Newcastle desperately need to beat QPR this weekend
Cup an ear and listen very, very carefully. Hear that high-pitched squeaking noise? That’s the sound of thousands of Geordie buttocks chafing in unison at the prospect of Saturday’s home match against Queens Park Rangers. The Premier League festive -fixture generator has not been kind to Newcastle United, which means Saturday’s home fixture against resurgent … OK, the recently resuscitated corpse of QPR, has taken on the kind of importance neither club could have envisaged when it chuntered into life in a summer full of promise.
Newcastle’s steady descent towards the relegation mire shows no sign of being halted, having registered just three points out of the last 21 available. What can no longer be considered a gimme against QPR is followed by gruelling trips to Manchester United and Arsenal, with a toughie at home to Everton suggesting that if they lose this weekend there’s every possibility Alan Pardew’s side could emerge from the festive clatter of fixture with no points out of a possible 12.
Incidentally, the thousands of die-hard Newcastle supporters making the coach trips to Old Trafford and the Emirates over the festive period face stadium-to-stadium round trips totalling 853 miles (well over eight-times the distance facing travelling West Ham fans going no further than Reading). Newcastle cancelled their Christmas party out of respect for their fans, who would probably prefer the less-hollow gesture of seeing their under-performing players pick up three precious points this weekend.
QPR desperately need to beat Newcastle this weekend
Having applied the defibrillator paddles and coaxed the barely twitching corpse of Queens Park Rangers back to life, Harry Redknapp desperately needs to build on the foundation of last weekend’s victory over Fulham. Short of hand-picking a home match against Reading, he could hardly have a better opportunity to do so – Newcastle’s dire current run of form has already been mentioned. With Adel Taarabt looking likely to spend up to six weeks gadding about South Africa at the Africa Cup of Nations from mid-January, Redknapp could do with making hay while his once prodigal son is shining and will be delighted Newcastle’s similarly mercurial talent Hatem Ben Arfa is almost certain to be sidelined. Festive matches against out-of-sorts Newcastle, West Brom, Liverpool and Chelsea will provide QPR with a splendid chance of banking eight or more points that could prove so crucial to their survival. Anything less and the jig could well be up.
Viva Aston Villa
Having returned from the Club World Cup and got that tricky Capital One Cup tie at Leeds United out of the way with a minimum of fuss, the next challenge facing the Chelsea manager, Rafael Benítez, is a tricky home match against Aston Villa, who finally roared into life against Liverpool last weekend. The prospect of Paul Lambert’s fearless and sprightly young terriers playfully snapping at the ankles of the creaking war horses of Chelsea makes for an intriguing prospect and victory for the visitors will certainly enhance the popularity among neutrals of a Villa side it’s become worryingly fashionable to like in recent weeks.
Although unbeaten in their last five league matches, Aston Villa’s record in the Big Smoke is not good this year. They’ve drawn one and lost four in London in 2012, but at 15-2 appear to represent many people’s idea of a value bet to take all three points.
Something’s got to give at Anfield … maybe
The referee Mark Clattenburg faces another unwelcome spell in the in the spotlight in the event of a draw or Fulham victory – according to the good people at Infostrada Sports, Liverpool have never won a home match in the Premier League when the Geordie whistle-blower has been officiating and will find himself being blamed if this run continues and he’s deemed to have contributed to their latest failure.
Liverpool’s home form is woeful – under Brendan Rodgers they’ve picked up only 12 out of a possible 27 Premier League points. Luckily for them, Fulham’s away form is considerably worse, with Martin Jol’s Cottagers having bagged a mere seven points from 27, franking their rubbishness on the road with ignominious defeat at the hands of QPR at Loftus Road last weekend. You’d be forgiven for presuming something’s got to give in this battle for mid-table supremacy – except it doesn’t because it could finish all-square in a state of affairs that wouldn’t be much use to either side.
Jimmy Kebe should be careful what he wishes for
The purchase of Reading from John Madejski by the young Russian tycoon Anton Zingarevich (family wealth: £460m, give or take a few bob) was apparently the deciding factor in the occasional Reading game-changer Jimmy Kebe signing a new contract during the summer but after his side’s latest humiliation, against Arsenal, the right-winger seems to be ruing the day he beamed for the cameras with pen poised over expensive-looking legal document.
“People will talk shit about us like we are shit and the manager needs to leave, but that’s bullshit,” said Kebe, in the kind of eloquent appraisal you just don’t hear often enough from highly rated pundits like Gary Neville. “We are all trying our best and you have to ask the owner if he wants to spend any money in January to make the team better otherwise there is nothing to expect.”
