Team News:
Newcastle United:
It’s fair to say that the fans have been calling out for quality defensive reinforcements for several transfer windows now and yet again the club failed to address the area in January. As a result, we were one injury away from crisis and hey presto! Chancel Mbemba has now been ruled out for several weeks with an ankle injury. His replacement Jamaal Lascelles got himself sent off so misses out today leaving only Captain Fabricio Coloccini and an injury prone hot and cold running Steven Taylor available, who will be lacking match sharpness. At left back Paul Dummett has aggravated his hamstring and sits out for a while whilst Massaido Heidara remains absent until mid March with a knee complaint. Kevin Mbabu returns to the squad carrying a knock and may have to fill in again. Jack Colback (hamstring) is out until next week at the earliest whilst Vurnon Anita and Gabriel Obertan are carrying the same injury. Siem De Jong (eye) may or may not return to the squad today. Tim Krul and Curtis Good are out for the season. Seydou Doumbia is not fit enough to start according to McClaren, but Cheick Tiote returns to the squad following his collapsed move to China. Youngsters Callum Williams, Liam Gibson and Dan Barlaser have all been training with the first team this week.
West Bromwich Albion:
Jonny Evans and James Morrison (both hamstring) are out for 3 and 5 weeks respectively. Callum McManaman has been ruled out by an ankle injury until the beginning of March whilst Chris Brunt (calf strain) is expected back next week. Otherwise it’s a clean bill of health for the Baggies even though Tony Pullis has hinted that Newcastle transfer target Saido Berahino is unlikely to start as he gathers match fitness. Expect him to come off the bench and put us to the sword then….
Shamrock’s stats and facts:
1) The first ever game between these sides took place in 1898, finishing 3-0 to to the Magpies.
2) West Brom have failed to win on the road in the last 6 attempts.
3) Newcastle have won 6 of their 9 home Premier League games in this fixture.
4) Victor Anichebe has scored more times against the Toon than any other PL side (5).
5) West Bromwich Albion have scored 39% of their goals from headers this season, a PL high.
6) Newcastle have filed to keep a clean sheet for 9 games.
Referee:
Officiating today is 44-year-old Lee Mason from Bolton. Of the 19 Toon games he has officiated since 2010, Newcastle have won only 6. He has taken only one Magpies fixture against the Baggies, which took place at the Hawthorns and finished 1-0 to West Brom. Lee Mason caused controversy when he failed to award Newcastle a stone-wall penalty when we were 1 goal down against Liverpool in April 2015. Lovren hacked down Perez and Liverpool went on to win 2-0. Overall though, he is a steady and experienced referee that generally gets the big calls right. He’s just not a lucky omen for us!
Kick off at 15:00, St. James’ Park.
Lineups:
Toon: 21 Elliot, 22 Janmaat, 27 Taylor, 2 Coloccini, 16 Aarons, 12 Shelvey, 24 Tioté, 7 Sissoko, 5 Wijnaldum, 25 Townsend, 45 Mitrovic. Substitutes: 17 Pérez, 23 Saivet, 26 Darlow, 28 Doumbia, 35 Gibson, 40 Williams, 47 Barlaser.
Baggies: 1 Foster, 25 Dawson, 23 McAuley, 3 Olsson, 4 Chester, 5 Yacob, 30 Sandro, 8 Gardner, 24 Fletcher, 14 McClean, 10 Anichebe. Substitutes: 13 Myhill, 15 Pocognoli, 17 Lambert, 18 Berahino, 20 Pritchard, 29 Sessegnon, 33 Rondón.
HWTL
SHAMROCK how exactly do you get an article published on here , i have thought about it before and might have a go at it . It will take a while though i need too engage my brain first 😉
AXEL(Quote)
Derby being ruthless in their pursuit of success. Sacked Clement already!
Stuart79(Quote)
I see Derby have sacked their manager after six months they are only five points off the top,had a little dip but it happens to a lot of clubs in the ccc it’s a old lge,a rough on him imo,hope we don’t have to sample it next season
Icedog(Quote)
Tough
Icedog(Quote)
Axel, TDS – I will email you both tonight or tomorrow. Basically, you write your story and email it to me. I then publish it and put you down as the author 🙂
Shamrock(Quote)
under 21s down to ten men after 11min,1-1 both pens
icedog(Quote)
Thanks SHAMROCK
AXEL(Quote)
TDS @ 425 No to TV replays for me. As much as I dislike some referees, I’d prefer their human errors to waiting a few minutes for some electronics assisted decision.
