Welcome to the Newcastle United v West Ham United preview.
Sunday 17th May and a 5.30pm kick-off.
Newcastle United play their final home game of a stop-start season this Sunday afternoon when hosting a West Ham team desperate to avoid relegation to the Championship.
This has been a fairly tumultuous nine months for the black and whites who will hopefully look to send the St James’ faithful home in fine fettle.
Having enjoyed a good performance, a few goals and decent victory before the 50,000 or so return in August to continue the never ending story.
Form
The Toon have won one, drawn one and lost four of their past six matches. A disastrous run of four defeats to the Mackems, Crystal Palace, Bournemouth and Arsenal was followed by a win at home to Brighton and a draw with Nottingham forest. We’ve scored seven goals in this sequence and conceded nine. The four points gained has us in a deeply disappointing thirteenth place in the league and a win could see us tenth on goal difference should other results go our way.
West Ham have won two, drawn one and lost three of their past six matches. A defeat against Aston Villa was followed by a win over Wolves and a draw with Crystal Palace. Another win at home against Everton raised hopes of avoiding relegation before defeats against both Brentford and Arsenal have seen the Hammers once again slip into the dreaded drop zone. They’ve scored six goals in these matches and conceded seven. The seven points gained has them eighteenth in the league just two points behind Tottenham who they’ll be desperate to overtake before the last match of the season.
Last time out
Newcastle travelled to Forest last weekend and once again carelessly gave away a lead that cost them yet more points. A decent away performance looked to have been rewarded when Harvey Barnes swept home an impressive opener in front of the ecstatic away fans with less than fifteen minutes left to play. It looked like this would be enough to secure three points until old boy Elliot Anderson equalised in the eighty-eighth minute to condemn United to yet another draw and leave them lamenting an incredible twenty-seven points lost from winning positions this season.
West Ham hosted Arsenal in an absolutely crucial match at both ends of the table on Sunday evening and were left absolutely fuming when a deeply controversial VAR call cost them (or perhaps even robbed them) of a much-needed point. The Hammers had given a great account of themselves against an Arsenal side pushing for the title but that all seemed in vain when the reds fired home an opening goal with just seven minutes remaining. West Ham refused to capitulate and poured forward in a desperate attempt to find an equaliser. Their prayers appeared to be answered when former Toon striker Callum Wilson forced the ball over the line deep into injury to spark ecstatic celebrations which were cruelly cut short by the intervention of perhaps the most important VAR call in
the history of the Premier League.
Stat attack!
-The Toon have only kept one clean sheet against West Ham in their last nine meetings at St James’ Park.
-Newcastle have scored three or more goals at home to West Ham on seven separate Premier League occasions.
-The last six league matches between the two sides at St James’ Park has seen a whopping twenty-six goals!
Memorable match
In March 2024, Eddie Howe’s team were pushing for European qualification when an in-form Hammers came to town. Newcastle were given a dream start when Anthony Gordon was tripped in the area inside the opening five minutes and Alexander Isak slotted home the penalty at the Leazes End. The Toon continued to look comfortable until Lascelles went off with an injury and our defence was still all at sea when West Ham took advantage to score a simple equaliser. The end of the first half brought a ‘hammer’ blow for Newcastle who were desperately unlucky not to have scored when Bruno hit the crossbar. Ten minutes into injury time however, West Ham scored a controversial goal when they took a freekick despite Schar being down holding his face.
The away side were booed down the tunnel along with the match officials but were unfazed by the hostile atmosphere as they proceeded to take a 3-1 lead at the start of the second half to seemingly win the match. Newcastle huffed and puffed but were struggling to find any openings until being given a lifeline by the referee when Gordon was again fouled in the area and VAR decided on the foul. For the second time that afternoon, Isak scored a penalty (this time at the Gallowgate End) and all of a sudden it was game on with thirteen minutes left to play.
Substitute Harvey Barnes would go on to have more of an impact than he or we could have possibly hoped for. Just six minutes after Isak’s penalty, it was 3-3 when Barnes was played through on goal, latched on to the through-ball and calmly slot between the ‘keeper’s legs to send the stadium into delirium. At this point, there was only one winner with Newcastle attacking their opponents at will. With the clock ticking down to the final ten seconds, Gordon took a touch and laid the ball off to Barnes to slam home a simply unstoppable effort from outside of the area amid wild celebrations to seal a priceless victory in one of the highlights of the season.
