Competition: Barclay’s Premier League
Kickoff: Sunday 27th August @ 2.00pm (No TV)
Venue: Villa Park, Birmingham
Referee: Howard Webb (Rotherham, Yorkshire)

After a failed exercise in shooting practice on Thursday night against FK Ventspils our boys head to Villa Park for the second game of the 2006-2007 Barclay’s Premiership on Sunday knowing that they’ll face a far sterner test this time around. Obafemi Martins has landed from Inter Milan for the princely sum of £10M and goes directly into the starting line-up as Newcastle look to repeat the excellent performance of last season, which saw them leave Birmingham with a 2-1 victory.

It’s back to the good stuff this weekend as we put the memories of our 1-0 aggregate victory over the Latvians firmly to the back of our minds and head off to Villa Park, perhaps Newcastle’s favourite away destination of them all. Aston Villa have beaten us on their home turf only twice since we started our Premiership existence in 1993, with Newcastle winning six and playing-out five draws at the Villans’ stomping ground.

After our hard-fought first opening-day victory of the season since 2002 against Wigan, the claret and blues provide us with a far different test to what we faced last Saturday at Gallowgate. Expected to line-up in a modern 4-3-3 formation, Villa will be looking to absorb Newcastle’s pressure and hit us on the break in front of their expectant support, while being far-less physical than the Latics were. Although the likes of Gareth Barry and Gavin McCann take no prisoners, Martin O’Neill’s men present far-less of a workout than we were put through last time out in league action.

Speaking of the Northern Irish whiz, if rumours are to be believed then it must be noted that he turned down the chance to manage Newcastle after the exit of Graeme Souness and perhaps other clubs were also knocked-back before the diminutive motivator ended up at Doug Ellis’ Aston Villa. With Randy Lerner in the process of completing his takeover of a club rich in tradition and proud of stature all signs point to a revival, of sorts, for Birmingham’s greatest club - although cash remains tight in their immediate future.

With their nearest rivals relegated down to the Championship, much like ours were, a little bit of the spark had been taken away from their season - the Birmingham derbies always provided massive entertainment - but the arrival of O’Neill and the American billionaire has injected the air around Aston with the faint whiff of hope, and Newcastle will know that as they head there tomorrow. A good game is expected and the prospect of our first glimpse of Obafemi Martins in a black-and-white shirt is another excellent reason to get excited for the fixture, it should be a great day.

Team News

Newcastle United

Squad: Shay Given, Stephen Harper, Stephen Carr, Peter Ramage, Steven Taylor, Craig Moore, Titus Bramble, Celestine Babayaro, Nolberto Solano, James Milner, Scott Parker, Nicky Butt, Belozoglu Emre, Matthew Pattison, Charles N’Zogbia, Damien Duff, Alan O’Brien, Shola Ameobi, Albert Luque and Obafemi Martins.

Injuries: With Kieron Dyer (hamstring/back) inching closer to his September return and Michael Owen (ACL) still months away from playing, United only have doubts over Shola Ameobi (hip/hamstring) and Craig Moore (knee) for Sunday afternoon - the latter is expected to have more chance of being fit, but probably won’t start after a solid performance from the Taylor and Bramble partnership on Thursday. Shay Given is expected to be fine after he sat out the draw with FK Ventspils to rest his back strain.

Suspensions: There are no suspensions and only Albert Luque has been booked so far.

Aston Villa

Squad: Thomas Sorensen, Stuart Taylor, Aaron Hughes, Olof Mellberg, Martin Laursen, Liam Ridgewell, Mark Delaney, Jlloyd Samuel, Peter Whittingham, Steve Davis, Eric Djemba-Djemba, Gavin McCann, Lee Hendrie, Gareth Barry, Luke Moore, Juan-Pablo Angel and Gabriel Agbonlahor

Injuries: Milan Baros (foot), Patrick Berger (ankle) and Gary Cahill (knee) are missing for Villa with long-term ailments, while Wilfred Bouma (hamstring) and Jlloyd Samuel (thigh) will probably just miss out as well. Mark Delaney (virus) is the only player on the Villa injury list expected to play a part.

