Match Preview/Stats/Thread: Birmingham City v Newcastle Utd
By Tyne-Talk
February 14 2011
Newcastle United travel to Birmingham City tomorrow evening in the only midweek Premier League fixture. Just two points and four places separate the two sides as Newcastle look to stay in the top half, whilst Birmingham are hoping to go above them.
Alan Pardew’s team travel on the back of two successive draws, but have four draws and two defeats from their last six games in all competitions. Birmingham have won four, drawn one and lost one of their last six.
Newcastle continue to be without, Steven Taylor (hamstring), Shola Ameobi (fractured cheekbone), Ryan Taylor (ankle), Dan Gosling (knee), Hatem Ben Arfa (broken leg), Alan Smith (ankle) and Stephen Ireland (knee), despite both Ireland and Gosling nearing full fitness. Danny Simpson could also be side-lined after being replaced by James Perch at the weekend.
Pardew will have been disappointed with a draw at the weekend after his side out performed Blackburn Rovers and will be heading to St Andrews looking for all 3 points.
Birmingham manager Alex McLeish is without Dann (hamstring), McFadden (knee) and Valles (foot) but may recall Cameron Jerome in favour of Obafemi Martins who was subbed off at the weekend.
Fact: The last four meetings at St Andrews have ended in draws.
Fact: Newcastle United have scored the most goals outside of the top 5 Premier League clubs (40).
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but its always the case with ex players......

Will be a dull game imo.
And you're definitely right, Mighty. We've got 6 games to get to about 40 points before a run in of games against Manchester United, Blackpool (likely fighting relegation), Liverpool, Birmingham, Chelsea and WBA (again fighting relegation) from which I could see us getting very little.
A win for us.


(not that you're not always hot
)Hope there's a decent stream

Lovenkrandts 1-0
And Mighty Mag



Best 2-0



Guthrie on



All over 2-0
9th


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Best came off cos he couldn't move anymore, he'd worked so hard.

Its not just the win though, its the team performance and togetherness which has carried on from the last five or six games.
I could only listen to it but sounded like Best put in a good shift and obviously capped it off with a goal. BBC said that Tiote and Jose were class and Jonas set both up which is a big boost. Even better that he pulls the little ba57ards @#$%& out as well.
It puts some daylight between us and joint third bottom Wigan. 8 points clear is a nice amount with two home games coming up and Tiote not yet banned. Hopefully we can get a few points from the next two games and that should see a few of our injured players starting to return.
Quote:tunyc
What came through to me is that the squad knows how they're set up to play and go about it efficiently. The difference between our lads and Birmingham in this area was abundantly clear. I give AP a lot of credit for keeping everyone organized and stressing that we need cool heads. That's probably why we're punching above our weight this season.
Above our weight? Nolan, Campbell and Kuqi are all quite fat, and that's not even counting the man in charge!
What I liked about the two goals was it showed off a dynamic attacking method. Yes both came from the left side, but the first was a very low, driven cross straight towards the near post. Lovenkrands made a fantastic run and finished beautifully along the ground. The second however, was a cross that hung in the air for a while, Best seemed to float at the apex of his leap and got some good power on it.
We know most of the crosses from Barton on the right will be early, long, high balls towards the back post. Enrique likes to cross late to the back post, with a lot of power behind them. Jonas's crossing ability has improved greatly in the last month, and it's especially nice to see a good near post ball that's not from a set-piece. If Nolan can start to get involved more in the build-up play (like he did against West Ham), we'll have the options of a through ball down the middle as well.
Against both Fulham and Blackburn all we saw was back-post crosses over and over again, and the defenders ate them up. The fact that Jonas mixed it up a bit against Birmingham helped immensely.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011:02:17:00:03:02 by waffles.
The team played very well and your analysis is spot on. And when we get a more mobile and creative partner for Tiote it'll give us another option going forward.
If we get a top-class forward, well...
