2010-11 EPL Preview: Newcastle United

I Don't See A Magpie Anywhere

The English Premier League (suck it, Barclays!) season is just around the corner, so we here at UF are giving you everything you need to know about all 20 teams with our award-winning analysis. And no, we haven’t really won any awards, but neither has Arsenal in five years and people still seem to care about them.

Official Name: Newcastle United

Nickname: The Magpies, The Toon

Home Colors: Black and white horizontal vertical stripes (I’m an idiot)

Trophy Case: A selected look at their honors reveals a real mish-mash of trophies. The highlights: 4 First Division championships (last in 1926-27), 3 Football League/Second Division championships (last in 2009-10), 6 FA Cups (last in 1955), 1 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup in 1969, 1 Intertoto Cup (yes, this was an actual trophy) in 2006, and an Anglo-Italian Cup in 1973.

2009-10 League Finish: Colaship winners, ending the season with 102 points (30 wins, 12 draws, just 4 defeats) to finish 9 points above runners-up West Bromwich Albion.

2009-10 Average Home Attendance: 43,388, which is as strong as one would expect for such a storied club. Managed a season high of 52,181 for a visit from Ipswich Town, still not reaching capacity (52,339). Low was an FA Cup match against Plymouth Argyle, netting just 15,805 and generating a sad atmosphere for their visitors who traveled from the opposite end of the country for the game.

2009-10 Cup Finish: 4th round exit in the FA Cup, losing 4-2 to West Bromwich Albion at the Hawthorns. The Carling Cup was worse; a 2-0 away defeat at Peterborough United in which Danny Guthrie was sent off for a second bookable offense.

HISTORY:
The Magpies have enjoyed a slew of colorful characters since their formation in 1892—the Robledo brothers, George and Ted, from Chile, trialist-turned-legend Jackie Milburn (200 goals), mulleted winger Chris Waddle, temperamental forward Faustino Asprilla—but for me, their legacy is defined by three players I remember fondly from my youth: granite-chinned midfielder Peter Beardsley, hard-drinking hero Paul Gascoigne, and of course, bland goal machine Alan Shearer.

Beardsley will always have a spot in my heart thanks to what he accomplished while at Liverpool—29 wins and a league title in his first season (1987-88), and FA Cup (1988), and another league title (1989-90) before leaving for Everton. I never begrudged him the move, nor did I mind when he scored several goals against us in his two-year stint across Stanley Park. The fans didn’t either, blaming the club rather than the player, and when he moved back to St. James’ Park in 1993 at age 32, he still had plenty left in the tank, scoring 47 in 129 to push his career tally to 237 in a remarkable 755 games over a 20-year career.

Then there’s Gazza, the hard-living star who’s become the punchline to a sad joke in recent years, hospitalized several times for mental health troubles and even turning up in the summer’s big news story back in England, the Raoul Moat manhunt.

Fact is, he was unstoppable in his heyday. Born into a hardscrabble life on Tyne and Wear and growing up without a father figure, Gazza found a home on the soccer field, making it into the Magpies’ youth system at age 13 before going on to captain the youth team in their cup-winning 1984-85 season. All told, Gazza only played four seasons for Newcastle, winning Young Player of the Year in 1987-88 before entering a difficult courtship with Spurs and Manchester United. Fergie describes the transfer situation below, noting the failure to sign Gascoigne in 1988 was the biggest disappointment of his managerial career. Gazza felt it too, but joining Spurs pushed him ever higher in the estimation of English soccer fans everywhere.

We had the infamous, iconic tears incident at Italia ’90, the tournament that made him a worldwide star, which was, sadly, the beginning of the end. Though Gazza plied his trade everywhere—Lazio, Rangers, Middlesbrough, Everton, and three single-season stints at Burnley, China’s Giansu Tianma, and non-league Boston United to close his career—he’ll forever be known as the cheeky Geordie blessed with preternatural skill and an unavoidable fondness for self-destruction. The yin and the yang.

