Welcome to the Chelsea v Newcastle United preview.
Saturday 14th March and a 5.30pm kick-off.
The Toon travel to Stamford Bridge on Saturday evening, hoping to go one better than the draw they achieved against the same opposition in December.
Both sides were facing the Crème de la crème of European football midweek with the Toon faring far better than their London counterparts.
Despite this, Chelsea stand seven places and nine points ahead of NUFC in the Premier League table and are much closer than the Toon to achieving a return to Europe’s most prestigious competition.
Form
Newcastle have won two and lost four of their past six league matches. We were very good value for our wins over both Man United and Tottenham Hotspur. Less impressive were defeats to Everton, Man City, Brentford and Liverpool. We’ve scored ten goals in this sequence and conceded fourteen. The six points gained has seen us slip to twelfth in the league with time running out to climb the table into the European places. A win could have us in ninth if other results go our way. As things stand we’re still only twelve points off the top four so a good run of form could well see us muscle into the upper echelons of the table.
Chelsea have won three, drawn two and lost one of their last six league matches. Wins have come over Aston Villa, Wolves and West Ham. They’ve drawn with Burnley and Leeds and lost to Arsenal. They’ve scored fourteen goals and conceded nine. The eleven points gained has them fifth in the league and a win could see them squeeze into the top four on goal difference.
Last time out
Newcastle went toe-to-toe with Barcelona on Tuesday night and were desperately unlucky not to come away with a famous victory over one of the very best teams in Europe. In a game of few chances, the Toon were by far the better team and fans were celebrating in the second half when a Harvey Barnes effort struck the post before being turned into the net by Joelinton, with the Brazilian offside. That effort may have been disallowed but with just five minutes left, Barnes was on hand to turn in a superb cross from Jacob Murphy to send the Toon Army wild! At this point it looked like victory was assured with Newcastle looking the more likely team to add to the scoring. Unfortunately, Barcelona were awarded a penalty in the sixth minute of injury time to level the tie. Regardless of the late heartache, this was a tremendous performance on the biggest stage. It sets up a potentially glorious night at the Camp Nou with both teams having every reason to believe they can make the quarter-final of the Champions League.
Chelsea travelled to PSG on Wednesday night, meaning they’ve had one less day to prepare for this one. They went behind early on but forced an equaliser, before going behind again before the break. The second half was something of a disaster for the blues who ended up on the wrong end of a demoralising 5-2 defeat meaning they have it all to do in the second leg. The travel, nature of defeat and distraction of such a huge task on Tuesday night. will all hopefully work in NUFC’s favour this weekend.
Stat attack!
-Newcastle haven’t won at Chelsea since an epic 2-0 victory courtesy of Papiss Cisse in 2012.
-The Toon have drawn two and lost twelve of their last fourteen visits to Stamford Bridge in all competitions.
-NUFC have only won one Premier League away match against Chelsea in thirty attempts.
Memorable match
In September 2010, Chris Hughton took NUFC to Stamford Bridge for a League Cup third round tie knowing we hadn’t won there for twenty-four years. When Chelsea took the lead after just six minutes through future magpie Van Aanholt, it looked like more Stamford Bridge misery was on the cards. Despite the early setback, Newcastle kept their composure and were back on level terms through an instinctive effort from Nile Ranger. With Newcastle fans still celebrating the equaliser, Ryan Taylor blasted in a trademark free=kick to give NUFC the lead and send the away fans into raptures. Within a few minutes of the second-half kicking off, Shola Ameobi ran at the Chelsea backline and fired home a superb effort from twenty-five yards. With away supporters pinching themselves whilst dreaming of a first away victory over Chelsea since 1986, the tie continued to ebb and flow with Chelsea hitting the post and then Lovenkrands and Ameobi wasting good chances to seal the victory. With twenty minutes remaining, Anelka pulled one back for the blues ensuring a nervy finish for United and then confirmed their comeback when converting a late penalty to seemingly ensure extra-time and the possibility of penalties. Toon fans were breathing a huge sigh of relief just a minute later when Chelsea hit the post again but Newcastle were awarded a corner on ninety minutes and Shola Ameobi had the final say in an epic encounter when glancing home a superb header to seal the win and a place in the next round. Chelsea 3-4 Newcastle.