Newcastle 4-3 West Ham.
Played for both
Nobby Solano signed for Kenny Dalglish in 1997 and soon became a fan favourite. He was the first Peruvian to score in the Premier League when netting the equaliser in a 3-1 win over Wimbledon. Highlights of his first spell on Tyneside include a brilliant double away at 1860 Munich in the Intertoto Cup, scoring the winning goal in an incredible victory at Elland Road in 2001 and netting from the penalty spot away at arch-rivals Sunderland to secure a Wear-Tyne Derby victory. Less good was falling out with Sir Bobby over repeated travel for international matches in South America and
he was sold to Aston Villa in January 2004. He was re-signed by Graeme Souness in Sept 2005 and hammered home a beauty in a 1-0 win over Arsenal, he also single-handedly beat Everton with both goals and a man of the match performance in a 2-0 win. Always given a great reception from Toon fans even when Playing against United, Solano has gone down as one of our best ever foreign imports. He signed for West Ham in 2007 and spent one season with the Hammers, scoring four goals.
Marlon Harewood was a loan signing for NUFC during our Championship season of 09/10. He did a decent job, scoring five goals in fifteen matches before his time on Tyneside was cut short due to injury. The highlight of his spell was scoring two early goals in a fine 3-0 win at home to Swansea. He’d previously played for West Ham, scoring forty-seven goals in one hundred and forty-two appearances over a four year period.
Callum Wilson will be hoping to get one over his former employers this weekend when playing against the Toon for West Ham. He signed for the Hammers over the summer having spent five seasons at Newcastle and scoring forty-seven league goals. When fit, Wilson was a number nine worthy of the shirt, scoring a number of important goals to help us qualify for the Champions League, his eighteen strikes of 22/23 made him our top scorer for the season as we finished fourth. Unfortunately, injuries dogged his time at the Toon but fans will fondly remember his time at St James’ and he should get a warm reception this weekend providing he behaves himself and doesn’t find the net!
Managers
Eddie Howe after a 1-1 draw with Nottingham Forest: “It’s a decent performance but when you group everything that’s happened to us this season, it’s another game that we feel we should’ve won and we haven’t. Already we’re starting to digest why we didn’t – lessons to learn, things to improve. We dominated for large periods and should’ve scored more than one and then paid the price at the end. The team improved as the game went on. First half was a bit of a non-event and we changed things around at half time, moved some things around and were much better in the second half. The two subs made a big impact that was good to see – but then we just have to defend better. Of course we had chances to get a second goal and we should have done, then we just didn’t defend the goal well enough at all. It was our decision on the pitch to go deeper as a protection mechanism but it rarely works. Disappointed with the actions for the goal – it comes from a turnover from their defensive third and we dropped deep instead of chasing the ball. If we’re able to win our last two games then we’d look at it positively but we have to leave with a better feeling than we have today because ultimately the late goal changes the perception of ourselves and we put so much effort in, the lads are really trying, we’re just not putting it together for the whole game.”
Nuno Espírito Santo after a 1-0 defeat at home to Arsenal that saw his side denied an injury time equaliser by a
much-debated VAR call: “Controversial. Due to, I think, the recent past of the Premier League, how it has been happening at corners, the blocks, and the holding. So, I think everybody involved in football lost a little bit of perception of what is or is not a foul – that’s why we are upset. As in similar situations, there are different decisions. I don’t quite understand. Sometimes it looks like a wrestling battle, so the concept of a foul is being driven away from what we used to see, and this leaves the players confused, leaving the crowd not understanding the reason behind the difference of decision.”
Charity
Newcastle United fans food bank will once again be collecting opposite the Gallowgate end and gratefully receiving food, money and toiletries for those in need. Of particular interest are non-perishable food and drink items (such as noodles, pasta, rice, canned food, soup, cereal, cordial, long life milk etc) as well as toiletries such as shower gel, shampoo, toothpaste and sanitary products. Please give whatever you can, any donation is very much appreciated.
For further info and/or to donate online go to Newcastle Foodbank
Prediction
This is a very tough one to call. Newcastle have nothing but pride to play for whilst West Ham could be all but relegated if losing. Newcastle have showed promise in their last two performances but I feel we might have to be content with a point from this one. Newcastle 1-1 West Ham.