Finally, we get Shearer. The striker was much more dynamic on the pitch than he’s become as studio furniture/pundit on Match of the Day, winning the league with Blackburn Rovers before a decade of phenomenal service at Newcastle where he became the club’s highest-ever scorer (206 in all competitions, 404 games) and won a boatload of accolades. I wrote about him with regard to Blackburn, but the descriptors all hold true: easily one of the greats within the 6-yard-box.

GAFFER:
The Irish ex-Spurs full back Chris Hughton, who took over the job no-one seemed to want once Keegan, Kinnear and Shearer all meekly surrendered the gig during that tumultuous 2008-09 season. Instead of running away, the caretaker-turned-boss owned the position, giving some much-needed stability to the club as it tried—and failed—to find a bigger brand name in the summer of 2009. With Mike Ashley still signing the checks, Hughton won Manager of the Month in August and September en route to a record-setting season; the Magpies went unbeaten at home all season, losing just four games in the 46-game Colaship season.

His strength of character and respectful, understated managerial style appears to be working wonders for the team, and should give them a leg-up over the likes of quirky Ian Holloway or continental grump Roberto Di Matteo in any relegation battle.

SQUAD:
(Italics denotes new signing, Underline denotes likely starter):
GK – Steve Harper, Fraser Forster, Tim Krul
DF – Fabricio Coloccini, Jose Enrique, Sol Campbell, Mike Williamson, Danny Simpson, James Perch, Ryan Taylor, Steven Taylor, Tamas Kadar
MF – Kevin Nolan, Joey Barton, Danny Guthrie, Wayne Routledge, Dan Gosling, Alan Smith, Jonas Gutierrez, Kazenga LuaLua, Haris Vuckic, Shane Ferguson
FW – Andy Carroll, Peter Lovenkrands, Xisco, Leon Best, Shola Ameobi, Nile Ranger, Ryan Donaldson

BEST XI:
Not sure how Gosling and/or Campbell will fit just yet, but we’ll go with their most-used XI in 2009-10 as a guideline before the Magpies open the season at Old Trafford, though with the important omission of injured CB Steven Taylor:

Harper
Simpson, Campbell, Coloccini, Enrique
Guthrie, Smith, Nolan, Jonas
Carroll, Lovenkrands

TRANSFERS IN:
A couple of key additions should fill out this squad in all the right spots, and without the usual Mark Ashley displays of misguided largesse.

Dan Gosling, CDM/RB – From Everton, free
We begin with the most contentious signing. Young Gosling, on course for great things at Goodison Park, decided to exploit a loophole in his contract negotiations to move away from the Toffees without the club—or his former club Plymouth Argyle—getting compensation. I’m still not sure whether he thought those elements through; after all, he is a kid who was making £8,000 a week and turned down £15,000 a week from Moyes and co to try his luck elsewhere. That said, he’s burned a few bridges in ending up at Newcastle United and finds himself with even more to prove. Versatile in the backline or the heart of midfield, one figures he’ll begin as a deputy at right-back while also providing cover in the middle for Nolan and Smith.

Sol Campbell, CB – From Arsenal, free
Ahh, the ageless Sol. Recipient of racist chants, mockery from Spurs fans and jibes about his weight, the 35-year-old acquitted himself surprisingly well in the Gunners backline for the second half of the 2009-10 season. He’ll provide a veteran presence needed in Steven Taylor’s absence due to a dislocated shoulder suffered during summer friendlies.

James Perch, CDM/LB/CB/RB – From Nottingham Forest, undisclosed
The 24-year-old utility man is fresh off 14 years in the Nottingham Forest system, first as a youth player from 1996-2004 before joining the first XI and racking up 190 appearances in 6 seasons. Used across the backline and in central midfield, Perch was a firm Forest fan favorite thanks to his reliability and consistency.

TRANSFERS OUT:
No-one of note dismissed, really. Compare to the beginning of 2009-10, when the club faced down relegation by offloading some high-priced, highly-paid talent in Obafemi Martins, Michael Owen (the “talent” is debatable there), Sebastien Bassong, Habib Beye, and Damien Duff.