We already see replays of incidents and see them in slow motion and ultra slow motion and we still have different interpretations of events.
Simply change the wording of the rules to make things clearer about intention and also have goal line officials like they have in the Euro comps. After that, it’s up to the ref – that’s what he (or she) is there for.
Brisvegas(Quote)
Bris I agree with that. The extra slow replays can make things look entirely different. Just go back to the classic old offside rule.
Shamrock(Quote)
The classic offside rule was a farce, though. Offside even though you are nowhere near the ball.
Brisvegas(Quote)
It’s clear cut though.
Shamrock(Quote)
Bris – it might be frustrating, particularly when a player is just getting up from “Injury” etc, but I would rather the black and white than a rule which is just applied inconsistently due to how a ref/lino is feeling on the day, and “shockingly” seems to favour the more established sides, more often than not.
Newkie(Quote)
Axel, TDS – you have mail..
If anybody else is interested in writing articles then let me know.
Shamrock(Quote)
I think they get offsides right much more often than could be expected because it is very hard to judge where the player who is moving at speed is when the ball is kicked. They should definitely err more on the side of the attacker when the calls are marginal as it seems they do the opposite now. The odd extra goal for a mistake might add to the game because at the moment I think there are more ruled out than given due to linesmens’ mistakes. Although, as I said, overall they do a good job.
My guess is that the law was put into place originally to stop teams just putting a player on the six yard line and having a speculative hoof? I doubt it was meant to penalize someone for having a foot beyond the last player but that is how it is being interpreted. You have to give the attacker the benefit which is in the law but is not how it is applied in the PL. They would rather rule our a goal than give it, probably because of the overreaction of certain mangers – Mourinho, Allardyce, Wenger etc.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< is shocked some peeps here dont want to use replays seeing as most of these **** decisions seem to go against us 😯
TOONARMYELITE(Quote)
I think goal line technology has improved the game, and I’d be all for a video ref reviewing certain decisions.
But I would want it like tennis, whereby each side would only get 2 challenges per game – they could use them for anything – but once they have used their 2 that’s it.
I don’t see that slowing the game down too much at all – no more than a player faking an injury. The clock would be stopped so the time added back to avoid them being used to waste time.
I just think that referees get too many big decisions wrong and they can be very costly.
Sharpy17(Quote)
Sharpy: the only problem with your solution is stopping the clock. That is not feasible as if they did it now for every dive, foul, time wasting, yellow, argument etc. you would have 20 minutes of added time every game.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Eric – I’m talking a total number of challenges per game being 4 (2 each) – if they are used you’re talking maybe 2mins or less per challenge – it’s generally very quick in tennis (though I know it’s different technologies used). But even in rugby it really doesn’t take that long.
Sharpy17(Quote)
Eric but if you allow team’s two call’s like they do in tennis then anything after that is the ref’s decision. Team’s would have to use those call’s wisely.
Terry(Quote)
It could prevent a red card. A player diving. Or an offside goal in a very short period of time.
Terry(Quote)
2 reviews per team would be enough in my opinion ya only ganna use them at the major calls that go against ya,ya not ganna use them on debated corners or throw ins.theres to much money involved in football, to not use tech these days
TOONARMYELITE(Quote)
There isn’t a clock in tennis and Rugby is virtually non-stop except for injuries which tend to be real injuries. I have thought about it though and have a solution. You make every review exactly 1 minute, no more no less. This automatically gets tagged on as an extra minute and if the video official cannot make up his mind after 1 minute the original call stands.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Oh, and no players buggering off to the sidelines to get coached during the reviews.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
the last game we would of only used 1 review and that would of been for the tiote dis allowed goal
TOONARMYELITE(Quote)
We should have TV Reply’s for decisions that are matter of fact that can be the difference between clear match changing Situations. Did the ball go out of play before it led to a goal, was the foul inside the box, was the player offside ect… Too much money at stake in my opinion these days for it to be left to a ‘guess’.
