Everybody's Down

Match Preview: West Bromwich Albion v Newcastle United - 7/2/09 @ 3pm

While the never ending uncertainty continues at St James' Park there's actually a game to be played this weekend. I'm not going to go into the depth that the lads at True Faith do on this occasion, suffice to say that noone is particularly pleased at the fact the club has made a profit in the transfer window and now the players that have left have nothing good to say about the 'men' in charge. That one of the departed is Shay Given, third in the club's all-time appearance list, leaves no doubt that the club is in a complete mess. Perhaps instead of slagging off players that have left the club, Joe Kinnear could concentrate on preparing the players for the match? What does Rafael Benitez call it? Training the players and focussing on the next match? No chance of that from the man who cannot walk away from a camera or a microphone.

Obafemi Martins is due back from a hernia operation for this one and ankle biter/position unknown Alan Smith returns to add nothing to the side but "passion" and "guts"; qualities supposedly on display throughout this week's Merseyside derby. These words are symptoms of a lack of quality and nothing more. Jonas Gutierrez is suspended, so the travelling support can look forward to Damien Duff on the left and a possible start for Peter Lovenkrands. Passing the ball ought to be a feature against a team as open as West Brom; sadly JFK lives in 1989 and Wimbledon's FA Cup win is still fresh in the mind, so lumping it on to the head of the Fenham Eusebio is all that will be seen.

Defence wise, Coloccini has a knock so Taylor the lesser will play at centre-back with Bassong, whilst Beckham Taylor ought to play at right-back. By all accounts Enrique had a barnstomer against the mackems, so hopefully he can take that performance into this match. Butt and Nolan will probably snarl about the centre circle, with Nolan driving onward, hopefully.

West Brom pass it around and look to bring their wingers into the game. Not sure if they'll opt for 4-5-1 or 4-4-2. 4-5-1 would be a safe bet to give them a good chance of bypassing the midfield swiftly and isolating our strikers. They'll be confident despite their thrashing by Manyoo a few weeks ago, with decent wins over the Smoggies, Spurs and Man City at home recently, although their legs might be streched after the midweek cup match.

NUFC Line-up (predicted): Harper; R. Taylor, S. Taylor, Bassong, Jose Enrique; Lovenkrands, Nolan, Butt, Duff; Martins, Ameobi (Subs) Krul, Coloccini, Edgar, Geremi, Lua Lua, Smith/Xisco, Carroll

WBA Line-up (predicted): Carson; Hoefkens, Meite, Donk, Robinson; Morrison, Borja Valero, Koren, Kim Do-Heon, Brunt; Bednar (Subs) Kiely, Cech, Pele (if only it was Cech and Pele), Mesenguez, Filipe Teixeira, Simpson, Fortune

Prediction: WBA 1 - 2 Newcastle (ever the optimist...)