Fabrice Pancrate (MF/FW), Nicky Butt (MF), Wesley Ngo Baheng (FW), Frank Wiafe Danquah (FW), Darren Lough (DF), Callum Morris (DF) – All released to free agency
It’s debatable as to what any of these youngsters—or over-the-hill plodders like Pancrate (1 goal in 16 games) and Butt—would have contributed other than as payroll burdens.

Johnny Godsmark (MF) – To Ashington, free
Max Johnson (GK) – To Inverness Caledonian Thistle, free
Michael McCrudden (MF) – To Derry City, free
Same here. The comings and goings of trialists, academy players and those not yet marked for greatness.

Carroll Must Sing This Season

KEY PLAYERS:
Much will be expected of the midfielders Alan Smith and Kevin Nolan to keep things organized and calm in the middle. Andy Carroll, already showing warning signs of his temper, will need to be mature beyond his 21 years to lead the Magpies’ line in a much more difficult league.

Similarly, Fabricio Coloccini was a bit of a joke in 2008-09 but showed resolve a league lower last year. He’ll need to prove that he can handle the rigors and stresses of top-flight English soccer if Steve Harper is to have an easier time of things between the posts. Lots will be expected of Dan Gosling to fill in the blanks.

RISING STARS:
The Magpies have a slew of young, promising talent: aside from Carroll and Gosling, they have Danny Guthrie (23), former LFC reserves captain, and the awesomely-named 19-year-old striker Nile Ranger. I’d argue that ex-QPR winger Wayne Routledge is on the rise, too.

STADIUM:
The iconic St. James’ Park, home to the Magpies since the very beginning in 1892. Sure, it’s undergone several facelifts over the years—Sir John Hall stand opened in 1993, construction of a second tier on the Milburn stand in 1998, a redeveloped Gallowgate end in 2005, and the hilarious Mike Ashley-forced renaming to “SportsDirect.com@St.James’s Park” fiasco—but at its essence, it’s still the glorious SJP it’s always been.

DRAMA:
Two words: Joey Barton. He missed most of 2009-10, but never missed a chance to call out Alan Shearer–never a smart move–or anyone not named Joey Barton. His temper is the stuff of legend, and it’s safe to say that he will produce the Magpies’ most outrageous moments of this coming season. It’s just what he does.

TACTICS!:
Like most English club teams, the 4-4-2 is the holy text from which all gameplans radiate. Reliant upon—you guessed it—high workrate interior midfielders (Smith, Nolan) and speed on the flanks, the aim of the game is lumping the ball into the box for gangly marksman Andy Carroll and seasoned rebound-poacher Peter Lovenkrands. Not glamorous, and not particularly enthralling. However, it’s effective. Simple. Requires little intimate coaching.

QUESTION MARKS:
The obvious concern is one that’ll dog plenty of EPL sides this season: do they have the quality depth? Beyond a perfectly servicable XI lies a seriously damaged group: can Gosling and Perch reap immediate dividend? Can that backline, mocked and maligned in 2008-09 (59 goals conceded) rebound given another chance in 2010-11? How will they cope without their most impressive defender, Steven Taylor, until he returns from injury?

IMPORTANT FIXTURES:
I think it’s safe to say that a good barometer of their season will come in Week One with a trip to Old Trafford. Beyond that, they’ll want to put up a strong showing against local rivals Sunderland, and you can expect the games against Liverpool and Everton to be especially feisty. Obviously, their games against fellow promoted sides WBA and Blackpool will be crucial; they bagged just five points from 12 against the duo last season, and if they’re to have a hope of staying up, they’ll need to max out in those games to stay afloat.

PREDICTION:
Obviously, as runaway Colaship champs they have a better chance than any of the lower league trio in a relegation battle, though their lack of spending power is a problem in England’s top league. If they have funds to splash in January, they should well be able to purchase their way out of any bind, though that wafer-thin squad troubles me greatly. Any competent strike duo is bound to fare well against Coloccini and Campbell, and one must be concerned at where the goals are coming from; neither Carroll nor Lovenkrands fared well in limited EPL exposure last time around, and the step-up in defending is immense.

That midfield is solid enough, so I think that they’ll scrap to 16th place despite lingering around the drop zone all season long.