Come on Redmen!!
Ref Andy Madley, Assistants Wade Smith and Craig Taylor, 4th official Anthony Backhouse. VAR Stuart fucking Attwell, Asst James Mainwaring.
Let’s start with the officials. Not the worst apart from Attwell..
I was lucky enough to be at Anfield on Sunday and thought we showed a mix of organisation, hardwork, pace and flair that will be hard for anyone to contend with.
From what I have seen of Newcastle they are similar to how Villa have been for a couple of seasons, well organised and with some threat but not top class. The loss of Isak for them, is well timed. Wilson is likely to play up front and has lost some pace but is still powerful in the air. Virgil will look forward to playing against him I suspect.
Gordon, Guimares, Barnes and Tonali are their key players and we know their crowd will get a good atmosphere going. They are 11th in the table on just under 1.5 points per match and have a zero goal difference. Barnes and Isak are their two top scorers so far with four and no one else has more than two.
I usually think of this as a tough assignment but am pretty confident that we need to turn up with the same attitude we saw on Sunday and we should win this! They had been on a decent mini run beating Arsenal and Forest but have lost to West Ham and they only drew with Palace. I was listening to some of that and the commentators were saying they scored through an own goal and then deployed their famed time wasting tactics and anti football to try to see it out and were gutted when Palace equalised.
We cannot fall for their dirty tricks and Madley needs to watch for them trying to stifle the game and stop the flow. I think they are the only team worse than Arsenal at this.
We are likely to keep the same back line with Quansah ready to come on after 60-70 mins. Midfield should see Jones replace one of Dom or Macca and Gakpo will likely start up front with Nunez and Salah.
They also have Lascelles and Botman out and I can see Nunez enjoying this.
The 20:15 match is Arsenal vs Mancs and this will be one time I want to hear Amorim has done well!
We need to be professional and progressive and get this won as we have once again been dealt a rough hand with the Derby being 12:30 on Saturday so a quick turnaround. Hopefully those on the bench like Diaz, Elliott and either Dom or Macca will get a run before 70 mins to keep everyone firing on Saturday once the three points are safely won here.