Suspensions: There are no suspensions, but Angel, Hendrie, McCann and Samuel have all been booked once already so far this season.

Potential Selections

Shay Given
Stephen Carr
Steven Taylor
Titus Bramble
Celestine Babayaro
Nolberto Solano
Scott Parker
Belozoglu Emre
Damien Duff
Shola Ameobi
Obafemi Martins

Vs

Gabriel Agbonlahor
Juan-Pablo Angel
Luke Moore
Gareth Barry
Gavin McCann
Steve Davis
Peter Whittingham
Liam Ridgewell
Olof Mellberg
Aaron Hughes
Thomas Sorensen

Our Approach

With the line-up in the air and so-far undisclosed, there are a few angles to attack this one from - but we’ll go down the route of Glenn Roeder selecting a flat 4-4-2 formation, with Shola Ameobi and Obafemi Martins up front, which is my predicted line-up. With the Villans currently employing a varied 4-3-3 it would seem that this would be the best way to go. If our forwards keep their centre-halves occupied and our selected wingers pin their fullbacks in their own half, then a big onus will rest with the new Captain Fantastic and whoever his partner might be - most likely Emre - to win the midfield battle against the greater numbers of their opponents.

While Aston Villa’s first eleven, on paper, does not come close to ours - even with Kieron Dyer and Michael Owen missing - Martin O’Neill is well-recognised as an efficient and organised manager who oversees hard-working teams. Gareth Barry and Steve Davis are high-quality football players for them and could be from where much of Villa’s good play stems tomorrow. Gavin McCann is their partner in midfield, but he will most likely sit-back and keep his eye on Parker’s forward excursions - if there are any.

Bearing all of this in mind, I’d say that tomorrow - and for the first time this season - it might make sense for us to nullify the opposition before laying our own attacking foundations. The clarets have already shocked Arsenal at the Emirates’ Stadium and were perhaps fortunate to beat Reading so easily due to some of the referee’s decisions, but we will need to be wary of their unknown strengths. Luke Moore and Gabriel Agbonlahor are something of an surprise quantity for them in their final third and their pace will no doubt worry our defenders, but they should not, along with Angel, provide anything of an aerial threat to our centre-backs. It is imperative that whoever Roeder picks at the heart of the defence stamps their authority on Villa’s diminutive strike-force.

It’s an unusual occurrence that we face a team without so many of the big brutes that you see in the Premier League these days, and for once we should not be overpowered by our opponents. Our lack of height in the midfield area, especially, has been providing me with cause for concern, but tomorrow we might stand something of a chance when the ball is in the air, but Barry and McCann are hardly small-fry.

As much as it is nice to start games well, we cannot expect Newcastle to go hell-for-leather into every encounter and it may serve us well to survey the scene of this one a little bit before going for the jugular. Obafemi Martins will be something of a mystery for our opponents and it is absolutely essential that we utilise his pace against the pedestrian Villa backline. I would imagine that should Shola play he would keep Mellberg busy while Ridgewell would be forced to deal with the menacing Nigerian. If Nobby Solano and Emre start the game then they have a massive responsibility of looking for Martins at every possible opportunity, but Ameobi should provide a good outlet as well.

With Villa playing something of a narrow formation it could bear fruit to have Emre and Parker continue their deeper-lying roles in the centre of the park in order to free up Stephen Carr and Celestine Babayaro from the fullback positions. Doubling up against Villa’s poor fullbacks could bring definite joy for our team, while causing their central midfielders to have to drop-off in order to cover them - potentially leaving space for Parker to burst through the middle.

