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i think it is massive

if birmingham score 1st if could be a cricket score, newcastle seem ok till the first then capitulate

A very big game from a Newcastle point of view, they have some winnable games left , this is one of them. If they continue to struggle, confidence is just going to suffer.

As you say the 1st goal could be vital, given Newcastles brittle confidence.

You think Newcastle can win?

LOL

 H U G E

ive had a decent punt on newcastle to be relagated on betfair at 5.6 on saturday morning. I think they will lose tonight to a more 'up for it' birmingham team, and the betfair price will crash.

Birmingham win tonight.

Newcastle wont go down. But will nearly go down.

They CAN win.  Not sure if they WILL though.

Its a massive game for both clubs.  I fancy Birmingham to win.  Newcastle are going to have to learn how to battle very quickly otherwise they will be gone.

Cant decide between a draw or Brum win, so Laying Newcastle.. Got to be easy money for sure. !!

Big, not big as in 'anyone cares' big, but big...  ;)

LOL, I don't think a cricket score is at all relevant. The capitulation was against Manchester United (and to a lesser degree Liverpool and Villa), which is a little different to tonights opponents.

Having said this Birmingham have only been beaten once at home under the new manager - and that was 1-0 by Chelsea! It'll be a battle no doubt. They have only kept 3 clean sheets all season apparently so we should target that and try and put the ball in their net a couple of times and hope its more than they do to us.

The key is getting a good performance from Mark Viduka (and therefore Smith not being on the pitch) and Taylor to look like a footballer (and hopefully get himself a move to whoever he thinks he has the ability to play for above us). I'd take a 1-1 draw. Yesterdays result for Fulham was not in the plan so more pressure on.

I've had a decent bet on Birmingham @13/10. Birmingham playing some decent stuff and have goals in their team,against a side devoid of confidence who struggle to score. GET ON!!

any early updates? no setanta at chez trigg

I'm watching it.  It's poor.

Birmingham had the best of the attacking possession.  Newcastle had to wait 23 minutes before their first shot - by Owen, over the bar from 20 yards.

0-0 I believe

Newcastle team: Newcastle: Harper, Beye, Faye, Taylor, Jose Enrique, Barton, Geremi, Butt, Martins, Owen, Viduka. Subs: Forster, Cacapa, N'Zogbia, Smith, Carroll.


Birmingham team: Maik Taylor, Kelly, Jaidi, Ridgewell, Murphy, Larsson, Muamba, Johnson, McSheffrey, Forssell, McFadden. Subs: Doyle, Jerome, Nafti, Zarate, Parnaby.

Brum, Brum, Brummies!!!! 1-0...

Newcastle go to Birmingham playing a man short in midfield??!?!

KK strikes again

Owen looks like a lost little boy....

Same to you Phillips, pff...

LOL you daft arse!!

Should I stick or twist ?

I'm on Brum. @ 2.42 and could lay 1.42 giving me a free £x, but the Nwcs. look so clueless...

He's much more suited to being in the box than running around in the middle of the park.

credit where its due. Newcastle are giving it a good go with a lot of spirit

encouraging, whatever the result tonight

very decent second half performance I thought by Newcastle

perhaps a slight lack of confidence, understandable, by Keegan in taking Martins off when the game looked there for the winning.

Fulham game next is a big one!!

1-1, never in doubt!  ;hide;

Out of that 11 I'd like to see 5 still in the squad next year, probably three starters. Some awful players out there. Cliche time - was good to see a bit of character and bottle in the second half. It lines us up to put it out of reach by winning our next three home games - you can't really ask more than the opportunity we have.

They'll be a few more twists yet though!

