Newcastle United - November 2010

Hi and welcome back to my latest installment of my Newcastle United story. In my last post I had managed to climb into the top half I wanted to keep this going but had a tough 5 games ahead of me. It would start with a trip to St Andrews to face Birmingham then a home game agianst Aston Villa before facing fellow promotion team Nottm Forest at St. James followed by an away game to the Britannia and Stoke City and finally finishing with a home game against moneybags Manchester City.

v Birmingham (a) Barclays Premiership

The first game of the month saw Newcastle travel to St.Andrews to face Birmingham City 11th in the league. The game started well for the travelling team and we were ahead early on in the game. A goal from Macheda put the Magpies ahead after 8 minutes when a missed header by Ridgewell from a long ball up the pitch left Macheda one-on-one with the keeper and the visitors were 1-0 up. Birmingham were trying to find their way back into the game and the equaliser came in the 30th minute. A outswinging corner from Fahey was headed in from 7 yards the most annoying thing was it was a free header and I was annoyed with the marking for the goal. After the second half started the game became really scrappy and the ball never really found its way towards either teams goals. It was no suprise that the game finished 1-1 and there was no goals in the second half. I was slightly dissapointed as at the start of the month this was one of the game were I felt I could get three points. Next up was against Aston Villa at home.

v Aston Villa (h) Barclays Premiership

This was a big game as Aston Villa was a team that could challenge me for a European position. It was a classic game as both teams were very open and there was a lot of big chances. Both teams also that some controversial decsions with but teams having a goal disallowed for offside that looked that they were the wrong decsions. This game seemed to be ending to a 0-0 draw until substitute Andy Carroll climbed above the head of James Collins and Richard Dunne to fire Newcastle into delerium and we had snatched a goal right at the death. I was really pleased for the players and knew if we keep this form up then we will have a good chance of the Europa League. Next up was Nottm Forest

v Nottm Forest (h) Barclays Premiership

A second home game in a row saw us face a Nottm Forest side who had come up from the Championship with Newcastle in second place and were now finding it hard in the Premiership in 18th postion I fully expected three points. It took us till the second half till we took the lead and again it was the foot of Okaka who scored for Newcastle. He got his goal from a rebounded shot from Jonas which was saved by Lee Camp and he had most of the goal to place the ball into the back of the net. We got our second goal and finished off the game in the 87th minute. Jonas got his name on the scoresheet after some good build up play on the edge of the box a chipped throughball from Guthrie fell to the feet on Jonas. He took one touch and sidefooted the ball into the bottom corner and the points were ours. Next up was Stoke at the Britannia.  

v Stoke City (a) Barclays Premiership

Unfortunelty this was probabally the worse game I have ever watched in the 4 years I have been playing Football Manager. The only real talking point in this game was the sending off of Danny Guthrie which will strech our sqaud as I dont have many good central midfielders. The first booking was for a late challenge on former Sunderland player Dean Whitehead and the second was for a similar tackle on Etherington. The game finished 0-0 and I was looking for a more exciting game in the next match against Manchester City.

v Manchester City (h) Barclays Premiership

After the farsical perfrmance agianst Stoke I was looking for a reaction from my Newcastle player ahead of the ame against Manchester City. Unfortunetly this never came and Man City deserved the three points that they got. The first goal came nearly straight from the kick off when Adebayor got the first goal of the game inside the first 10 minutes when his curled shot went over the desparing lunge of Andrea Consigli. The second came from the leagues current top scorer Carlos Tevez. It was a good performance by Man City but we made them look bettr than they actually were. Hopefully I can get Newcastle out of a bit of a few bad performances.  

November Results

A good start to the month that slightly tailed off towards the end by I wasn't really expecting a win at the Britannia and I didn't think we could really beat Man City but the performances were improving and my team look like that they are starting to gel.

November League Table

A good month saw us climb into the European spots hopefully I could keep thisgoing and grap an unlikely European place for next season.

Thanks for reading, a new post will be here soon

Warren