Match Preview: Newcastle United v Brighton
Don’t you just love the television companies? For the seventh time in the last nine Brighton v Newcastle fixtures, our Lords and Masters have decided to move the game to a time and day that makes it impossible to complete the 690-mile, 12-hour round trip by public transport.
This time, it is Sky that have decided to cock up everyone’s train plans for decreeing that we will get underway at St James’ Park at 5.30pm. That either means a nice 2am arrival back in Sussex for those going by road or an overnight stay. Still, at least the Toon is a brilliant night out.
It would be nice if those of us staying up there have something to celebrate too. While it is probably too early to be using phrases like “cup final” as Newcastle boss Steve Bruce has, it does feel quite important already.
Two points from three home games against West Ham United, Southampton and Burnley is relegation form. A victory on the road would make those poor results at the Amex seem less of a pressing issue.
Defeat would leave us looking in a pretty vulnerable position with games against Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur to come before the October international break. For all the entertaining football Graham Potter is delivering, we need points to go with it. Starting on Tyneside.
A brief history of Newcastle United
Newcastle United should be one of the biggest clubs in the country. They come from a city that lives and breathes football and in which virtually every single local supports the Toon Army. They’ve never dropped out of the top two tiers of the Football League and have spent only three seasons outside of the Premier League since Sky invented football in 1992.
They’ve been champions of England four times and won the FA Cup six times. And yet despite all that, they’re a complete basket case. Many will point the finger of blame for that at the ownership of Mike Ashley, and they’d have a point – after all, this was the bloke who gave Alan Pardew a 22-year contract and appointed Joe Kinnear as manager.
But the underachievement at St James’ Park long precedes the arrival of the Sports Direct tycoon. Newcastle’s last piece of silverware came when they won the FA Cup in 1955, since when the cupboard has been bare. Wigan Athletic, Portsmouth, Swansea City, Wimbledon – they’ve all won major trophies since the Toon Toon black and white army had something to parade. It’s mad when you think about it.
Newcastle United this season
Newcastle had one of the weakest squads in the Premier League last season but one of the best managers. That Rafa the Gaffer led the Toon to 10th and 13th placed finishes since they pipped us to the Championship title in 2016-17 is an extraordinary achievement.
As Olly from NUFC Blog told us in our opposition fan interview, Newcastle find themselves in a strange situation this time around. They’ve got a far better squad with Ashley having spent big on some impressive signings, but they’ve also got a far lesser manager in Bruce.
How will that pan out? They’re one of only four teams currently below the Albion in the table, but they’ve won away at Tottenham Hotspur which underlines the potential that Bruce has within his side. What they need to do is beat the division’s lesser sides at home as Bruce is yet to taste victory at St James’ Park yet. Hopefully, that doesn’t change for our visit.
Head-to-head
Newcastle are one of the few Premier League sides that Brighton actually lead the head-to-head against. The Albion currently have 10 wins to the Toon’s nine with five draws. That impressive record is partly because we’ve never lost a top flight game against Newcastle and partly because we’ve won four out of six in the FA Cup, including two highly satisfying FA Cup upsets in consecutive seasons when Pardew was at the wheel.
Brighton’s head-to-head record with Newcastle United
Last six meetings
• Brighton 1-1 Newcastle (Premier League, 27/04/19)
• Newcastle 0-1 Brighton (Premier League, 20/10/18)
• Newcastle 0-0 Brighton (Premier League, 30/12/17)
• Brighton 1-0 Newcastle (Premier League, 24/09/17)
• Brighton 1-2 Newcastle (Championship, 28/02/17)
• Newcastle 2-0 Brighton (Championship, 27/08/16)
Spot the games that weren’t televised out of those six. Only our two Premier League visits to St James’ weren’t beamed live to the nation, both of which Brighton kept clean sheets in. In fact, the only goal that we’ve conceded against Newcastle since promotion came in the last meeting at the Amex.
