Newcastle Preview

The season is finally here,tomorrow all the talking stops and the football kicks off in earnest. Personally am not so happy with how we are going into this campaign,we have spent the better part of the transfer window doing basically nothing. Yes we’ve brought in Gervinho who is the only addition worth mentioning really. Not taking anything away from Carl,Ryo and Alex,but in all honesty they have a lot to prove. We have let go of Clichy and Denilson though temporarily which were good moves,I still maintain the previous should be replaced. Then there’s the Cesc,Nasri saga that won’t just go away..yesterday le prof had this to say…on Cesc 

"We hope it will be sorted out very quickly one way or the other. We'll know very quickly."

And on Nasri..

"The Nasri situation is stable,"."Again it is very difficult to speak about possible transfers but we are in a situation where we have to make decisions one way or the other. Ideally you want it to be sorted out before the season starts."

This morning he said…

"I expect nobody to leave the club," he said. "I believe the best thing for us, one day before the season starts, is not to focus on the possible transfers. I cannot say it will never happen, I cannot say it will happen. At the moment there is no news and if we have any news to give you, I promise you we will do it."

Now am I the only one confused here? He is the same guy who said if we let Cesc and Nasri go we can not be considered a big clu..then he syas this today..

"Manchester United let Christiano Ronaldo go, do you think they are not a big club?"

Let me diverge and give you my quote of the interview..

"Do we want to buy? I don't know because at the moment we have too big a squad. We have too many players.

"To add players, there is a strange thing that I don't believe people who watch football are still conscious of what is going on in the world.

"There are 350 players in England who have no job and we have a massive squad so we are not in a position where we are short of players."

I won't get too much into it..but I pray that he's just playing the pres.

Back to the siasa,I think the management is to blame for letting this saga drag on this far. If rather when we lose the duo right now,we’d definitely have to replace them and pray to the Almighty they gel in as fast as humanly possible. This whole situation would have been averted by doing our business early. Getting players after the respective leagues have kicked off is a real hard task.

  Game : NEWCASTLE Vs ARSENAL

  Venue : ST. JAMES PARK

  Kick Off : 19.30 (Kenyan time)

To the game,we do not have very pleasant memories of our trip to Newcastle. This fixture last season was the start of our now famous melt down. This time it provides a good chance for the boys to exorcise the demons that have haunted them since last time,early on in the season. We should,I’d imagine look to start off strongly with a win here as the next couple of fixtures are not any easier. We have virtually everyone back from injury except Jack and Diaby. Cesc will miss due to ‘lack of match fitness’ (yeah right) and Nasri is a doubt as he has developed 'a sickness' according to Mr.Bean,yeah a cash sickness! We should have a fairly strong squad out,which can see off the magpies. I expect us to line up as follows

                                              Szcesny

  Sagna  Koscienly      Vermaelen   Gibbs

Song          Ramsey

Rosicky

Gervinho      Van Persie     Arshavin

  

Fabianski,Carl,Traore,Djorou,Walcott,Chamakh,Frimpong,AOC(Chamberlain),should get an opportunity from the bench. But whether Walcott starts in place of Arshavin or Gervinho is the only contention I see and maybe Traore or Gibbs. I know that I have not put him there,though I'd like to see him get a run out,yes Ryo. This game will give us a slight idea of what Wenger has been cooking up all summer,I surely hope that it does taste good! It will also do one of two things..silence the doom brigade or turn them up a notch higher. I’d want a victory here though a draw would be acceptable too. Another school of thought would want a defeat that may serve as a wakeup call to the bean man then maybe he can buy some players, maybe. I don’t buy into this, a loss would dent the already fragile situation at the camp and will not necessarily assure us that Le prof will buy. If it would have an assuarance that he’d buy were we to lose tomorrow then I’d definitely take the loss! 

These were the images last time.

As I said before,this match will give us an idea of how we’ll play tactically this season,any new twitches and all to our previous systems. I’ll have an eye out every time we concede a set piece,see how we’ll defend them. Any improvements in this area will be highly appreciated. The midfield battle will be interesting as Rosicky comes up against Barton,also look out for Tiote and Gutierrez down the left. I won’t do any statistics on this one,as the only one that I feel matters is,we lost a four goal lead here last season. With that I’ll be bold enough to predict a 2-1 win for us..fingers crossed,eyes closed!

With that Ladies and Gents,wear your colours tomorrow with pride,I know I will..and do enjoy the game and the weekend. Word of advice though, don’t let your weekend hinge on this one…

KWISHA!