Match Preview: Newcastle United v Aston Villa

by Dek Hogan

Who are we playing?
Newcastle United on Saturday 19th December at 5.30 pm

Where are we playing?
St James' Park
Strawberry Place
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 4ST

Can I go? Tickets on general sale last time we looked at a reasonable £27. Take your binoculars.

Easy to get to?
Right in the middle of Newcastle. Easy to find. Loads of car parks.

Train station is a short stroll too.

Can I watch it on telly
Sky Sports. If you've not got it, you can get a day pass from NOW TV for £6.99.


Big game?
Huge

The Newcastle fans have never forgiven us for our end-of-season exuberance at Villa Park on the day they were last relegated and no doubt will be rubbing their hands with glee at our desperate situation.

A couple of weeks ago, we could have looked at this fixture as the light at the end of tunnel and a cracking chance at three points.

Villa just seem to get worse and worse under Garde as confidence has all but evaporated and we now face a
team that has deservedly won two on the bounce against what you'd call decent opposition in Liverpool and Spurs. The prospect of facing a team that hasn't won a match since August will hardly be filling them with dread.




Garde's failure to shuffle his pack after the disappointing showing at Southampton shows either that he's hoping a consistent team selection will suddenly click if he keeps picking the same faces or that he doesn't think he's got anything better.

We've certainly seen no new manager bounce effect and his media interviews are not exactly inspiring confidence either.

Obviously he sees a lot more than we see in training but now is surely the time to give players like Adama and Kozak a run because quite frankly, they can't do any worse than the players he's picking at the moment.

On paper, where's there's life there's hope and the ever dwindling band of optimists will tell you we can still escape. On the actual turf though, there has been precious little if any evidence to support this.

Even Houdini would struggle to get out of this one.

Do Newcastle boast any famous fans?
Well, there's Ant and Dec off of Up the Jungle and presumably some of the cast of Auf Wiedersehen Pet if they are still alive.

We've got David Bradley off of films and the telly.

So we win.

Who's playing for us?
Gabby seems to be persona non grata at the moment and his Villa days may well be numbered (assuming anyone else will take him). Can Garde really persist with Rudy Gestede? Micah Richards is a big doubt with his knee issue dragging on, though Ciaran Clark will be keen on a recall. Not sure where the goal threat is going to come from, though to be fair to Scott Sinclair, he is at least trying to make things happen.

Who's playing for them
Papiss Cisse and Luuk de Jong will be a threat while Georginio Gregion Emile Wijnaldum could cause us absolute havoc.




Any useless stats?
Of course, here you go:

Charlie

• Our first ever meeting was a 7-1 FA Cup win over them in 1895. Charlie Athersmith and John Devey grabbed a brace each.

• We haven't won at their place since 2005. There were fisticuffs between Lee Bowyer and Kieron Dyer as we ran out 3-0 winners helped by two late Gareth Barry penalties.

• Newcastle have beaten us 70 times while we have 55 wins. There have been 34 draws.

Prediction
3-0 to the home team, sadly.