143 thoughts on “Newcastle United v Brentford: Pre-match ramblings

  1. Cheers Andy, I think we’ll win this one, just a feeling like. Rafa’s had a bit more time to work on the team and I’m hoping it pays off.

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  2. kimtoon:
    Cheers Andy, I think we’ll win this one, just a feeling like. Rafa’s had a bit more time to work on the team and I’m hoping it pays off.

    he hasnt had much time really mate,maybe a day and a half with a lot of the first team were away playing for their country,this is a canny team we are playing ime worried a bit over this one,they havent really had any players away so had a nice rest and plenty time to work on their game plan

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  3. Holloway’s got us down as a loss. Whilst I take anything he says with a pinch of salt, we’re right to have a bit of cause for concern. If Wolves can beat us on our own turf, then these certainly are capable too.

    icedog: he hasnt had much time really mate,maybe a day and a half with a lot of the first team were away playing for their country,this is a canny team we are playing ime worried a bit over this one,they havent really had any players away so had a nice rest and plenty time to work on their game plan

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  4. They sound like a decent team but there again if you look closely the whole division does. It’s no time for faint hearts if we want to get out of here. Just please take the early chances when they come!

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  5. Well, I think Rafa will not have a full squad to choose from. If I were him I wouldn’t play any of the players who went to Africa or Yedlin who went to the USA and Cuba. The other internationals were in Europe so that is not too arduous. I doubt anybody would be ruled out unless they played both their qualifiers which is only Clark and Ritchie. I think he will save Ritchie but may play Clark as he has said there is not as much stress on defenders as forwards. This is especially true since we have a game on tuesday and I think MBemba might come in for Clark then.

    The question then is who comes in for Diame and Ritchie? My guess is Mitro and Perez since Atsu was in Africa. My guess at the team is therefore:

    Darlow

    Anita Lascelles Clark Dummett

    Perez Hayden Shelvey Gouffy

    Mitro Gayle

    I think Rafa will play as close to the best available team in order to get this win in the bank after the international break.

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  6. One more thing on International Breaks. The next round of matches takes place on the 11, 12, 13 of November. But there is a 2 week break. So what do they do, arrange a friendly for the second week (England play Spain). It is bad enough that there is a 2 week break at a critical part of the season but a week of it is for friendlies FFS. Why not make it a 1 week break?

    Maybe the South Americans or Africans have to play 2 games at that time, I don’t know and I don’t care. This is totally stupid and if they had to miss some of their European based players then tough ***, that’s what happens with the ACON. Which is also a joke by the way having a tournament every 2 years at probably the most critical time of the season barring the final month.

    So settle in boys for a few NUFC matches before we have another fkin 2 week break in 3 weeks time. Morons.

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  7. Agree Eric, it MUST have an effect on all teams, how can you get any bloody momentum going with all this stop and start, ridiculous situation. No way we should be playing a friendly at this time of year.

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  8. i hate these bloody breaks,the better teams in this lge will always have players away,the poorer teams lose none of their players therefore they can rest up and work on their game plans thats why you get strange results in this lge,most PL teams have players away so it kinda evens things out,i do worry a bit on these games after breaks,imo this game will be tough

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  9. kimtoon:
    Ice, hope not mate, I’m to ill to be put through a tense affair

    Your in my thoughts mate,I feel for you,hope the pain has eased a bit

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  10. Good article Andy mate. Brentford sound good enough to worry about but we have to win matches like this one to get promoted. Just one of many must wins. Get well soon Kimtoon mate. You sound a bit worn down.

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  11. I think our defense is now solid enough that we should be able to deal with Brentford. I think 3-1 to us with them getting a goal on the break. I know their defense has been stingy but NUFC being at home should present them with quite a few problems.

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  12. I know I have ranted about the international break but the qualification rules are even more stupid. The Europe pot has 8 groups and the winners of each go through. Second place goes into a pot to play a 2 legged knockout game and the winners of that goes to Russia. This might sound fine until you see a couple of the groups.

    Group A has France, Holland and Sweden. One of them will finish 3rd and will not go to the finals. Whoever finishes second goes into the knockout crapshoot. If we have learned tournaments like the Europa League it is that the better team does not always go through in these formats.

    Group G has Spain and Italy so one of these teams will end up in this crapshoot.

    Amazingly, England have been handed the easiest group but have still struggled against Slovenia and Slovakia. They are likely to win the group but of they do not they could easily face a very difficult opponent if they finish second and might not even make it to Russia.