I’m actually excited to see a traditional 4-4-2 in effect after the trials of the 4-5-1/4-3-3 hybrid that we have witnessed so far this season. Shola Ameobi - if fit - and Martins have the potential to form a lethal and unorthodox strike-force for us that could give Mellberg and Ridgewell all kinds of bother - the fact that we’ll be seeing pace up front for the first time since 2004 is another reason to be cheerful.

With Roeder failing to make any changes during the game on Thursday night - most likely out of fear of upsetting the balance of the team and causing us to lose a goal - it has to also be said that the bench could play a massive role in any potential success in this fixture. With an almost-fit squad we should be able to name a very strong set of substitutes - Harper, Moore, Butt, Milner and N’Zogbia the most likely suspects - the two youngsters, in particular, providing us with excellent options from the sidelines should they be needed.

While Aston Villa will present a hard-working and well-organised obstacle, we should be sensible enough to know how to contain their average players. The defence, as they always should, will need to be alert and ready at all times and our central midfielders need to grab the game by the scruff of the neck to allow our excellent wingers the freedom to operate. We must concentrate on distorting Villa’s shape and unsettling their tactics, while playing to our strengths as a quick-paced and technical outfit.

Key Players

Newcastle: Obafemi Martins - Who else could possibly be picked as Newcastle’s star man this weekend? All eyes are going to be the new inhabitant of the most famous jersey in the league, a 21-year-old kid from Lagos, Nigeria. Martins has already spoken with Shearer about the weight that the number 9 shirt holds but he seems confident of being able to step into the massive boots of our former talisman. With Shola Ameobi doubtful for the game, Martins might even find himself selected up front alone to add even more pressure onto his debut, but hopefully his big strike partner will pull-through and we’ll see the all-Nigerian pairing getting acquainted with one another on the turf of Villa Park. Martins is expected to change the way we play completely - we’ve been crying out for a bit of pace up the middle, like everyone else I cannot wait to see what he can do.

Villa: Juan-Pablo Angel - A man who we found ourselves linked with before Martin O’Neill arrived in Birmingham, now seemingly assured of his future. The Colombian is a player with an undoubted touch of class and he has scored goals by the plenty for both Villa and River Plate. With the pure pace of Moore and Agbonlahor around him, the ageing striker will be afforded more time to concentrate on doing what he does best and our centre backs are going to have to watch him like hawks while the fullbacks contend with his support attacking them from a slightly deeper starting position. Villa have goals throughout their line-up, but keeping Angel quiet will go a long way to seeing us getting a good result away to the Villans for the second consecutive season.

Pre-Match Comments: Glenn Roeder

Martin O’Neill

“I expect Aston Villa to be what everyone thinks they are going to be, and that is a typical Martin O’Neill side - they will be highly motivated, well-organised and full of running.

“Now that Martin is the manager, he has given the supporters a bit of hope for the future - but it is up to us to concentrate on ourselves. We must remember that we are playing Aston Villa and we’re not playing the manager.

“We don’t want to be cluttering our heads with anything other than the fact we are playing Aston Villa. I’m sure Martin has had the desired effects on them, and it will be a tough game. It’s a game we are looking forward to, they have had a good start to the season, we’re in good form, and we cannot wait to get down there.”

Selection

“Nobby Solano and Nicky Butt were on the bench, for example, but take that as an example of having a lot of senior players in the squad. That’s the beauty of having a senior squad, when you want to give people a rest you can.

“We have three games this week - we’ve got two of them out of the way now with the third game coming up on Sunday. It’s a huge game for us, and I wanted to give one or two of them a break knowing they will be fresh as daisies on Sunday.”

Pre-Match Comments: Martin O’Neill

“It’s been a really good week. It was just fantastic to win the game on Wednesday and great to have the crowd behind us. Now we’ve got a big game on Sunday.

“I’ve been absolutely delighted with the team. They’ve put everything in to the game and, just from effort alone; it’s great for them to get something out of it.

“We were nervous on Wednesday; don’t ask me why, I thought we would gain a great deal of confidence from the match against Arsenal. I think inwardly we probably did do.

