Barclays Premiership: Newcastle v. Middlesbrough 03 Mar [R]

10 am EST on FSC for the US viewers, not sure about the rest of the land.

Gotta, gotta have it. Anything less than a win is unacceptable.

Aw, no nickname in the thread title?

2-0 Toon. Given gets that elusive Prem Clean Sheet.

PremierLeague.com report.

Referee: Steve Bennett

Newcastle United midfielder Kieron Dyer will return to the squad for the Barclays Premiership derby clash with Middlesbrough after recovering from a virus.

Stephen Carr (thigh), Emre (calf) and Craig Moore (hamstring) are all back in training but not yet ready to return, but Celestine Babayaro and Peter Ramage (both hamstring), Michael Owen (knee) and Shola Ameobi (hip) are still out.

Another report on the site.

Newcastle United (from): Given, Harper, Solano, Edgar, Taylor, Bramble, Onyewu, Huntington, Butt, Parker, Milner, Duff, Pattison, Troisi, Martins, Dyer, Sibierski, Luque, Carroll, LuaLua.

Middlesbrough (from): Schwarzer, Davies, Taylor, Xavier, Woodgate, Pogatetz, Boateng, Arca, Morrison, Cattermole, Yakubu, Viduka, Downing, Jones, Hines, Parnaby, Euell, Arca, Christie, Lee

Thx,

Jay!

Lets hope we can get 3 point.

Martins double

I say;
2-0

sincerely
iwa

Toon 2-1

No we can't keep a clean sheet

My college in Iowa is closed today because of the blizzard, but I keep trying to find the game anyways. Stupid snow.

Toon 3-1

I predict 2-2.

Thunder, you in iowa too?

lol, blizzard was crazy.

You're getting married tomorrow!!!!

Congratulations man... I mean my condolences.

Seriously Congrats eh.

Psycho.

Doubly so for apparently getting hitched in the am hours.

Roeder's gotta change and/or mix up the tactics a bit. Things seem too predictable at the moment. Knowing that the front men aren't that tall the fellas might want to "keep the ball rolling" in order to beat the Boro defense.

0-0 at the half.

Boring.

Milner has exploited A. Taylor on the right, but unable to provide quality service. Gooch had about 4 turnovers and sort of wandered away from Viduka when Arca won the ball in the midfield and sent Marko through. Gooch hasn't turned on the foul machine, yet.

Martins had 2 or 3 great chances, one a massive save by Schwartzer, another was a bad touch by Oba.

We're controlling it all, just not finishing right now.

Thx,

Jay!

The boys are back in tooooooowwwwn!!! Classic rock at St. James Park.

Well I slept through everything but injury time, but by the looks of it I would have been angrier had I watched it. I knew it would be a draw. Typical crap. This ********ing sucks.

FYP

Title this one Back to the Future.

Playing like we were earlier in the season. Milner hit the bar, Oba, Dyer and Parker all missed chances.

Positives as they are...I don't think Given faced a shot until the end. Absolutely no pressure from the Boro offense. That results in a clean sheet.

Bramble had his David James Moment® at the end with the handball. Gooch didn't foul anyone near the box (except Cattermole in the Boro box). His distribution via the foot was awful today. Milner couldn't cross worth a damn today. We got a point and it won't be enough in the end. 8th place max.

Thx,

Jay!

My apologies. It was not happy news to wake up to.

Doesn't sound like anyone had a particularly great game, and sounds like Gooch was meh. After an impressive first couple of matches he has slipped off, and may not find himself here next season.

It astonishes me that Bramble still starts.

The backline was fine i can't remember more than three moments of concern for Shay. The problem always was going forward. The tactics seemed odd play to the wings and try and cross to the 5"8 striker or play long balls up the center. Gooch owned Yakubu btw and Bramble looked confident as well.

That is good to hear. Sky had said Gooch looked well on 1 v 1s but was awful in distribution and caught out of position on more than one occasion.

You're not the only one. A decent outing but I expected much more. Oba muffed a chance, "Machine Gun" Milner banged one of the post, we were lucky we were playing the Smoggies. No real sustained pressure from them.

The whole game can be summed up with an "eh."

Well it certainly couldn't have been worse than the second half of Wigan. Maybe I'm not so dissapointed I didn't wake up for this one.

I don't think you played badly.

The defense was hardly challenged. Boro did nothing.

The chances were good enough, that it easily could have been a 2-0 win.

Martins, surprisingly, took a bad angle in on goal from a great pass from Butt.


There were 2-3 clear great chances in 2nd half.

The defense is playing better (2 goals vs. Fulham, 1 vs. 'Pool, 1 vs. Wigan, 0 today). Things are improving.

I think you desperately need a left back, and I'd spend big money to get the right guy (from Southhampton? or overseas). You can keep Solano as your right back in a pinch (if funds are a problem), but otherwise go buy a decent right back too. Put Taylor in the middle w/Gooch 1st half of next year.

Bramble should be your 'depth' guy.

If Gooch sucks early next year, then go spend big in the next January window for a centerback, and drop Gooch to the bench. But especially relative to the $$ spent, Gooch would be a good pickup on his form so far. Its not a financial disaster either if you buy him in June but have to drop him to bench next Jan.

But I don't think you will need to do that. He should get steadily better.

Personally, if I were die/wool Newcastle fan- I'd be most pissed at the sorry contribution from Duff (look how much money you spent!), and you should be seeing more offense from your midfielders too.

Next year, Owen and Martins will make a classy upfront duo. Pray that Duff turns it around, or sell him in Jan. window and use those funds to pick up someone decent.

In the perfect world, you could also spend big on that extra attacking midfielder that your club needs. But I don't know if you can afford (a great LB, a great RB AND an attacking mid).

If you draw 0-0 at home, the defense is fine but your offense needs work.

Gooch looked like a clutz from what I saw in the first half. Oba had a great chance early but Schwarzer made a good save. We seem to be lacking someone to distribute the ball to the forwards. Everything going forward was sloppy and we need a distribution guy. We could also use a little height in the box, but I'm not going to hold my breathe.

I agree with a lot of what Golazo said, as I'm sure we all do.

And what do you expect from Paker and Butt in the middle? Neither can create anything, they are both workhorses, and good ones at that. But to play them together makes no sense to me.

And I am very angry at the purchase of Duff, it doesn't make any sense to me at all how we spend 5 mil on him when we could have bought a fullback. And he's been shit.