no one is prepared to do a thread for this game please log in to view this image ......... v .................. please log in to view this image Big Financial Team...... v .......... Small Team It's live on BT Sport. Newcastle return to League action on Saturday when they visit the Etihad Stadium for a 5.30pm start against reigning champions Manchester City. Manchester City, who dropped points against Wolverhampton Wanderers on Saturday, will seek to return to winning ways and rejoin the leaders as they entertain Newcastle United. Did you know? Man City are unbeaten in their last 21 top-flight matches against Newcastle (W18 D3). It is their longest ever unbeaten run against a single top-flight opponent, and is also Newcastle’s longest such winless run. Newcastle will be looking for their first point in 10 trips to the Etihad Stadium. City have won all seven of their Premier League matches in September under Pep Guardiola, scoring 26 goals and conceding just twice. Guardiola hasn’t lost a match in September in all competitions as a manager since 2010, when he was in charge of Barcelona. He is unbeaten in 41 matches since (W35 D6). Sergio Aguero has scored 14 goals in his 11 PL appearances against Newcastle. Eight of those have come in his last two home matches against them. He scored five times in October 2015 and three times in January 2018. Referee: Kevin Friend Assistants: Simon Bennett, Derek Eaton Fourth official: Craig Pawson NUFC: Jonjo Shelvey and Florian Lejeune remain out due to injury, but Jamaal Lascelles and Matt Ritchie were photographed in training on Thursday.so could be included Javier Manquillo is doubtful, while Isaac Hayden completes his last match ban of 3 with this all in mind I'm going for 3-1 to the Toon
I'd have gone for the win, but with Manquillo and Hayden still out we may have to settle for the draw.
If only Chippy had done this thread... well, at least we would have had something to laugh at... Sick of being on TV. Can we just not go back to playing at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon.
I actually hope he does and gets the 0-0. This game isn't the same as Chelsea, this is about discipline. My hope is he doesn't see this as another chance to prove a point.....by that I mean suddenly turning up with this pissy 4-4-2 and getting absolutely slammed.
Have we invited Man City to their ground or is there a chance we win by default through them not showing up?
3-0 to Man C. I'm sure we'll adopt the same park the bus mentality before the door creaks open and we lose comfortably. Or we concede early and get absolutely mullered. I don't actually mind it away a little park the bus. Doing it at home where history shows we have a chance is nonsensical, but in these type of games I'm not sure we have any hope either way. Even when we were decent we lost comfortably on our travels to decent teams. The sooner this one is over the better.
Frankly, if he manages to get 13 players on the pitch without the referee noticing, he's an even better tactical manager than I thought. That being said - according to Transfermarkt, our 13 most valuable players are worth £117million. City's most valuable player is worth £135million on his own. So it might not do us that much good after all...
We were playing a different Chelsea to the one we've played in previous seasons, they will actually be title challengers this time. In my opinion it will be them and City. Pool are getting all giddy but think they'll eventually fall away as per. With that in mind, you can guarantee us to park that bus, home and away, against all 3. Its for that lovely, lovely GD which, in fairness, was the reason we finished 10th last season.
5-4-1 line up again - I'd go with the following: ------------------Dubruvka------------------ Yedlin-Schar-Lacselles-Dummett-Kenedy ----Ritchie---Diame---Shelvey---Perez---- --------------------Rondon------------------ Darlow, Fernandez, Clark, Murphy, Ki, Muto, Joselu Let Yedlin and Kenedy bomb on while Ritchie and Perez come in and try to get close to Rondon to offer support. 5-4-1 should allow us to go 3-4-3 while in possession but I fear we will just thump it towards Rondon and hope something sticks...
That is one way to look at it. For me though its a negative way to look at it. For me we finished 10th because we had a go at the big teams at home. We picked up 10 points from a possible 18 at home to the big 6 teams. We only parked the bus once. Man City at home. We lost. Spurs was the only other defeat which was Shelveys fault. Indeed if you look at Chelsea this season, against Arsenal, when we opened up a little, their vulnerability is most certainly defensively. It was complete brain fade to try to defend for 90mins, essentially allowing them to focus on their strongest aspect, attacking. We all make mistakes though and Rafa is no different. He did last season and still got us to 10th. Perhaps understandably after the window he had to endure, he has lost a bit of his energy for the role. He has maybe got into too negative a mindset and decided the gulf is bigger than it actually is. In reality we are no closer or further away from the top sides last season in my opinion. He is not to blame for negativity which has seeped through to our players, coaches, manager. That is created from above. What we do need though is Rafa to shake off this malaise quickly and get on with the significant job at hand.
