Season 2006-2007

LILLESTROM

 v

NEWCASTLE UNITED

Please Note: For all you boys back home in blighty, Setanta Sports 2 will provide live TV coverage.

Given, Harper, Krul
Carr, Babayaro,  Bramble, Taylor, Huntington, Moore, Ramage
Solano, Butt, Faye, Emre, Parker, Pattison, N'Zogbia, O'Brien.
Luque, Ameobi, Milner, Carroll

Michael Owen(knee), as we know, is out till next year with the injury he picked up at the World Cup.
Kieron Dyer(hamstring) is unfit but some positive noises have been made about a September return.
Jean-Alain Boumsong is on an extended holiday after his World Cup duties.
Robbie Elliott(?) didn’t travel with the squad to Norway. 

Shola Ameobi is recovering well from his hip injury and looks set to be given a start and Craig Moore comes back after World Cup duty, given Glenn extra options at centre half.

My thoughts:

Our second game of the season takes us across the North Sea to Olso, where we take on Lillestrom in our UEFA Intertoto Cup 2^nd leg match.

Is it too rash a statement to say this game could make or break our season? I’ll let you ponder that one for a second…

Everyone at the club from Fat Fred, Glenn and the players have emphasised the importance of European football to Newcastle United. Now while I don’t disagree with them, it would be a tad embarrassing for us to get knocked out of Europe before the Premiership season had even started. Any momentum basically would be gone and the season would be off to a very negative start. Not good.

With our list of possible transfer targets growing smaller ever day, our attractiveness to new players would take a significant hit with no European football and where would that leave us? Not good. I do buy into the philosophy that new players should wanna wear the black & white shirt regardless of European football or not but let’s be realistic here, this is modern day football where players move for the best deals and not so much out of love for the club.

Throw in the financial loss of no European football and a defeat on Saturday could be catastrophic for us and could put the club back 2 or 3 years. Not good.

So that’s all pretty negative stuff isn’t it, well I do have some positive thoughts to type on me keyboard.

Seven days later will mean the lads will be much fitter, had more time to practice in training and now know exactly what is required of them to progress. We showed enough improvement in the second half last on Saturday to give us encouragement that we are more than good enough to beat Lillestrom.

Whatever happens, all I really hope for is we don’t get all negative towards Glenn Roeder and the players. Yes we will all be disappointed but the only way we can progress as a football club is to give Glenn enough time to establish his own squad. We obviously have financial constraints, due to the last regime, which is restricting Roeder in the transfer market. This is not an ideal situation to have to sell before you can buy, when you’ve got a squad as thin as we have but that is the situation, so we’ve gotta live with it.

Let’s hope the Newcastle United that Glenn Roeder got playing so well at the end of last season turns up in Lillestrom and with a bit of luck we’ll be fine.

HOWAY THE LADS!!!

Did you know?
Until recently Åråsen Stadium had no permanent flood lighting. The stadium's proximity to an airfield has prevented permanent flood light masts from being installed and temporary structures have had to be erected for each game, at considerable cost to the club. This problem has now been resolved and at the start of the 2006 season Åråsen Stadium will be the only stadium in Northern Europe to boast a semi-retractable flood light system; on matchdays where flood lighting is required the masts can be raised from 12 to nearly 40 meters above the ground, providing optimal conditions.