Totally agree we could've kept martins on but then got hit on break and lost which we wouldn't have deserved (i.e blackburn) i would've taking a draw before the game and would've snapped your hand off 4 it at half time we couldnt afford to lose it played some good stuff in the 2nd half now it's a must win game on sat no draw allowed lol

HAWAY THE LADS

P.S How Joey Barton keeps getting to pull the beloved black n white stripes on i will never no he's a disgrace to himself and hope that he goes to jail, even the commentor said his performances had been terrible for us.He can share a cell with his brother the prick.

wow, newcastle get worse by the week.

being a rangers fan i know mcleish tactics, after 1 nil after completely dominating he decided to sit back and defend.

newcastle are the most disjointed "team" ive seen in a few years, especially being one of the top spenders

faye the centre back, barton in midfield and owen up front are by far the 3 worst/overated/past it players in that team

faye is seriously retarded at clearing the ball, getting goal side, positional sense, which was shown at the half time

bartons touch,passing and general awareness is unbelievably bad, i must say ive hardly seen him play for man city where he got his rep, but ive seen 3 or 4 full
games for newcastle over the season and he is hopeless in every single minute of every game.

owen, wow, talk about dining out on a previous reputation, this boys had free meals since he was 23. to me owen has always been a one trick pony, and to be fair it was a good trick. though not once was a ball played over the centre backs for owen to run on to???? wtf. most of the game he was on the wing or even worse picking the ball up from deep, this is absolutely the worst use of owen i have ever seen, not a great fan of his at the best of times, but hes playing gash, and now out of position.

keegen has to be the most tactically naive managers ever seen, though in the past he made up for it with  the best brand of attacking football the prem had seen up to that point, i hope newcastle survives, and i hope he has a clearout, starting with owen,barton,faye,baye,enrique,taylor,emre,milner must be more i cant think of

keep viduka, martins, harper, given, duff and butt

martins and duff should be world class

As far as faye and barton go on this performance i cant disagree like i said above barton is a joke however faye has looked ok in other games (but don't think he is good enough)

However, cant understand you criticising owen when you say yourself he was giving nothing but scraps to feed of in the first half and was battling for the team all over the patch.Although he's lost some of the pace he had he's still world class imho.

I'm also quite suprised that you say that you've watched 4 full newcastle games yet you feel duff is world class(was duff not playing in these games) he can't beat a man ne more every defender in the country seems to have him in there pocket can't think of a good game he's had since he signed for us.He's certainly not the player that he was when he played for blackburn.If we do manage to stay up i feel a lot of players will be leaving the club(this seems to be the case every season now and is one of our big problems).

Tacatically naive would be playing balls over the centre backs for Owen to run on to - he has no pace. He can however put the ball in the back of the net and he'll continue to do that given half chances. Similar to Shearer, Owen can keep hold of a football and bring others into the game, it cant be that hard to do but some seem to struggle. On that basis I dont see an issue with him coming short as long as he's where he needs to be when the ball falls loose in the box like he was twice last night.

I dont think anyone who has seen Barton this season would disagree with him looking awful but we have no other options at the moment.

Duff has been nothing short of useless apart from one back heel that set up the 4th against AZ Alkmar last year. I still hold hope that he'll come back to play like he did for Blackburn and a bit at Chelsea - but there are far more signs of Owen getting back than Duff.

Faye had a shocker, he can look good at times, but he needs to exterminate - in his Newcastle United association at least.

I'm tired of people just jumping on this Kegan tactically naive stuff. Very rarely can anyone come up with actual football tactic arguement to support it.  He played a form of 4-3-3 last night against a 4-4-2 but both the Birmingham wide players like to be on the ball and play more narrowly than you'd think - so by playing three holding midfielders like we did then it really didnt cause a problem and let us (in theory) go for their weakness of not keeping clean sheets.

We're slowly on the climb back, sometimes things have to get worse before they get better, and I think we've been through that. Plenty more confidence can be gained over the next few weeks and even this group of muppets will look like a different team. Hopefully that wont prevent the clear out though.

duff has only played one of the games i have seen, bolton nil nil i think, he wasnt great but he wasnt anywhere near the worst that night. otherwise my entire appreciation of duff is via chelski blackburn and ireland

i find this paragraph insane, ball in behind for owen to run onto is not only a threat of a goal directly, but opposing defences fall too deep in fear of it, hence helping strech opponents def to mid.

shearer had so much more to his game, i cant see owen in any way similar. unbelievable statement imo.

owen with no pace coming deep = useless



awful, and id say him and taylor are prob the worst central defensive partnership in the prem bar derby



i think keegan showed his tactical knowledge with england, the real life mike basset

That makes more sense, since his recent injuries he's just not the player he was at blackburn he never really done enough at chelsea for me imho.He will be one of the players that definitly leaves in the summer i feel and hope will be another loss for us as it seems with most players that come to the club in recent years.

duff and keane at world cup 2002 were awesome

duff against barcelona was class 5-4 agg win

You seemed to have missed the point Fergus. Owen has no pace. That is a fact. Okay he can move but he is no quicker than an average premiership centre back therefore there is no threat from a ball over the top. Because he has no advantage we tend to not play a ball over the top. Defenders dont drop deep against him anymore because they know they have the beating of him.