Quite how Zingarevich will react to Kebe’s understandable, if ill-advisedly foul-mouthed post-match exhortation for him to dig deep remains to be seen, although one suspects any Chelsea player making similar comments would quickly find themselves shipped out on loan to a Sibneft Works XI in the lower divisions of the Siberian Snow Leagues. But considering how often Reading were torn asunder by Arsenal down a flank on which the full-back Shaun Cummings was repeatedly left horribly exposed, their rich Russian sugar daddy might call Kebé’s bluff by investing in a winger who occasionally tracks back.
Arsenal Lite take on Arsenal Lite
With their occasionally rubbish goalkeeper, habit of pinging the ball about to little effect and poor results, Wigan Athletic resemble a pale imitation of Arsenal. It makes this match-up interesting, because with their occasionally rubbish goalkeeper, habit of pinging the ball about to little effect and poor results, Arsenal also resemble a pale imitation of Arsenal.
But while it would be foolhardy to read too much into Arsenal’s rout of woeful Reading on Monday night, a similar performance should be enough to see them prevail at the DW Stadium. It could be argued that this game is the low-rent Premier League equivalent of Arsenal entertaining Barcelona in the Champions League and most right-thinking folk have a fair idea how that would go, but Arsenal have failed to win any of their last three in the north-west, although they did win the corresponding fixture 4-0 last season.
Things to look out for in this game? Theo Walcott asking somebody if he can borrow a pen with which to put an end to tedious will-he-stay or will-he-go talk and calamitous errors leading to goals. According to the nerd nirvana that is whoscored.com, Arsenal have made the most this season with 11, while Wigan are running them a close second with 10.
How will Everton fare without Fellaini?
Having booked his Christmas holidays through the innovative expedient of nutting the Stoke City centre-half Ryan Shawcross off the ball and on camera, Marouane Fellaini will be a conspicuous absentee from the Everton ranks when they travel to take on West Ham at the Boleyn Ground. As well as big hair, the Belgian leaves big boots to fill and it will be intriguing to see how David Moyes goes about tackling the problem of compensating for the loss of his stand-out player against the Hammers, Wigan Athletic and Chelsea. Thomas Hitzlsperger, Ross Barkley or Apostolos Vellios are all contenders to fill the Fellaini-shaped hole in Everton’s line-up, although all three could end up kicking their heels on the bench if Moyes starts Bryan Oviedo on the left wing and plays Steven Naismith off the shoulder of Nikica Jelavic up front.
Goals are not over-rated
Having been drawn out of the Uefa tombola to face Real Madrid in the last 16 of the Champions League, Manchester United can enjoy the benefit of an early dress rehearsal with this Premier League set-to with a slick passing outfit from a different country whose players wear an all white strip.
In Michu and Robin van Persie, this encounter pits the Premier League’s joint top scorers against each other, with both men on 12 each. Swansea’s star midfielder needs to double his current tally to equal his compatriot Fernando Torres’s record haul for a Spaniard in the Premier League, scored for Liverpool in 2007-08, while Wayne Rooney looks a more likely contender than Van Persie to bag a goal. He’s scored in United’s last three Premier League matches, not to mention nine in his last seven played in the month of December.
Watch Wes! Watch Wes! Watch Wes!
You’ll have to watch this space for the definitive lowdown on the best and worst players of this Premier League season to date, as decided by the many Guardian readers who take the time to compile player ratings. But if you promise not to tell anyone, I can exclusively reveal that Wes Hoolahan is third at the moment (a full blog on this will be on the site on Thursday). That’s Wes Hoolahan, the diminutive playmaker of a provincial side regularly mocked for their ways. A man who struggles to make the squad of a Republic of Ireland team bereft of the kind of creativity that is his stock-in-trade, watch and wonder how on earth a football man as knowledgeable as Giovanni Trapattoni could have ignored him for so long.
Can Pulis pull it off in London?
Stoke have lost on 10 of their last 12 visits to London, not having won a game in the English capital since turning over Fulham back in May 2010. Their record against this weekend’s opposition isn’t great either – Spurs have lost just one of their five league encounters, at the Britannia Stadium last season, when their former winger Matthew Etherington scored twice in Stoke’s 2-1 win. Etherington will make his 400th career league appearance, an impressive tally for a man who spent years playing through the stress of a ruinously expensive and secret gambling addiction.
The club he plays for are similarly resilient, having conceded fewer goals and kept more clean sheets than any other side in the division. The likely return from injury of Gareth Bale to Tottenham’s ranks will provide a stern test of Stoke’s defensive mettle; look out for the whites of the right-back Andy Wilkinson’s eyes.
Source: The SportBlog