Stuart79(Quote)
2 reviews would also stop players cheating and diveing in the box if they think a review might be called they aint ganna dive and try and con the ref,tech will be used sooner or later its just a matter of time in my opinion
TOONARMYELITE(Quote)
Wrong on so many counts. If the option to call for a review is there it will be taken, there are always many contentious decisions in a game. Admittedly not game changing, but often that is not known at the time.
Given the time that pundits spend reviewing decisions and still disagreeing there is no value in reviews of that nature. The only reviews that work are for matters of fact, did the ball cross the line. Was there contact. Was a player in an offside position. All valid and therefore should be unlimited and at the refs discretion.
As to was he interfering with play, was he unsighted, not appropriate as they are matters of opinion and the ref has already made the call.
Surrounding the ref to get an opinion changed should be the captain only asking politely for a reason. Anything else should be an automatic yellow card for all involved.
Premandup(Quote)
PREMANDUP
you would fit right in with the oap at fifa and the fa 😆
TOONARMYELITE(Quote)
Sham – will let you know once I’ve got something penned
Newkie(Quote)
I agree with Prem.
Stuart79(Quote)
PREMANDUP
sorry bud i read it wrong thought ya were against useing tech
TOONARMYELITE(Quote)
but unlimited would take to long in my opinion they would be reviewing everything
TOONARMYELITE(Quote)
TAE – The only things that need reviewing are for matters of fact that could lead to a goal (penalty) or did lead to a goal (offside or out of play ball) so they wouldn’t be stopping play that often. How many contentious decisions are made in matches that lead to goals? Not too many, but it would erradicate the obvious errors which are hard for the officials to always get right.
Stuart79(Quote)
STUART79
i think 2 would be enough meself say they were using the review for the tiote dis allowed goal if i was collo i would of asked the rottweiler did ya get a touch on that and if he said no i would of called for a review
TOONARMYELITE(Quote)
http://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2016/02/09/peter-beardsley-claims-seydou-doumbia-reminds-him-of-newcastle-c/
kimtoon(Quote)
Ok cheers Newkie. Look forward to it.
Shamrock(Quote)
Every goal should be checked for offside..every goal! .. it would only take a moment.. in the AFL here in Oz a video ref double checks every goal.. play goes on as normal and you don’t notice it until he has to advise the umpire. The goal line tech happens very quickly, no reason the offside rule shouldn’t.
Aussie Magpie Fan(Quote)
The one change I would like to see is that when a player is injured the physio should be allowed onto the field to treat the player while play is continuing. That one rule would stop most of the play acting as play wouldn’t be stopped and your team would be playing with ten men until you were treated.
Stuart79(Quote)
If they checked every goal we wouldn’t need linesmen to call for offside… just throws and fouls..
The problem is that the rule would not be able to be enacted in every level of football and fifa would not be all for it.. its the same reason the goal line tech took so long to come in..
Aussie Magpie Fan(Quote)
Or get rid of the offside rule.. Hockey did id years ago and the sport hasn’t suffered. The games are a lot more open that is for sure!
Aussie Magpie Fan(Quote)
AUSSIE MAGPIE FAN
cant see them scraping the off side rule meself but it sure would make the game alot more exciting 😉
TOONARMYELITE(Quote)
Agree TAE, it would be awesome… imagine the score lines.. 9 -7 😆
Aussie Magpie Fan(Quote)
Aussie – problem is only schoolgirls play hockey, so there’d be no TV replays anyway. Oh, and nobody cares about it. 🙂
Agree about letting play carry on whilst a review is undertaken by the vid ref – they do it in ruggers too about the grounding of tries. People complained in the world cup that they checked the grounding too much, but it takes a matter of seconds to check whether a try is a certain thing – and if there’s doubt you can review it a few more times and make an informed decision, though there’s still some debate sometimes.
Newkie(Quote)
AUSSIE MAGPIE FAN
nothing worse than the linesman flags ganning up when ya half way though ya victory dance round the sitting room 😆 😆 😆
TOONARMYELITE(Quote)
The rule I would like to see changed is when a player is injured by a foul tackle then the player who caused the injury should also stay off the pitch until the injured player/substitute returns to the game.
