Welcome to the Newcastle United v Aston Villa preview.
Saturday 17th October and a 5.30pm kick-off.
Newcastle United welcome Aston Villa in yet another televised fixture this weekend, looking to draw a line under a disastrous defeat on Monday night.
The Toon are once again enduring a stop-start campaign and will be hoping to put things right against a Villa side who have only won once in the league so far.
NUFC have the added bonus of two days more rest than the Villans who played in Europe on Wednesday night.
The evening kick-off as well as the presence of a set of opposition fans we absolutely despise should make for a cracking atmosphere and the black and whites will be wanting the fans to be their twelfth man pushing the team towards a welcome victory.
Form
As we’ve now played six league matches, the form table will begin to take shape from this weekend. Inconsistent is the world for Newcastle right now with two wins, two draws and two defeats. Our wins have come away at Tottenham and at home to Hull whilst 2-2 draws were achieved at home to both Liverpool and Bournemouth in vastly different circumstances. The Liverpool draw was hugely disappointing as a tremendous performance was robbed of two points by a dodgy penalty gifted to the Reds deep into injury time. The same scoreline against Bournemouth however was met with relief as United had to come from 2-0 down to salvage an unlikely point. The less said about our defeats the better! Monday disasters away to both Leeds and Coventry saw NUFC put to the sword 4-1 on both occasions to leave travelling supporters bitterly disappointed. We’ve scored ten goals in these six matches and conceded thirteen. A win coupled with a number of results going our way could see us as high as fourth in the table come Saturday night.
Photo by The Mag
Aston Villa have also played six league matches, losing three, drawing two and winning only one. They lost to Brighton and Arsenal in the first two matches of the season before a goalless draw against Hull and a narrow defeat at home to Nottingham Forest. They finally got their win at the fifth time of asking with a 3-2 victory over Tottenham that was followed up with a home draw with Brentford. They’ve scored six goals and conceded eleven, a win on Saturday would see them go level on points with the Toon.
Last time out
A ridiculous match on Monday night saw the Toon lose 4-1 to newly-promoted Coventry. The scene was set for a bad night at the office when conceding from a penalty in just the fourth minute. Despite this early setback, NUFC were by far the better team for the rest of the half with only some absurd decision-making in front of goal stopping us from going in level at the break. The Toon were still very much in the game and an equaliser would have seen most fans quietly confident of going on to win. Unfortunately, the Sky Blues went 2-0 up just a few minutes into the second half to put them firmly in control. United huffed and puffed but didn’t look like getting back into the match until an unbelievable strike from Sven Botman pulled a goal back with twenty minutes to play, the defender lashing the ball into the roof of the net to start a ten-minute period of sustained Magpie pressure. Just as it looked like an equaliser was on the cards, Coventry hit us on the break twice in quick succession to end the match as a contest and consign United to consecutive 4-1 away defeats.
Villa hosted Brentford on Saturday and played out an entertaining 2-2 draw. The Villans recovered from going 1-0 down to take a 2-1 lead in the seventy-seventh minute. Just as it looked like they would be celebrating their first home win over the season, the Bees hit back to score a late equaliser and take a share of the spoils. Since then Villa have played in Europe, Wednesday night saw them host Fenerbahce in the Champions League and race into a three-goal lead before half-time. Hopefully they’ve used up all their goals for this week as they ended up winning 6-0.
Stat attack!
– A win on Saturday would be NUFC’s three hundredth at home in the Premier League.
– Aston Villa have won only one of their past eighteen visits to St James’ Park, unfortunately that was last season when they claimed a 2-0 success on Tyneside.
-Newcastle have netted an impressive twelve goals in their past four home matches against Aston Villa.
Memorable match
The 2008/09 season was a complete disaster for anyone of the black and white persuasion. A wretched campaign began with Kevin Keegan doing his very best for the club before Mike Ashley forced him out causing a civil war between owner and fans that lasted over thirteen excruciating years. Our first relegation in a generation was the result of his reign of terror and it took place at Villa Park where the Aston Villa fans disgracefully gloried in our demise with a completely unnecessary goading and abuse of travelling Toon supporters.
There weren’t many highlights of this awful campaign but ironically one of them did come against Aston Villa. In November 2008, an in-form Villa side came to St James’ Park with ambitions of going third in the league, in sharp contrast to the Magpies who were hoping to climb out of the relegation zone.