    The groups were all decided on a seeding system based on World Ranking. Believe it or not, England and Wales were number 1 seeds and France and Italy were number 2 seeds. Bizarre.

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  13. this constant disruption for international games is preventing us getting up a head of steam, and may hinder our promotion hopes. I hate these international breaks, tomorrow will be a draw 1-1 and more grinding of teeth for the geordie faithful.

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  14. Eric Sykes, get your money on Germany mate, they are just unearthing a brilliant striker in Draxler, and marco reus will soon be back to full fitness…they’ll be pretty much invincible by the time the russia world cup comes round.
    England and Scotland both stink…. and show no signs of improving..

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  15. The good news is that Europe has by far the most teams going to Russia at 13. More than double any other area where a few of the South American teams will be disappointed because they only have 5 spots. However, the way it is set up it is very conceivable that France and Italy could finish 2nd in their group and have to go into a pot for a 2 legged knockout, winner takes all. From what I have seen there is no seeding in the knockout stage so the bingo ping-pong balls and the football Gods might throw them together.

    So basically, even though England have been **** at tournaments and Wales have done nowt in their history, the fact they have recently beaten up on crappy teams puts them in the top 10 of FIFA world rankings and gets them high seedings. I suppose if you are England then these international breaks are essential to maintaining a high ranking by beating crappy teams, but when you get to the tournament you are useless because the only competitive games you have had is against crappy teams. In a way it is self-fulfilling.

    Sorry to go on, but I think this sort of explains why England qualify and then turn out to be ****.

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  16. Also, the South American qualifications only have 4.5 spots. They are all in a big group and the 5th place team has to play a team from another conference in order to qualify. Argentina are currently 5th and Chile are 7th.

    I think this madness is why the new FIFA president wants to expand the number of teams at the finals.

    In the meantime, we are stuck with all of these international breaks because FIFA and UEFA are more interested in money than making sensible decisions on qualification.

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  17. Munich: that nice man Rupert Murdoch has the rights to the Bundesliga so I watch a few games (he started the PL here but when it picked up steam he was outbid for the rights). I will keep an eye on Draxler although I have seen him a few times and he looks like he could be the next big thing.

    We need it as Messi, Suarez and Ronaldo are getting on. There’s Griezmann and Neymar and of course Rooney is still at the top of his game.

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  18. Sorry. I got riled up when I looked into how qualifying worked and even more riled up when I realised they were playing fckn friendlies during these international breaks and it got me to look deeper into the qualifying rules. England play Germany in a friendly in March so we will see how they stack up. I am pretty certain it is during an international break as well 😐 Gareth (relegated Boro, Finished bottom of Euro’15 U21 Group) Southgate will probably be Manager and Wayne will probably still be (non-playing) Captain.

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  19. Paul Merson’s giant balloon head has just announced that Rooney should start against Liverpool to “take the pressure off Pogba”. FFS, couldn’t he see that Rooney was stunting Pogba’s game by coming into his space and was **** on top of that. I despair sometimes.

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  20. Actually, on closer inspection, it might be a new orange variety of potato with a collar and tie underneath.

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  21. Andy – thanks for the article mate. I cob on when there isn’t a pre and post match article so thanks for putting this together.

    I hope to see a good month from us personally. We have some good fixtures, most of the players have had a 2 week break from competitive football and Rafa has had time to work with them.
    To my knowledge the players are fit & Rafa should have a good idea of who his strongest 11 are by now.

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  22. Reckon 2-0 tomorrow.

    Little bit of food for thought – we’ve actually only lost 1 from 9 and have had a pretty tough run of fixtures despite losing our first two games.

    Things are looking ok.

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  23. Stu, agree mate it could be much worse. A win tomorrow and hopefully my cold and cough subside a bit and I will be a happy bunny.

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  24. Warnock will be very pleased to win particularly cause he doesn’t get on well with Gary or Lee Johnson having a run in with both in the past.

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  25. Hopefully Bruce doesn’t get Villa going. They are actually on live here tomorrow and it looks like he lost a bit of weight from the photos. I will confirm when I see him. He said Villa fans had called him Potato Head for 20 years but he took it as a compliment. I have absolutely no idea what that means.

    McClaren might get Derby going as well as that is about his level and he hasn’t taken his former backroom staff with him. Too late for this season I think.

    So that is 2 of our expected rivals probably getting playoffs at best. Unless we play to Munich Mag’s predictions I think we are in good shape as teams will start to adapt to Huddersfield’s style of play and their squad becomes stretched.

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  26. Is it Saturday? Is there any Football on? Opportunity to leave a couple of clubs in our wake after last night.