At the moment ,the player who causes the injury is rewarded by giving his team a one man advantage for several minutes. Totally wrong in my opinion.
sidekick(Quote)
Newkie… i was waiting for the 1st football diehard to mention “this ain’t a hockey blog” style comment.
Thought it was going to be Stuart…but there you go!! 😆
Aussie Magpie Fan(Quote)
TAE, im normally too shocked to see a feckin goal go in to jump about celebrating! 😆
Aussie Magpie Fan(Quote)
Aussie – it’s not the variety, I have no beans with AFL. But we have enough menopausal hysteria on here without bringing hockey into the mixture…
Newkie(Quote)
Sidekick agree. Sin Bins would help?
Premandup(Quote)
Newkie 😆 my fingers did quiver as I typed hockey and afl… I was wading in to dangerous waters! 😆 😆
Aussie Magpie Fan(Quote)
Aussie – exactly! 😆
Newkie(Quote)
Imo a bloody good help would be get ex players to take up the game and become refs nobody knows more about what goes on during a game than them and bring in sin bins,at the moment there is a balls up in every game every week it’s ends up costing clubs millions at times
Icedog(Quote)
Prem – sin bins may be a good idea but the arguments would then begin about that. I thought Tiote’s shot was a genuine goal. The late swerve on the ball meant he wouldn’t have saved it anyway. As it stands does the offside player now have to stop and think am I in the way of anything here? I thought it was Ok for a player to stand anywhere he wants on the pitch.
georgio(Quote)
Georgio since when was it ok for a player to stand where ever he wants on the pitch?
Aussie Magpie Fan(Quote)
Aussie – I could be wrong but if the player doesn’t touch the ball or commit a foul then he can spend the whole game marking the corner flag if he wants. Or he could stand by his keeper . . .
What do you think?
georgio(Quote)
I think that is ridiculous mate.. all players are influencing the game… if you are not then go sit on the bench.. if a player is lurking in an offside position, he is still taking the attention of a defender.. how many times have you seen a defence hold a line, a ball gets kicked over the top, a lazy striker puts his hands up to say”Im offside” then another player from a deeper position runs through to the ball.. its BS to say that players aren’t are part of the play…
Aussie Magpie Fan(Quote)
They say it all evens out over a season but it doesn’t. The Refs definitely have a big club bias whether it be because of what their high profile managers will say or what the press will say.
Sure, the press might question a dodgy penalty if is given for Leicester against Man U and the talk will go on for a day. If it costs Man U the points it will be in the press for weeks or even years.
I think that would be the biggest benefit of replays to take away some of that bias although quite a few replays are not conclusive even after many viewings.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
How about drawing a line from touch line to touch line at the 18 yard box and saying you are only offside if you are inside that? That would encourage attacking play and the linesmen would have a smaller area to police. It happens already to an extent because you cannot be offside in your own half.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
FcK, I wish Tiote had never taken that shot now 🙂
Eric Sykes(Quote)
SHAMROCK
Thanks. I’ll get onto writing my article now. Actually I have to do a bit of research for it too as I want a few facts in there for the topic I have in mind…might take a little while to do that.
ToonDarnSarf(Quote)
Talking about injury time being added due to replays on certain decisions, I actually think the old American league had 2 really cool things in it:
1 – Clear defined rule about when time was up. Clock was stopped by the ref for certain things and 90 mins meant time up. I’d be happy if it was either 90 mins was time up even if the ball was halfway towards the goal or 90 mins meant time up next time possession was lost.
2 – The penalties were much cooler! A certain amount of time (I think 20 or 30 seconds) to dribble the ball from distance and go one on one with the goalkeeper. Multiple options on how the goal could be scored.
ToonDarnSarf(Quote)
And I think decisions should be referred just like tennis or cricket. Each team gets 2 or 3 referrals and can use them for any decision they want. Captain decides and has say 5 seconds to decide on whether to refer after the incident. If he’s right to appeal the decision, he keeps the referral. Wrong and he loses it. Serves him right if he loses his referrals for bad decisions and then suffers with a dodgy offside goal in the 89th minute.
Would barely delay decisions. Ok, it might have taken a while to come to a conclusion on the Tiote goal at the weekend, but many decisions are clear cut.