Somehow, we escaped that afternoon with a point. The first half performance – when Chris Hughton paired Glenn Murray and Florin Andone up top and used Pascal Gross as a right winger – was arguably the worst 45 minutes of football of the 2018-19 season. Yes, even worse than the second half in the 5-0 defeat to Plucky Little Bournemouth or the previous home loss to Cardiff City. Thankfully, there seems to be little chance that we’ll perform anywhere near as badly on this occasion.
Team news
Martin Montoya is available for selection after missing the Burnley draw with illness. That should give Potter an interesting dilemma as Adam Webster as a right wing back quite clearly didn’t work against the Clarets, hence why it was binned in favour of a back four after just 20 minutes.
With Montoya likely to come straight back in, which of the four centre backs makes way? It seems like a toss up between Webster and Shane Duffy and our money would be on Duffy. Webster looks far more comfortable bursting out of defence with the ball as evidenced by his role in Neal Maupay’s opener last week.
That’s something Potter wants his defenders to do. Duffy himself was extremely honest in admitting it is something he needs to work on and that he deserved to be dropped until he can get to grips with the new style. Potter will no doubt be impressed by that attitude, certainly compared to Florin Andone following his extraordinary interview with The Athletic in which he blamed everyone else but himself for his disappointing Albion career.
Alireza Jahanbakhsh is apparently injured but given that he can’t get near the squad when fit that doesn’t seem to matter. Sadly, Leandro Trossard also remains out for a few more weeks.
Newcastle’s key players
He may not be a key player, but Andy Carroll is set to be on the bench for the first time since his return to St James’ Park. I think we can all see what is going to happen here. He comes on in the 72nd minute to a reception from the Gallowgate End that lifts the roof off the stadium. Cue a late winner and the local hero headlines.
It doesn’t help that Carroll is exactly the sort of physical striker that the Albion struggled against last season. For all the praise that came the way of Duffy and Lewis Dunk, they were completely outplayed by Aleksandar Mitrović on both occasions that we faced Fulham and didn’t look at all comfortable when coming up against Marko Arnautović when we went to the London Stadium.
A good WeAreBrighton.com memory of Newcastle United away
Not a memory of the Toon Army, but a memory of Newcastle. Before the Albion played Hartlepool United at Victoria Park in October 2007 – the game where Bas Savage stumbled past six players from the halfway line to score the winner in the last minute – we stayed in Newcastle for the weekend. It was about £1.30 a Newcastle Brown Ale and £1.70 a bottle of Reef. The hangover lasted a week.
A bad WeAreBrighton.com memory of Newcastle United away
We’ve only ever seen us lose once at St James’ Park, the 2-0 defeat in the first few weeks of the 2016-17 season. Sam Baldock got sent off, Shane Duffy made his Albion debut and it was one of the few occasions we wore that cool red shirt.
Our favourite player to play for Brighton and Newcastle
Tim Krul. Okay, so he didn’t play a minute of league football in a Brighton shirt, but he remains one of the more ridiculous signings that the Albion have made in recent times. Just three years previously, Krul had become the World Cup hero of a nation when he was thrown on by Louis van Gaal in the last minutes of the Netherlands’ World Cup quarter final clash with Costa Rica, going onto save two penalties in the resulting shoot out. The Dutch finished fourth in Brazil and yet by the time it was 2017, Krul found himself shipping three goals in front of 389 supporters as Brighton lost 3-1 against the might of Stevenage in the EFL Trophy.
What do we like about Newcastle?
The people. How can you not love a city that has given the world Ant and Dec, Sting, Cheryl whatever her surname is these days and Scarlett Moffatt?
Prediction
It’s actually quite a hard game to predict as nobody can be sure how Brighton are going to fare away from home under Potter. So far, we’ve played two sides at contrasting ends of the spectrum on the road. Manchester City are Manchester City and Watford were absolutely terrible. What happens at St James’ will give us a clearer view of what’s going to happen against sides around us in the table. There probably won’t be much in it, so we’ll go for 1-1.
