Premiership - Sunday: Southampton Vs NUFC
Match
Preview By Craig Hope
Sunday will present Graeme Souness with his first real selection dilemma. The
omission of Shearer and Bellamy against Hapoel Bnei Saknin was for
the purpose of rest. Now, having rested, they must be expected to
return to face The Saints. However, how can you drop a player who
comes in and scores two goals and in reality was our only bright spark
on an otherwise dull evening at SJP. Shoala Ameobi on the other hand
made Souness' team selection for Sunday rather easier and will no
doubt start on the bench following a lacklustre display. It will be
interesting to see how Souness handles his substitutions – against
Sakhnin they left a lot to be desired. Kluivert is our top goalscorer
with three thus far and has certainly linked play well in the two
games he has started – a tough decision awaits our new boss.
Southampton are a poor side on evidence of their season to date, their
main dangers being that of ex-mackem Kevin Phillips and summer Toon
target James Beattie. Souness has already been to St.Mary's this season
and has two goals but no points to show from it.
This Sunday could see a repeat of last season where it was evident
that both teams were far more comfortable in attack and decidedly
less assured in defence. If you thought at the end of last season
when Bramble and Caldwell lined up to face Southampton that next season
we would return with a central pairing of possibly Woodgate plus one
summer acquisition you would not have been alone. Instead it looks
for certain that O'Brien will partner Elliott once more at the heart
of our defence. Progress?
A win on the South Coast is vital (something we have incidentally
failed to do in our last 18 league visits). It is vital in that it
will represent a new start – a new start that is so badly needed. It
would also bury the Southampton hoodoo as well as lay to rest the
ever growing winless away form we have been made to endure that stretches
back nearly a year.
Likely
Lineup
Player
Watch For Them: James Beattie
Player
Watch For The Toon: Lee Bowyer
Who
To Boo
NUFC
Squad News & Pre-Match Reaction
Southampton
Squad News & Pre-Match Reaction
The
Referee
Last
6 Meetings Between The Sides
Head
To Head All-Time Record
Current
Form Of Both Sides: Last 10 Games (all competitions)
Prediction
Newcastle-Online Goes Behind Enemy Lines: A Saints Fan's
View
Wrote by Saints Fan:
"For tomorrow's game, I see Lee Bowyer as being your star
player. He's got a touch of the "player-you-love-to-hate" about him
(although he's not quite as bad as Robbie Savage) but that said, you
have to admire him as well. There's no doubting his work-rate and
ability. I'd love it if we had a player like him.
"At the back Given is one of the best keepers but your back four
seem vulnerable and should Beattie and Phillips get some service from
our midfield we could see Given being tested.
"Your attack force is fearsome. Bellamy, Shearer, Kluivert...Souness
is spoilt for choice and if they can get some supply they will cause
our defence problems. We're fortunate Dyer won't be playing but Jenas
has the ability to unlock defences (like he did at SJP against us
back in October last year).
"It's pelting with rain across the water over in Southampton
(it's rain stopped play in the cricket ODI at the Rose Bowl currently)
but the forecast is for a sunny day tomorrow and so the pitch shouldn't
be too heavy. It should be a good game with goals in it and if our
midfield can keep Bowyer under wraps then I see a Saints victory as
likely."
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Bruce To Fix It?
A vicious rumour is doing the rounds that former Liverpool and Southampton
goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar is being considered for
the goalkeeping coaching role currently lying vacant at Newcastle
following the shock resignation of Simon Smith on Thursday.
Toon supporters will no doubt remember Bruce's goalkeeping 'show'
at St. James' Park back in 93 when an Andy Cole hat-trick slipped
through his legs and the thought of the Zimbabwean getting fixed up
with a job at United will no doubt horrify many of you - including
yours truly.
Henry Winter Is An Ass
Extracts from Henry Winter's Saturday Telegraph column:
Bowyer still besmirches football
The worst part of being an English supporter in European week is the
sight of Lee Bowyer stepping out in front of the world's cameras and
representing an English club. No civilized country deserves to have
Bowyer as a citizen. The stomach still churns at the memory of him
once pulling on an England strip.
Bowyer's racist past is well-established, most notoriously when he
charged into a fast-food joint in east London, and railed against
an Asian staff member. Talking to a black England international the
other day, I asked which opponent stirred the most loathing. Bowyer
won by a landslide.
For footballing reasons, let alone moral ones, Bowyer is a liability.
Newcastle United's UEFA Cup first round, first-leg success over Hapoel
Bnei Sachnin on Thursday confirmed Bowyer's nasty streak. One horrible
challenge on Alain Masudi deserved red not yellow, while his filthy
language was missed by the Portuguese referee, but not by television.
At least Bowyer had the decency to wait until after the 9pm watershed.
Graeme Souness, Newcastle's new manager, should tell the over-rated
midfielder to find another employer's name to besmirch.
Henry Winter is an excellent football writer, one of the better one's
with a clear understanding of the game. Not much tosh is wrote from
his pen but these comments about Lee Bowyer smack of a vendetta -
basically he's talking utter tosh.
We all have our feelings on Bowyer but he should be criticised or
indeed praised for what he does or doesn't do on the pitch - not have
his past dragged up every time a writer gets the moral hump.
Since arriving at Newcastle, Bowyer hasn't put a foot out of place
off the pitch and has been a model pro - backed up by his Captain
Alan Shearer as well as other Newcastle players, most notably one
or two black players who have had nothing but praise for him.
