Season 2006-2007

MANCHESTER UNITED

 v

NEWCASTLE UNITED

Not announced yet

- Michael Owen (knee), as we know, is out till next year with the injury he picked up at the World Cup.
- Shay Given (abdomen) is unlikely to fit until 28^th October.
- Nobby Solano (hamstring) has a chance to be fit but is rated very doubtful.
- Olivier Bernard (fitness) still isn’t 100% match fit.
- Kieron Dyer (hamstring) is back in training but will need some reserves team games before he will be 100% match fit.
- Damien Duff (dead leg) will fit enough to come off the bench on Thursday and is expected to play.
- Shola Ameobi (hip) was rested on Thursday and is expected to return to the starting XI.
- Giuseppe Rossi is ineligible.
- Celestine Babayaro and Titus Bramble are both suspended for three domestic games.

My thoughts:

Saturday 12^th February 1972

Manchester Utd 0 v 2 Newcastle United
                               John Tudor
                               Stuart Barrowclough
Att: 44,983

Teams:
Man Utd – Alex Stepney; Tommy O’Neil, Francis Burns; Alan Gowling, Steve James, David Sadler; Willie Morgan, Brian Kidd, Bobby Charlton, Dennis Law, George Best

NUFC – Willie McFaul; David Craig, Frank Clark; Tommy Gibb, Pat Howard, Bobby Moncur; Stuart Barrowclough(Irving Nattrass), Tony Green, Malcolm Macdonald, John Tudor, Terry Hibbitt

Up against a Man Utd team still full of some of its star players from the 68 European Cup win, a goal in each half from John Tudor and Stuart Barrowclough sealed a famous victory for Newcastle.

We still had the defensive backbone of our 69 Fairs Cup winning team in, McFaul, Craig, Clark and Moncur, but now we also had the new extra attacking flair of MacDonald, Tudor, Hibbitt and Green.  On paper this was probably our strongest side since the 3 FA Cup wins of the 1950’s but sadly they failed to reproduce this type of performance week in, week out and finished a disappointing 11^th in Division One. Players like MacDonald, Moncur, Hibbitt, Clark and Green would all be in, or be very close, to making an ‘All-time Greatest Newcastle Utd XI’ and that kind of reflects the potential that was never really fulfilled with this group of players.

So back to the modern day then, what can we expect on Sunday?

Well due too an increase in capacity at Old Trafford, there will now be 70,000 muppets at least but other than that, you can’t really see anything else changing from previous years. Very much like Anfield, this is a place where we traditional go and play like a team waiting for the opposition to score.

You’d have to say all eleven players would have to play out of their skins to get at least a draw out of this game. So we are looking at, no slips up’s from Harper, a water tight back 4, a tough tackling Parker, a skilful Emre, two tricky and creative wingers and a goal scoring Ameobi and Martins.

Our chances? Buckley’s sadly but at least there is no Bramble and Babayaro…