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  27. I reckon that the league has just got a whole lot tougher with the re-appearance of Bruce and McLaren… neither good enough for the Premiership, but know there way round the Championship. In addition both clubs have owners who may be persuaded to spend some cash to back up thee new appointments. Derby aren’t too far away anyway, just need some tweaking. Fortunately we have played both of these teams away… I don’t necessarily think that Huddersfield will run out of steam either, they are a good side with a canny manager.
    In the mean time, Rafa has enough on his plate getting some of his misfiring attacking players to fire on all cylinders, especially Mitro, Perez and Diame… This area isn’t performing well enough to take the pressure off an at times brittle midfield and defence. With the reintroduction of Darlow he seems to have gotten the goalkeeping situation back under control.

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  28. TBH sometimes we seem to up our game when we play against a decent team, especially if they come to have a go and leave space at the back. I’d like to hope we won’t see another poor home performance.

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  29. DJG I read somewhere that a typical Raf team will often win the cagey tight fought games, but if they have to take the game to the opposition and break them down they struggle. Of course this is a difficult generalisation, and is dependent on which attacking options or players one has avaiable. One irritating part of the DNA of recent toon sides is the tendency to give the opponents control of the midfield, even at home. This is still happening this season.

    The last toon team to leave opponents floundering home and away was the toon line up with Ba and Cisse, Cabaye in the line up…

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  30. we didn’t manage to up our game against many teams last season. This season we have also struggled big time, only avoiding a massive defeat against Norwich by the skin of our teeth… ditto our last lucky win at Rotherham. For a club like NUFC with the coach, array of international players and resources available must say I haven’t been too impressed how we have won games this season. A win is a win though at the end of the day…

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  31. For all Gayle is a very capable finisher (certainly in the championship) he’s a bit like Cisse in that he is just there to score goals and nothing else. We now have options up front with some international strikers but we still haven’t got a Demba Ba or a Loic Remy level striker. To play with one up front like Rafa seems to be doing, I think you need a striker of that type and level. Mitrovic and Gayle should complement each other in theory because their games are different. Mitro could create space and distract defenders , which is what Gayle needs. Just look at the end of the Norwich game for an example of this, it created 2 goals in the space of 1 minute. We should play that from the start today IMO and not Diame as a no. 10, where he gets caught in no-mans-land. One can tell that Rafa is stubborn though and he will persist with something that doesn’t look right, like Sels in goal.

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  32. DJG Rafa and the toon got out of jail big time against Norwich. He hoyed Mitro up front, then relied on Shelvey, who was paggered anyway, to lump long balls forward, Gayle fed off the scraps created by Mitro’s presence. Route 1 football I think they call it.
    Norwichs central defence just fell apart, surprisingly and shockingly so, cos they were also paggered plus Mitro was there hoying his weight about for the last 20. If Mitro is as much use for the team in the starting line up I’m not sure, but starting with one man up front against supposed weaker opposition when at home with 50k behind you doesnt seem particularly adventurous.

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  33. I think Yedlin left the USA camp after the first friendly against Cuba last week, so he may be back and rested enough for this game, for what that’s worth.

    Any chance this one’s televized?

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  34. I guess this is the only thread available for the match then? I see Raffa is starting with Ayoze alongside Gayle and Atsu starts again.

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  35. More attack minded with Perez & Atsu :mrgreen:

    This conversation about Bob Bradley on soccer Saturday is practically identical to the one these dullards had when Pochettino went to Southampton. Stilted bigoted ******; What on earth makes shagger Giggs more suitable than a guy who coached at World Cups & has a decent record at every club he’s worked for ?

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  36. CC:
    More attack minded with Perez & Atsu

    Wish I’d heard that… hoping he does well…

    This conversation about Bob Bradley on soccer Saturday is practically identical to the one these dullards had when Pochettino went to Southampton. Stilted bigoted ******; What on earth makes shagger Giggs more suitable than a guy who coached at World Cups & has a decent record at every club he’s worked for ?

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  37. Ice, my teeth are fine it’s the head cold and hacking cough that’s killing me, feel heaps better at mo tho 😉

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  38. The Gayle Force wind blowing Newcastle up the table.

    No doubt Gayle still isn’t up to standard though, lol

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  39. Thanks for the radio link!

    Anybody watching Arsenal-Swansea? How’s Bald Bob Bradley doing? I must support my bald American brother.

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  40. Yeah Kim he sounds *****.. we should be 3 up now. Sounds like he’s dishing out cards like sweets too.

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