Newcastle United - March 2011

Hi everyone, hope that you are all well and welcome back to the next blog in my Newcastle United story. I had a quiet month ahead of me with only four games to play. I started the month an the travels to face Aston Villa before my FA Cup Quater Final tie with Liverpool and finishing the month of with games against Birmingham and Nottm Forest.

v Aston Villa (a) Barclays Premiership

The first game of March saw us take a trip to Villa Park to play an Aston Villa side who were out of from and were having a dissapointing season as they were in 10th position. I was slightly dissapointed when Villa took the lead in the 16th through Sergio Floccari's shot from just outside the area. I was so pleased when we got our equaliser as it now only did it take the game to 1-1 but the scorer was Macheda his first goal in nearly 4 months. I have to admit that he hasn't played every game but it was nearly 1900 minutes before he scored and to my delighted just like buses you wait for a long time for one bus and two come at the time. Macheda got his second goal just 9 minutes later when he got on the end of a Jonas cross to put Newcastle in the lead. It was a feisty game after that and you could tell that Villa were getting more and more frustrated by the minute. When the final whistle blew I was thrilled as we had come to Villa Park and took the game by the scruff of the neck and ground out a really good result. Next up was the FA Cup Quater Final game against Liverpool.

v Liverpool (a) FA Cup Quarter Final

I wasn't sure what team to play for this game as I wanted to keep going in the FA Cup but I felt that securing Europe was the more important target and the more realistic to get. I played a slightly weakened team with Krul in goal, Williamson and Kadar in defence, Pancrate in midfield and Lovenkrands and Donaldson up front but the rest of the team was the usual starting 11. Liverpool took the lead in the 5th minute and it was the summer signing of Milan Jovanovic who scored (this was more annoying as he had struggled in his first season at Liverpool scoring only 4 goal in 20 games but he had to score against me didn't he) :-(. We tried to get back in the game up the lack of quality was a disadvantage. At the end of the game I was out of the cup but this put more time for me to challenge for Europe.

v Birmingham (h) Barclays Premiership

The final home game of the month saw us face Birmingham City who were currently in the relegation place and keeping Sunderland in the league so I was looking for maximum points in this game. This looked like more of a realistic prediction as we took the lead after we had dominated the start of the game and Macheda scored in the 16th minute. We doubled our lead in the 29th minute when Stefano Okaka got on the end of a Guthrie free-kick to volley to ball home. Thats the way it stayed until half time and we were crusing in this game and I dont think that Consigli had to make any sort of save. It was then 3-0 ten minutes into the second half when Jonas got his 8th goal of the season. He tokk the ball past two Birmingham defenders before placing the ball into the top right hand of the goal. It was another win and if I gcould repeat this result in the next game against Nottm Forest I would have competed a 100% league record in the month.

v Nottm Forest (a) Barclays Premiership

The last game of March saw us on the road to the City Ground to face Nottm Forest who were a team that got promoted with Newcastle in the season before. They were currently bottom of the league and really need to win this game if they were going to realistically stay up. It was 1-0 in the 35 minute when Tamas Kadar got his second goal of the season. From a Routledge corner he got his head first to the ball before he powered his header past Lee Camp in the Forest net right infront of the travelling fans. We got a second start away and it was Stefano Okaka who grapped the goal just three minutes after the first. A through ball from Smith and a diagonal run than took him away from his marker set up the goal and a powerful shot that flew into the back of the net. The second half begun and Nottm Forest were the better team and they were the team that looked like they were winning 2-0. The pressure was getting more and more but some decent saves and good defending from my Newcastle player saw the game through and it was a cleen sheet at the end of the game and I had competed a 100% record in the league this month.  

March Results

A very good month even though I had been knocked out of the FA Cup Quarter Final by Liverpool I got maximum points in the league to move up the league table.


March League Table

I had moved up to 6th place with a 100% record in March and 3 league wins out of 3. I dont expected to finish this high as most of the teams below us have at least a game in hand our my Newcastle team but I would be brilliant if I finished this high.

Thanks for reading, next blog here soon

warren