Fans outside of Portsmouth might take a look at our club and say "Ha! What a complete and utter shambles!" and to be fair it would be hard to disagree with that statement. However that statement would not even be powerful enough for our opponents tommorow.
Two seasons ago Newcastle United finished just short of a champions league space under Sir Bobby Robson but a bad start to the following season made Big Fat Freddy give Robson the boot and install "hardman" Greame Souness to bring some discipline back to the squad. What happened? Craig Bellamy left, Newcastle begin a rapid decline starting this season despite the huge amounts of money Souness spend on the squad and Souness would tell you it was down to injuries to all of these new players and other key members of the squad being the main reason that Newcastle United are now only 6 points clear of the drop zone. Newcastle United are now probably the biggest joke in the north east which is an amazing achievement considering Sunderland and Middlesbrough are also in the same area.
Now if you had to name one manager worse than Souness I'm sure a lot of readers here would shout "Alain Perrin!" immediately. But there are even worse than him. Glenn Roeder; now caretaker manager of Newcastle managed to get a team containing the likes of Defoe, Di Canio, Carrick, Joe Cole, Glen Johnson and David James relegated. Not the most impressive thing to have on your CV is it? Despite Souness getting sacked I still don't see any reason that we cannot go up there and win tommorow after our performance against Bolton.
If D'Alessandro, Todorov and Routledge could give such a strong side as Bolton many problems then how the hell are Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee going to cope in the centre of Newcastle's defence? If we start positively and frustrate the home fans then we can certainly take something from this game, but once again I stress we really need to win as time is running out and after this game we have consecutive home games against Manchester United and Chelsea.
The thing worrying me about tommorow is our own defence. It's uncertain if Dejan will be playing tommorow and it's no secret how bad our defence is away from home anyway and I do get this horrible, horrible feeling that Alan Shearer will break the Newcastle all-time goalscoring record against us tommorow. What is certain is that both teams can't defend so we could well be in for a cracker tommorow. Like I said before the performance on Wednesday filled me with confidence that we can beat the lower teams in the league it's just a matter of doing it now. The real pressure is on the home side so I'm hoping we don't give them any encouragement and frustrate them for a period before hitting them with a suckerpunch.
One more piece of news. DR Congo lost to Egypt 4-1 and are out of the African Cup of Nations so we'll be getting Lua Lua back very soon. Whether he'll get in the side is another matter.
It's a massive game for both teams tommorow. Let's hope it is the blue side in danger that takes the spoils tommorow. (I'll be mighty pissed off on the way back from Newcastle if we don't!)
Two seasons ago Newcastle United finished just short of a champions league space under Sir Bobby Robson but a bad start to the following season made Big Fat Freddy give Robson the boot and install "hardman" Greame Souness to bring some discipline back to the squad. What happened? Craig Bellamy left, Newcastle begin a rapid decline starting this season despite the huge amounts of money Souness spend on the squad and Souness would tell you it was down to injuries to all of these new players and other key members of the squad being the main reason that Newcastle United are now only 6 points clear of the drop zone. Newcastle United are now probably the biggest joke in the north east which is an amazing achievement considering Sunderland and Middlesbrough are also in the same area.
Now if you had to name one manager worse than Souness I'm sure a lot of readers here would shout "Alain Perrin!" immediately. But there are even worse than him. Glenn Roeder; now caretaker manager of Newcastle managed to get a team containing the likes of Defoe, Di Canio, Carrick, Joe Cole, Glen Johnson and David James relegated. Not the most impressive thing to have on your CV is it? Despite Souness getting sacked I still don't see any reason that we cannot go up there and win tommorow after our performance against Bolton.
If D'Alessandro, Todorov and Routledge could give such a strong side as Bolton many problems then how the hell are Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee going to cope in the centre of Newcastle's defence? If we start positively and frustrate the home fans then we can certainly take something from this game, but once again I stress we really need to win as time is running out and after this game we have consecutive home games against Manchester United and Chelsea.
The thing worrying me about tommorow is our own defence. It's uncertain if Dejan will be playing tommorow and it's no secret how bad our defence is away from home anyway and I do get this horrible, horrible feeling that Alan Shearer will break the Newcastle all-time goalscoring record against us tommorow. What is certain is that both teams can't defend so we could well be in for a cracker tommorow. Like I said before the performance on Wednesday filled me with confidence that we can beat the lower teams in the league it's just a matter of doing it now. The real pressure is on the home side so I'm hoping we don't give them any encouragement and frustrate them for a period before hitting them with a suckerpunch.
One more piece of news. DR Congo lost to Egypt 4-1 and are out of the African Cup of Nations so we'll be getting Lua Lua back very soon. Whether he'll get in the side is another matter.
It's a massive game for both teams tommorow. Let's hope it is the blue side in danger that takes the spoils tommorow. (I'll be mighty pissed off on the way back from Newcastle if we don't!)