“But we started nervously and went a goal behind after just four minutes. We were then on the back-foot and there seemed to be a nervousness and an anxiety about our play. But we got back into the game, got to 1-1 and I felt we could go on to win the game.

“Having said that, there’s more to come, I think, and hopefully on Sunday we’ll prove that. I’m looking forward to this game and we should be set for another terrific atmosphere.”

Past Meetings

All-Time Record

P143 W62 L51 D30 F227 A229

Last Season’s League Meetings

@ St. James’ (3rd December 2005): A poor game at our home ground saw a 1-1 score as Alan Shearer opened the scoring with a 32nd minute penalty, before Gavin McCann equalised with a decent goal in the 75th minute. The game was best remembered for the dying moments, though, when Gareth Barry smashed his penalty over the crossbar to probably keep Graeme Souness in his job for another week. Aye, cheers for that Gareth… this writer vaguely remembers feeling guilty at the time for actually wanting the Cockney to score from the spot.

@ Villa Park (11th February 2006): An excellent 2-1 victory in Birmingham, despite losing Celestine Babayaro to a red-card with half-an-hour left to play. Ameobi put us ahead after just 2 minutes, before Luke Moore equalised in the 16th minute for the Villans… cue Charles N’Zogbia putting us back ahead on 29 minutes after reacting well to a spilled Solano shot. This game saw the Roeder revolution getting into its stride as David O’Leary accused us of being “extremely lucky” to beat his mediocre side, much to Roeder’s disgust.

Points of Interest

>> We haven’t been beaten in the Premiership for 153 days, since the 3-1 defeat at Charlton on the 26th March.

>> We are aiming to extend an unbeaten run in the league to 9 games.

>> A win at Villa Park would be our first opening away victory for 9 years, since we beat West Ham at Upton Park in 1997.

>> We haven’t claimed the opening 6 points in any since for 9 years either, when our opening three fixtures were home games.

>> If Nicky Butt is picked from the first whistle it would be his 250th career start.

The Verdict

It seems like there are no easy calls in the realm of the Premier League these days, especially where Newcastle United are concerned. With the added pace and firepower that our £10m acquisition from Inter Milan is expected to bring the game at Villa Park is one that a lot of us will feel is winnable. However, with one of the most respected managers around beginning to stamp his authority onto a decent squad of players and with two excellent results already in the bag so far - not to mention an extra day of rest on Newcastle after the midweek fixtures - this could be a lot more difficult than expected.

Our defence still provides cause for concern and has me hoping that the rumours about Bridge and Woodgate prove to be true. I cannot see us keeping a clean-sheet this time around, especially with the pace that the Villans will have supporting Angel. It doesn’t need saying that this lot are a massive step-up from FK Ventspils, but more of the same from our lads would be a welcome sight. With Damien Duff looking like he’s hitting full-fitness and a plethora of other options in the midfield area I’m still confident that we’ll leave Birmingham with a result.

I’m hoping for another 2-1 victory for the lads, but hopefully without the red-card drama that we had to put up with last time around down this way. My money is on Juan-Pablo bagging another goal for the clarets while I’m going to stick with optimism as I pick Obafemi Martins to open his account in style with a goal, hopefully with another confidence-boosting strike for the aching Ameobi to continue to silence his many doubters. I’m yet to get a score-line correct so far this season, though, so if you’re of the betting variety then I’d steer well clear!

For both clubs this is a massive, massive fixture. If Aston Villa win, then they will find themselves either second or third tomorrow evening - depending on other results - and if Newcastle leave with a victory for the second successive year, then along with Manchester United they would be the only team in the entire league to be carrying a 100% record. While the likes of Tottenham, Arsenal and Bolton are all faltering it is imperative that we do not.

A good start is an all-too-rare occurrence for us and this is an opportunity not to be missed, with an international break preceding Fulham’s visit to St. James’ park our players must give their all for the cause and endeavour to put us into the upper echelons of the league table.

HOWAY THE LADS!!!