Played for both
Celestine Babayaro played for Chelsea between 1997 and 2005, he scored his first goal for the blues against the Toon in a 1-1 draw at Stamford Bridge. He played over two-hundred matches for Chelsea before signing for Graeme Souness’ Newcastle in Jan 2005. He scored his first and only goal for NUFC in a 3-1 against Coventry in the FA Cup. A little known fact about Babayaro is that he played against Liverpool just a few hours after learning about the death of his brother and put in a fine shift in a 2-1 victory under Glenn Roeder. At the end of the 04/05 season, champions Chelsea played their last match at St James Park and invited Babayaro to join them in entering the field to a guard of honour. He’d played four league games for the blues that season before his transfer to NUFC and Chelsea put out a statement saying they considered him a champion as a result.
Damien Duff looked an absolute bargain when signing from Chelsea for five million pounds in 2006. The Republic of Ireland International had spent three successful seasons as an attacking midfielder at Stamford Bridge. Unfortunately, his most memorable moment in a black and white shirt was for all the wrong reasons, when his own goal sealed our relegation from the Premier League in 2009. His highlights were few and far between but a last minute winner at home to Spurs in 2008 was wildly celebrated, as was his equaliser away to West Brom on our return to Championship football, before he jumped ship to Fulham.
Demba Ba signed for the Toon from West Ham in 2011 and soon became an absolutely integral part of the team that finished fifth in the league. Hat-tricks in 3-1 wins against both Blackburn Rovers and Stoke City were memorable but a personal highlight of mine was a magnificent turn and half volley in a fantastic 3-0 victory over Man Utd on a night when the Red Devils were blown away by a rampant United. When he was joined by international teammate Papiss Demba Cisse in January 2012, it looked like a match made in heaven. Unfortunately, the pair of them never really gelled at NUFC and Ba became increasingly frustrated at being pushed into a wide role. He signed for Chelsea in 2013 but was unable to reach the heights of his first few months as a Magpie.
Managers
Eddie Howe after a 1-1 draw with Barcelona:
“We played really well in the game. We were on top for a lot of it. It will be a different sort of game at their place, but we know what we can do and we know when we are at our level how well we can play. What a feeling it would have been to go there 1-0 up but we are level in the tie and all to play for. It is one game, away from home, where we can show what we can do. It will be an exciting game for us. I thought we were outstanding, a really, really good performance. We kept the intensity up. The moment at the end takes that in a negative light but one of our best performances. I thought we had enough to score before we did. The game showed we are capable but we know we probably have to give more going to their stadium. We are capable of doing it but we will need to be at our very best.”
Liam Rosenior after a 5-2 defeat away at PSG:
“A very disappointing result in an evening where for so much of the game I was really happy. The last twenty minutes were crazy. We need to be better with setbacks and we need to stay calm. We didn’t. It’s a painful scoreline because for seventy-five minutes we were in the tie and the game itself. Players make mistakes, Filip Jorgensen is not the first one to make a mistake, that’s part of football. In that moment at 2-2 we were in the ascendancy, an inch away from going 3-2 up with Joao Pedro scoring after Enzo Fernandez was offside. But in the top level, the Champions League level, it is fine margins. The fifth goal was the most painful one after a flashpoint. We didn’t settle ourselves down. They scored a fifth goal and that makes it very difficult, but not impossible to come back from.”
Charity
As it is an away match, Newcastle United fans will not be collecting opposite the Gallowgate end, for the food bank. However, you can still help out and all online cash donations are very much appreciated. For further info and/or to donate to the food bank online.
Prediction
There’s no denying that we have an atrocious record at Stamford Bridge and it’s up there with Anfield as one of our least favourite Premier League venues. Both teams have huge European matches coming up midweek and I can’t help thinking that Chelsea will have half an eye on playing PSG on Tuesday. We really should have defeated this lot in December and I see no reason why we can’t take all three points this time around. Chelsea 1-2 Newcastle.