Villa started on the front foot and were desperately unlucky not to take the lead early-on when hitting the post. The Toon were forced to endure the rest of the first-half on the back foot and survived two more golden Villa chances when one was mis-kicked and another was well-saved by Shay Given. Thankfully the second half saw a shift in momentum and Newcastle began to sense it was their day when taking the game to their opponents. On the hour, Joey Barton played a superb long ball to Obafemi Martins who turned and rifled home a brilliant goal at the Gallowgate End to send St James’ Park into raptures. The Toon could now sense blood and were unlucky not to double their lead when Nicky Butt curled a free-kick off the post. Thankfully the points were made safe with just a few minutes remaining when great work down the left wing by Jonas Gutierrez set up Martins to finish from close range to settle a 2-0 win. This was Joe Kinnear’s second win in succession and the Toon would go on to lose just one of their next seven games. What could possibly go wrong!? Newcastle 2-0 Villa
Played for both
Steve Watson made his NUFC debut at the tender age of just sixteen under Jim Smith in November 1990. He stayed at the Toon for eight years, playing under five different managers. An integral part of the entertainers team fashioned by Kevin Keegan, Watson played primarily as a defender but also had an eye for goal. One of the highlights of his time on Tyneside came in a League Cup tie at Anfield in 1995 when a wonderful solo strike gave us our last away victory over Liverpool. A local lad, Steve was a firm fan favourite who only missed two games of the 95/96 season as Keegan’s side came desperately close to winning the league for the first time in sixty-nine years. He scored eleven premier league goals for Newcastle before being sold to Aston Villa by Ruud Gullit. Steve went on to score just one goal for Villa in a two-year spell before moving on to Everton.
Issue 59 – January 1994
Shay Given was one of Kenny Dalglish’s better signings when he joined the Toon in 1997. The Blackburn Rovers keeper had spent the previous few months on loan at Sunderland but when the Mackems were unable to raise £1.5 million, the Toon swooped in and what a signing he proved to be! Spending almost twelve years on Tyneside, the popular Irishman played in a Cup Final, helped the Toon to Champions League qualification and was awarded ‘save of the decade’ for a stop in 2002 against Sunderland as we celebrated our first Derby win in six years. Unfortunately, he became disillusioned when Mike Ashley took over and steered us towards an inevitable relegation. He left for Manchester City in Jan 2009 despite being just short of our all-time appearances record. He went on to sign for Aston Villa in 2011 and spent four years at Villa Park, playing in the 2015 FA Cup Final. An ill-advised loan stint at Middlesbrough means that Given has the dubious honour of being one of the only modern day players to competitively represent us, the Mackems and the Smoggies.
Aaron Hughes played eight seasons for NUFC after memorably making his debut at the Nou Camp on a rainy night in 1997. Praised for his versatility and consistency, it was a shock when Graeme Souness decided to offload the captain of Northern Ireland to Aston Villa for just one million pounds in 2005. He spent two seasons at Villa Park, making sixty-four appearances in all competitions.
Managers
Matthias Jaissle after a 4-1 defeat away at Coventry: “That’s hard. That’s punishment in this league. We controlled many phases but it’s not enough. In the boxes the games are decided. In both boxes we were not clean. It’s something we need to learn fast. The momentum was there. We have a young squad but that shouldn’t be an excuse. It was a tough game in general. The injured players are hopefully getting more game minutes. Today if you see the whole picture it was not the worst game. I apologise to fans because they deserved a different result. There were bits that were good but in both boxes, to defend our own goal we need to improve and also score goals. The opportunities were there, but the desire and hunger to finish the attacks was missing. We’re frustrated. It’s a feeling you don’t want to have on a Monday evening after a match where you should win. We can only apologise to the fans who came here, they deserve a different result. We need to analyse it.”
Unai Emery after a 2-2 draw with Brentford: “To draw at home is not a good result. Thinking about our result today, we are sad. We were expecting the match like they played, a tough match. We were expecting to try and dominate the ball more than we did. We scored two goals even though we created more chances. They scored two goals, had chances as well and threatened us. The result is maybe fair and for this we are not happy, we are sad but I am optimistic because we improved things. After the match against Nottingham, some players are adapting to us and getting minutes.”
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
Where to start with this one?! Under normal circumstances, the fact that NUFC have had forty-eight hours more rest than our opponents would be a cause for optimism. Unfortunately, Villa won their midweek match 6-0 which may have given them some real momentum despite their struggles in the league. Newcastle took a bit of a battering in our last match but a home game gives us the perfect opportunity to get things back on track and I think we will. A nervy first half will see the teams go in at the break 0-0 but two goals in the second half will seal a crucial win that NUFC supporters can celebrate long into the night. Newcastle 2-0 Aston Villa.