Venue: Sports Direct Arena
Date: Saturday, 3 December
Kick-off: 1245 GMT
Well, you can take November and shove it because December’s here and it’s time for our players to start taking things seriously.
The boss reckons the crowd have been a bit edgy at home, so there should be no excuses left for our trip to Newcastle. Not just any Newcastle though but a Newcastle in some seriously decent form. Ok, so they only took one point away from their 2 trips to Manchester, but the one trip we’ve had to Manchester this season didn’t yield that much.
MANAGERS’ VIEWS
Newcastle boss Alan Pardew thinks AVB will be ok in the long-term, although it goes without saying he’d rather see that not happen just yet. Ahead of our meeting, Pardew says “Chelsea are a side filled with icons of the Premier League, fantastic players, and they will come here and put their reputations on the line. They are having a tough spell, but they have had them before and have been through these periods. The new manager is trying to make changes and that is always difficult in an established group, like they are. I think they will get it right and I think he will get it right, but I hope that doesn’t happen against us because we want to win the game.”
The Chelsea manager meanwhile, is full of nothing but praise for the opposition, saying “It’s a team that is surprising everyone and they will continue to surprise. Alan Pardew has set some excellent standards for what he he is doing. He also brought some stability to Newcastle and a sense of serenity to the football club. It’s a football club which in the last few years was in turmoil with managers and dropping down a division. So I think there’s now a serenity with the football club and city who is behind the football club. They’re a major team who find themselves in an excellent position. They are fully motivated and will provide an excellent challenge for us.”
SQUAD NEWS
For Newcastle, Tiote (knee) misses out and Gutierrez is suspended after his red card against United last weekend. Leon Best (groin) is available again.
For Chelsea, Essien (knee) remains out and is joined by Josh McEachran (ankle).
LAST MEETING
Chelsea 2-2 Newcastle (15th May 2011)
TEAMS
NEWCASTLE (from): Krul, Elliot, Simpson, R. Taylor, Santon, Ferguson, Coloccini, S. Taylor, Perch, Cabaye, Gosling, Guthrie, Obertan, Ben Arfa, Sammy Ameobi, Abeid, Vuckic, Smith, Ba, Best, Shola Ameobi, Lovenkrands.
CHELSEA (from): Cech, Bosingwa, Ivanovic, Terry, Alex, Cole, Luiz, Mikel, Romeu, Ramires, Lampard, Mata, Malouda, Meireles, Torres, Drogba, Kalou, Sturridge, Lukaku, Turnbull.
PREDICTION
Newcastle haven’t managed a win against us in our last eight games although three of our last four games in the league have been drawn. On current form, Newcastle have lost just one of their last Premier League games (to City), whilst we’ve lost five of the last nine in all competitions. In fact our only saving grace could be that we don’t seem to concede too many on the road. Still, if we get as much as a point from this today I’d be surprised.
Blue is the colour