Newcastle United and in particularly Sir Bobby Robson, were both heavily
criticised from all corners for bringing him to Toon. Fans, media,
radio stations, even those without an interest in football all passed
judgment and jumped on the bandwagon.
He'll cause trouble, he'll divide a dressing room, he'll not get on
with black players, were the headlines being spat out.
Well none of those headlines have happened. Instead he's kept his
nose clean and his feet tucked in and in doing so he has become a
valuable member of our squad, some say our best midfielder.
Newcastle United have done football a favour and indeed society by
signing Bowyer and giving him a second chance. A good deed. If Henry
Winter had his way Bowyer wouldn't be allowed to play football - now
what kind of society is that? If Lee Bowyer, with his past, can learn
from his mistakes, which he is clearly doing by keeping out of trouble,
then that is a good thing. It's a positive message to all the other
bad boys of football, of which we have a few of them in our dressing
room. It says not all is lost.
People make mistakes and do stupid things that brings a grimace from
the face of football, but when Lee Bowyer cracks in a goal at St.
James' park you can bet your life he brings a smile to the face of
52,000 Geordies. White, black, Asian, yellow, pink...whatever.
Henry, stick to what you do best, writing excellent thought provoking
footballing articles about footballing issues and leave Bowyer to
do what he does best - playing football.
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Shearer The Most Valuable Goalscorer In The Premiership
According to Daniel Finkelstein of The Times online
that is...
LIKE John F. Kennedy, I've been studying American presidential elections
and thinking about scoring. Goals, in my case. In the last contest
for the Oval Office, Al Gore famously gained more votes than his rival
but still managed to lose. That is because he picked up his support
in the wrong places. Presidential elections are settled by the number
and size of states the contenders win. There is no point piling up
votes in states you already know you are going to win or lose by miles.
Campaigning in those places may make you feel good, it may give you
a sense of moral superiority (not a commodity Mr Gore was lacking
in the first place) to score hefty local victories, but it doesn't
help you into the White House.
The point is that votes are not worth the same in different places.
So all those polls telling us who is up and who is down in the national
vote are misleading. What matters is where they are up and down.And
this is where goalscoring comes in.
Each year, we publish a list of the players scoring the most goals.
And the winner is known as the top scorer. This, like those national
US polls, is simultaneously true and misleading. For what matters
about a goalscorer, what makes them a top scorer, is not just how
many they score, but when and where. The Fink Tank statisticians,
Henry Stott and Dr Alex Morton, have been looking at who scored the
most valuable goals in the Premiership last season. That is not just
who scored most often, but whose goals made the most difference to
their team.
Daniele Paserman, of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, had a go
at this for the Fink Tank last year. But we think we've now improved
on his method. Paserman looked at three things — the time a goal was
scored, the score at that time and whether the scoring team was home
or away. This allowed him to assess the difference a goal made to
the probability of different results in the match.
The bigger the difference, the more valuable the goal. So a late goal
by the away side that just nicked a victory when the game was coasting
to a draw would be far more valuable than the fifth goal in a 5-0
rout. Players who frequently score these kind of late crucial goals
deserve recognition. There is one problem with Paserman's work. Say
Crystal Palace are at home to Arsenal. Now look at the value of a
goal scored after ten minutes by either side. Paserman's method would
actually rate the Arsenal goal as more valuable than if it had been
scored by Palace. He takes into account that Arsenal are away and
sees a goal by the away side as more unlikely than a home goal. That
means that the Arsenal goal makes more of a difference to the outcome.
Yet this defies common sense. Arsenal are not just the away side,
they are also Arsenal. Even at Selhurst Park, there is a 72 per cent
chance that they would win. A Palace goal would upset the odds far
more than an Arsenal goal would. It would change the expected distribution
of points far more and would therefore be more valuable. If Arsenal
don't score in the tenth minute, they are far more likely than Palace
to score in the eleventh.
So the new Fink Tank calculation looks at every Premiership goal scored
last season in the context of the teams and their probability of winning
a particular game at the moment each goal was scored.
Thierry Henry was, by far, the scorer of the most goals in the Premiership
last season. Given how many he scored, it is surprising that he was
overtaken as scorer of the most valuable goals by Alan Shearer. The
main reason for this was that on three occasions last season Shearer
scored result-changing goals in the final ten minutes, something Henry
never did.
This is not to denigrate Henry. Arsenal were often cruising by the
last ten minutes. But it does show clearly that the Gunners are not
dependent on him. The most valuable goal scored in the entire season
was put into the net by John Terry, of Chelsea. The greatest value
a goal can have is two points — changing a draw to a win. Terry's
last-gasp goal at home against Bolton Wanderers changed a draw into
victory and granted 1.97 extra expected points. Just a shame it was
an own goal.
VALUABLE SCORERS
1 Alan Shearer (Newcastle)
2 Thierry Henry (Arsenal)
3 Louis Saha (Man Utd)
4 Yakubu Ayegbeni (Portsmouth)
5 Michael Owen (Liverpool)
6 Mikael Forssell (Birmingham)
7 Ruud van Nistelrooy (Manchester United)
8 James Beattie (Southampton)
9 Kevin Davies (Bolton)
10 Robbie Keane (Tottenham)
Amen to that (the Shearer bit). |
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