For us to fit him in the team and benefit from what he can do, put the ball in the net from a half chance, he is going to have to change his game - at the moment he is dropping deeper. Its too early to tell if that'll become a successful part of his game but its got to be worth a try. I'm not saying that Owen is going to turn his game into a similar one to Shearer (its physically impossible), but dropping short, taking the ball into feet and bringing in others was a massive part of Shearer's game and Owen has been doing this since December 5th game against Arsenal. Owen with no pace deep cant be as bad with owen and no pace trying to play on the shoulder.

As for Keegan, again I can't see any actual examples. He was a pro footballer for 20 years, being the best in Europe during that period. He has played for some of the best managers in their lifetimes. He'll of picked up more in half time team talks that many could wish for. To talk of him as if he is clueless, and talking as if he knows less than an average supporter is just riculous.  Fair enough he'll place less emphasis on that side of the game than a Benetez or Wenger but thats in part to do with nationality and style of football. Tactical doesnt neccessarily = best. Football can be as complicated or as easy as you want to make it. At the end of the day if you get top players together, get them motivated and playing together they'll be successful.

The fact that we were abysmal in the 1st half yet looked a good side in the 2nd half proves kk isn't clueless.Fair enough he didn't do it at international level and many outside of newcastle aren't a fan but least he had the decency to walk away without a payoff in comparison to that scum mclaren.
Very long time ago though 2 be fair.

Duff is finished.  The injuries have taken their toll on him and he has lost his pace and confidence.  The same has happened to Owen, he is still a great finisher but only a shodow of the player he was at Liverpool.

The difference is tho is that owen can still do it at the top level whereas duff as you say is finished.

can duff not do a giggs and change his game?

i remember giggs had a transistional period where he was losing his pace

duff is 28 years old

Duffs never been anywhere near as good as what giggsy is also as already said the injuries have finished duff, giggs hasn't had as bad a spell of injuries (i dont believe). It helps giggs a lot though with the quality of players he has around him but its still no excuse for duff his performances this season have been diabolical.

Duff was one of the best players in the world imo at one stage, just before his move to Chelsea.

Obv, hes terrible now, but i disagree with the previous post.

I don't think he's ever been in that bracket of "one of the best players in the world".He was an excellent player when he was at blackburn then left to go to chelsea and although had the odd good game wasn't good enough.So overall he probably had 2/3 good seasons at blackburn wasn't good enough at chelsea then was absolutely terrible 4 us. A dont think he's ever been in top 50 players in world and isn't comparible to giggsy in my opinion.

Duff = Kewell

I would say that todays game at home to Fulham is more important than the Birmingham game ... nothing less than maximum points will do against Fulham.

We couldn't afford to lose at birmingham and before that game i wouldve took a draw as we are poor away (not much better at home either!) Todays game vs fulham is huge but i really believe we will win today however if the unthinkable happens and we lost then we are in deep shit even a draw would be a disaster in my opinion we must win today and if we do win i think we should be safe with the run in other time have.

desired result for Newcastle, that will probs be enought to keep them safe.

Sunderland winning means Brum are in deep shit along with bolton.

I think we should be safe with that result we played really well and couldve won by 4 or 5.Be disappointing for those who wanted us too go down but although we aren't safe yet if we continue to play like that then we will be fine.

i cant see past bolton fulham and of course derby going down, with brum a close 17th, the rest by a comfortable gap, maybe 5points

Agreed, awful set of results.
I still don't think we'll go down simply because there are at least 3 teams worse, my fear is if i'm wrong and the shit putting us down i'll have to stay in for a year!

(http://www.hrcbackstory.org/images/2007/12/13/crowd.jpg)

parents in the midlands hopeing for an IFM free year for their daughters

wonderful result on the way for Newcastle at Spurs

Bolton look doomed (lol Megson)