Either play the injury time or change the rule to the 90mins as I mentioned in my last post.
ToonDarnSarf(Quote)
Doesn’t matter what the offside rule is, it’s ALWAYS been controversial.
But to me there are offside decisions like at the weekend where I can imagine Foster felt aggrieved because the ball seemed to bend around Mitrovic (who was in an offside position), whereas there are decisions like Tiote v Man City where I think the goal should have been given but Hart might claim the offside NUFC player put him off because Hart was wondering if he might get a touch.
How about put GPS systems on them all and have a flashing red light on their head if they’re offside? 😉
ToonDarnSarf(Quote)
TDS – That’s the thing, as Aussie points out, anyone in the keeper’s vision (so pretty much every player) is impacting his thought process, as they do with defenders not knowing which striker is offside. Hart and any keeper will argue it in every manner possible in order to prevent a goal – just as they would always edge the ball back onto/over the line despite the ball clearly going over. Hart would never have saved the shot that beat him and I don’t think Foster would have either – he shuffled to the left (when he could see it) and that had already taken him away from the swerve of the shot, I’m not sure how well he would have recovered to be honest.
My gut feeling is that he’d have got a few fingers to it but the power would have taken it into the back of the net – as a minor deflection still left half the goal for the ball to go in.
Of course, that’s in my completely unbiased toon opinion 🙂
Newkie(Quote)
NEWKIE
Completely unbiased! Haha! 😯
My view is that Hart was probably beaten but his only chance was if he dived straight away and ignored the offside player. But I think Foster would have saved it. The ball was going to his left side but he couldn’t see the swerve until too late. That was because of Mitrovic standing offside.
ToonDarnSarf(Quote)
Phil Thompson agrees with me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58iUwE24xfU
Also says lovely things about us. 🙂
ToonDarnSarf(Quote)
There you go: http://www.trollfootball.me/display.php?id=76291
ToonDarnSarf(Quote)
Becomes an opinion on whether he’d save it or not, but no doubt that Mitrovic obstructed Fosters vision and that Mitrovic was in an offside position. So it had to be disallowed by the very clear law.
Not to say that I wouldn’t like the law to be more specific. Mitrovic made no forward movement and no attempt to play the ball. Also it’s clear he wasn’t deliberately trying to put Foster off. But that becomes hard to prove in certain circumstances.
I would like to see a rule where goals like that could be given.
ToonDarnSarf(Quote)
I don’t know why we don’t just have a bog clock that is visible to everyone like in Rugby and it just stops when there’s a stoppage in play. The game finishes when it strikes 90. Simple.
Stuart79(Quote)
Can we have a 90 minute rule on this blog so that overblown discussions can be time curtailed, there is too much filibustering on this site
Premandup(Quote)
TDS – Foster I can agree with but no way on earth is Hart saving that shot, it’s still in his vision and goof not in his vision when he would need to have dived imo. Even if he had, it nestles way too far away for him.
Look, the awesome Carragher and the amazing Valencia manager agree with me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rzWoApvwWY
and the beeb.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR1cmg3YgkY 😀
If it becomes a matter of opinion on whether the keeper would save, it’s also a matter of opinion on how much the player blocks the keeper’s view. As you say, not deliberate and it’s not like he’s blocked the vision for a prolonged period/distance, it’s nothing really. What about Goof? Pretty much everyone says it was minimal, at the last second, and made no difference to the goal. You could go around the houses with this one. Agree that I’d prefer goals like these to be counted – wonder strikes like this are what the game is about and Tiote has been hard done by, because all 3 of his goals for us could have been massive. Goals against me **** me off, but you can’t begrudge a player a strike like that imo…
Newkie(Quote)
Stu – yeah I’d go for that. Time off/on is simple. It also prevents the extra 11 minutes that certain teams get for no explicable reason, when required.
Newkie(Quote)
Prem – No, that would kill the blog 😆
Newkie(Quote)
Newkie, some of those diatribes are killing the blog 👿
Premandup(Quote)
Prem – it’s interesting isn’t it. I doubt if anyone really cares about the Tiote non goal anyway but football has this way of provoking comment. I was in a pub once and a 2 hour discussion took place on whether Robledo would be top scorer these days. No one was old enough to have seen him play!
georgio(Quote)