesn’t mean we don’t love the bloke to bits 😆 😆 ?

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  42. how can anyone criticize Cisse. He’s the only striker we have. he had a great season last year but not so good this year but his head has never dropped and he keeps persisting even tho its only him up front.

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  43. M – 3 good reasons:
    1. hatred of Redknapp
    2. it puts Sunderland 18th
    3. it puts Sunderland in the relegation zone.

    I know that might seem like 2 reasons, but #2 is such an important reason it deserves to count for double 😉

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  44. MM – There is criticism and there is continued criticism whilst ignoring stats and actual facts.

    I’m also still waiting for this magical player that scores the rest of our goals to be suggested.

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  45. Toonsy thats what this blog is people discuss the what ifs 😀

    But fair enough most things went well for us today (though we nearly messed it up) and il be happy until thursday night 😀 Lets hope Cisse proves me wrong again in that match.

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  46. The time to worry abut Cisse is when he stops getting into scoring positions, personally I think the less time he has with a chance the better, he is a born finisher, which is born out by how he comes up with these last minute winners.

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  48. Mark – Correct. But he’s still scored near on 1 goal every three games and is still almost bang on a 1 in 2 goals to game ratio during his time here which isn’t so bad considering how **** he apparently is.

    Without his goals in recent weeks we’d be where the Mackems are.

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  50. No, not this again. 🙄

    I’m glad that Jonas has been running again, much more like him of the last season.

    Bring on the teams from stadium of light! 🙂

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  51. Cisse has won us quite a few games by scoring in the last minutes or seconds of a match. He does what a striker should do. He scores and wins games. I don’t care if he does nowt all match if he puts in goals lie that. He wears black n white. That’s enough for me to support him!

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  52. With this win to build on, there is a very very strong possibility that the next PL fixture if we win, we could already be inside top 10.

    Since Southampton will face West ham next.

    😈 😈

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  53. Anyway I’m off. Some of the comments on here post-match have just completely reinforced why I rarely dip into the comments these days. Bed time for me. Work in a few hours. Night all.

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  54. Lads…that Cisse is the only striker we have is one issue, and a huge one at that. Thank flock we have him at the end of the day, cos without him we’d be right in **** street city arizona..

    That Cisse is frustrating and misses good chances or makes bad choices is another issue..

    Both are valid points…

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  56. 6 games to go, in the previous 6 we’ve collected 6 points not great but good enough to stay up.
    Villa have collected 9 they’ll be safe.
    Southampton 10 points ditto
    Norwich have collected only 3 but should be fine
    That leaves, and I reckon bottom 5
    Wigan have collected 6 points in 5 games with the 6th game today, not collecting them fast enough to catch us imo.
    Stoke who’ve managed 1 point in the last 6 games
    Scum 2 points
    QPR 6 in 5 with 6th today…too little too late and Reading 0 points in 6
    Not neccesarily in that order, would love the Scum to go down tho 😈

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  58. @Toon TRW

    I think Jonas was one of our best players today. How many times did he leave their players for dead on that left wing and running from left back.

    MOTM Taylor, Yanga or Jonas?

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  60. Ecstatic with the win. Great goal by Cisse and well done the lads for their never say die attitude. Talk about snatching a result at the last minute, great stuff. Loved the players and Pardew celebrating with the crowd.Rat munchers getting beat as well, what a great day.
    Toonsy and co thought this was a forum for fans to exchange opinions. By definition we won’t all agree but don’t know why there has to be the snidey put downs from some people.

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  61. Cisse’s not above criticism, but his numbers speak for themselves. He should have squared for Marvs today, but other than that, I’m having trouble recalling the sitters. He had one off the post and a heavy touch in a crowded box that saw Schwarzer snatch the ball off his toe. The others were half chances at best, as, arguably, was his goal.

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  62. Fact is I don’t see any other ****** saving our skin at the moment goalwise 🙄 . Yes we should be able to criticize players but there has to be good cause for it and Cisse is the only striker we have ever had that can score a precious winner yet still get moaned about caused he missed a couple of sitters 🙄 I just don’t get it .

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  64. Wonder what happens to Pards if after we finished 5th in his first full season, he wins the Europa Cup in his second. That would also get us EL footie next season.
    So vote for it against Benfica. That would stop 5th place getting EL footie. We ain’t getting relegated. Euphoria.

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  65. Jonas was beast today, some of his runs were awesome, ran three quarters of the pitch in one of them beating about six players 😎 .

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  66. Here’s an idea ,why don’t we all talk about what a beautiful cultured turn and volley that goal was:)

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  67. I forgot about Marv he was our best attacking player today by a good bit. Wish he could play like that every week though.

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  69. Marv and Jonas had stormers today like, 2 cb’s were canny too, mind I couldn’t give a **** if they all played ***** as long as the result was the same 😉

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  71. Kim…Probably because some on here think the misses are more important than the one that went in 😉

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  72. Prem@289 – if Pardew wins the Europa Cup this season, it’s safe to say that he can do anything. 😉

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  74. Also Krul who made two absolute amazing saves you could argue were more important than the goal.

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