After a long summer, premiership football is back at St James Park. Aston Villa provide the first test, and it will be a difficult game. Villa looked decent 2nd half v Liverpool and were unlucky not to grab a point after a controversial decision over Gerrard’s free kick. They played very direct with getting the ball to Carew, and he will be difficult for Rozehnal to mark throughout the game along with Agbonlahor who is very fast and caused us massive problems last year at Villa Park. A Martin O'Neill side will be very organised and watch out for Gareth Barry who ran the show despite us winning 3-1 on the corresponding fixture in January. Our defence coped well last week and I'm hopeful they will deal with this attack just as well. Expect a fast start by our team just like last week.
It has been 6 months since we scored a competitive goal at St James Park which is a dreadful fact, scoring goals was our main concern last season not conceding them. We scored less than 40 goals, which would have been an outcry in the Robson and Keegan era's. The question to ask on team selection will be will Michael Owen play and if he does where? I can't see him fitting into a 4-3-3 formation with one main striker and 2 winger/strikers along side also who will he drop he can't drop Martins after scoring twice and Milner was equally as good last week. So if Owen does play I suspect Sam will be going 4-4-2 and that will mean martins on the bench as Sam like’s to play his little and large partnership upfront. I don't expect any other changes, as the team played very well last week and thankfully no new injury scares with only Owen being the only player back from injury so Steve Harper will still be in goal and Fraser Foster will continue on the bench.
There has been a campaign to BRING BACK THE NOISE by the toon ultra's but I think this wasn't needed, there seems to be a bit of a buzz around the place with a new team, old timewasters shipped out, new management, new board and hopefully If we see some encouragement the fans will back the team.
My Prediction if we get a good start then I think we will go on and score 3-4, and clean sheet would be nice but I’m going for 3-1.
It has been 6 months since we scored a competitive goal at St James Park which is a dreadful fact, scoring goals was our main concern last season not conceding them. We scored less than 40 goals, which would have been an outcry in the Robson and Keegan era's. The question to ask on team selection will be will Michael Owen play and if he does where? I can't see him fitting into a 4-3-3 formation with one main striker and 2 winger/strikers along side also who will he drop he can't drop Martins after scoring twice and Milner was equally as good last week. So if Owen does play I suspect Sam will be going 4-4-2 and that will mean martins on the bench as Sam like’s to play his little and large partnership upfront. I don't expect any other changes, as the team played very well last week and thankfully no new injury scares with only Owen being the only player back from injury so Steve Harper will still be in goal and Fraser Foster will continue on the bench.
There has been a campaign to BRING BACK THE NOISE by the toon ultra's but I think this wasn't needed, there seems to be a bit of a buzz around the place with a new team, old timewasters shipped out, new management, new board and hopefully If we see some encouragement the fans will back the team.
My Prediction if we get a good start then I think we will go on and score 3-4, and clean sheet would be nice but I’m going for 3-1.
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