St James’ Park awaits – Newcastle v Ipswich preview | OneFootball

Welcome to the Newcastle v Ipswich preview.

Saturday 26th April – 3pm kick-off.

Two of Sir Bobby Robson’s former clubs go head to head on Saturday afternoon, with Newcastle looking to get back to winning ways after a bad day at the office against Villa last weekend.

Ipswich are playing for pride after the last set of results practically confirmed their demotion to the Championship (technically they can still avoid relegation if they were to win every game for the rest of the reason, West Ham were to lose every game and there was to be a 20+ goal swing in the goal difference between the two).

A win for the Toon will mathematically confirm a swift return to second tier football for the tractor boys.

Newcastle need the victory to stay in the race for Champions League qualification which is now extremely tight, with five teams separated by just four points.

Form

Despite last week’s defeat, Newcastle remain one of the form teams in the Premier League having won five of their past six matches. Wins have come against West Ham, Brentford, Leicester, Man United and Crystal Palace, whereas last week saw a poor defeat away to Aston Villa. We’ve scored sixteen goals in these matches and conceded six. We’ll end the weekend between third and sixth in the table as the race for the top five places looks set to go right to the wire.

Ipswich have lost four of their last six matches, drawn one and won one. Losses have come against Arsenal, Wolves, Nottingham Forest and Crystal Palace. They drew with Chelsea and beat Bournemouth. They’ve scored seven goals and conceded fourteen. They’ll end the weekend eighteenth or nineteenth as they slip out of the Premier League.

Newcastle travelled to Aston Villa having won six consecutive games in all competitions. Any optimism was punctured after just thirty three seconds when a tame effort from Ollie Watkins was deflected past Nick Pope to give Villa the lead. Things almost went from bad to worse when the same player rattled the bar soon after but Newcastle were able to fortuitously level the scores when Schar’s back post header crossed the line before Villa hit the woodwork again. With the scores tied at half-time, there may have been some notion that this could be a lucky day for NUFC and we may be able to grind out a result. Unfortunately, three second half goals for Villa left the Toon licking their wounds on a day when too many players didn’t turn up.

Ipswich hosted Arsenal on Sunday and meekly surrendered to a 4-0 defeat. They had a man sent off in the first half but this wasn’t a turning point as the tractor boys were completely outplayed throughout.

Newcastle have won six and drawn five of their past eleven home matches with Ipswich.

The Toon have found the net thirteen times in their last five home matches with Ipswich in all competitions.

The two sides have met nine times in the Premier League. Newcastle have won five, drawn three and lost just once.

Memorable match

In 2002, Sir Bobby’s Newcastle were fighting to qualify for the Champions League, whereas Ipswich were sliding towards certain relegation (sound familiar?).

The two sides met at St James’ Park and played out a match that would prove to be very entertaining…for a neutral!

Marcus Bent put Ipswich 1-0 up at half-time after Alan Shearer had a headed equaliser inexplicably ruled out. With Toon fans and players feeling nervous, Laurant Robert eased tensions with a fine free-kick at the Gallowgate End to restore parity. Back came Ipswich who took the lead with another effort from Bent, before Shearer had his second header of the match disallowed as St James’ Park became increasingly frustrated. Shearer then headed home for the third time that day (this one not being disallowed) to salvage a draw before the real drama began.

With Newcastle pushing for a winning goal, Clarence Acuna went down in the area and the referee pointed to the spot for a fairly soft injury-time penalty. Up stepped Alan Shearer to surely win the game for the Toon. What happened next was beyond belief as our legendary captain skewed an awful effort well wide with the final kick of the match, to leave Sir Bobby openly bewildered. Our manager later described the penalty as “garbage.” Thankfully the story does have a happy ending as United were able to win four and draw three of their next seven games, ensuring a fourth place finish and qualification for the Champions League. Final score Newcastle 2-2 Ipswich.

Played for both

Titus Bramble made his debut for Ipswich in 1998 having risen through the youth team. He signed for Sir Bobby’s NUFC in 2002 and would spend five years at the Toon. Often a figure of ridicule for some bizarre decision-making, he actually had quite the eye for goal considering he was a defender. In our 03/04 UEFA Cup campaign, he found the net three times as United marched on to their first European semi-final for thirty-five years. Perhaps his best strike in a black and white shirt however came on the last day of the 05/06 season when the Toon needed to beat champions Chelsea to qualify for the intertoto Cup. With United down to ten men and struggling against relentless pressure, Bramble crashed home a stunning volley from a corner to send the crowd wild and secure a seventh place finish. There may not be too many fond memories of his time on Tyneside but that is most definitely up there as he became the toast of the Toon.

Leon Best spent two years at Newcastle from February 2010. He scored ten league goals for United including a hat-trick in an incredible 5-0 win over West Ham. He started the 11/12 season on fire scoring twice in a 2-1 win against Fulham and also netting the equaliser in a 1-1 draw away at Aston Villa. He played for Blackburn and Rotherham before signing for Ipswich in 2016. Unfortunately, he had a shocking time under former Sunderland manager Mick McCarthy and failed to find the net in his twelve appearances for the blues.

Daryl Murphy played seven seasons for Ipswich before signing for Rafa Benitez in 2016. In a twist of fate, the aforementioned Leon Best replaced him as Ipswich striker. Murphy scored some important goals for Newcastle as we battled for promotion from the Championship, the highlight coming in a fine 3-1 away win at Huddersfield. He found the net six times in eighteen NUFC appearances.

Managers

Jason Tindall (in the absence of Eddie Howe) after a 4-1 defeat away to Aston Villa:

“Aston Villa deserved to win. From our perspective, maybe a third game in six days caught up with us around about the hour. The message to the players, to everyone, is that we can’t lose sight of where we are. We’re third in the Premier League, and if you had said to anyone at the football club at the start of the season, would you be happy with being third in the Premier League with five games to go? I think everybody would have said yes. So, we certainly can’t lose sight of that. We’ve done incredibly well to get ourselves in that position. We’ve been really, really consistent, delivered some excellent performances. So, that’s the biggest message, is to make sure that we rest, recover, and then when we get back to work, we prepare right to go and deliver a good performance against Ipswich.”

Kieran McKenna after a 4-0 home defeat to Arsenal:

“A really tough game. It was tough even with eleven v eleven, Arsenal started really well. It felt at the start of the game like it was maybe the highest standard we’ve faced this year to be honest. The group was at full stretch trying to compete and we had a few moments. Their execution was better than ours and their quality shone through. They were the better team and deserved their lead and then of course the red card makes it almost impossible for us. I thought we showed good quality with ten men to be honest, we managed the game pretty well all things considered. But they were stronger than us. We faced a really strong team, they were on a different level to us today.”

Charity

Newcastle United fans food bank will once again be collecting opposite the Gallowgate end and gratefully receiving food, money and toiletries for those in need. Of particular interest are non-perishable food and drink items (such as noodles, pasta, rice, canned food, soup, cereal, cordial, long life milk etc) as well as toiletries such as shower gel, shampoo, toothpaste and sanitary products. Please give whatever you can, any donation is very much appreciated.

For further info and/or to donate online go HERE.

This is an absolutely pivotal match.

With five teams battling for three Champions League places, any dropped points will be crucial come the end of the season. Complacency is not an option.

Newcastle have the hardest run-in out of the five and a win here is imperative to keeping our hopes alive, especially with last weekend seeing all results go against NUFC. As such, I think this may well be a nervy affair. I still fancy Newcastle to win with two goals in the second half sealing three points for the Toon. Newcastle 2-0 Ipswich.