Newcastle United Preview

Bolton comes to St. James Park this Sunday for the only game of the day, which will be on FSC at 11am EST.

Newcastle come into this game anything but strong. Given is still out and will be for a number of weeks and months. Babs and Bramble are still out with bans, which I'm convinced makes our team stronger. Our back four will be Carr, Clark, Taylor and Ramage. The middle four should probably be Milner on the right, Parker and Emre in the middle and Duff on the left. As it should be. Solano is reaching full strength, but I doubt he'll get the starting nod, and the fact is, Milner just gives the Magpies much more width and speed to match Duff's on the left. With a two headed horse like that, it'll keep defenses guessing much more than if you play with Solano on the right. It's obvious Solano will cross it from the right corner of the box, and Duff can crash the rear post. But with Milner on the right, you get almost as much quality crossing, but you also achieve an option of Duff crossing it and Milner crashing the post.
I'm hoping Ameobi is truly fit for this week to really team up with Martins. Martins has created many many chances so far this season, but just like Ameobi, he's been lacking the killer instinct. This worries me, but I think very soon they'll become a force.

Bolton doesn't necessarily scare me, but they've been hot recently. Speed has started to score, Jaaskelainen has been unbeatable, and Nolan is finally coming into form. Davies is always a solid player, although that egg he calls a head really annoys me. So although they're nowhere near a scoring force, neither are we, and they were able to score two on Liverpool, while we WERE scored on TWICE against them. (Home field advantage worked in both of those afore-mentioned games...so hopefully that'll come into play again this week.) Although our back four + keeper are dreadful at the moment, I can't see Bolton getting more than one goal from us at St. James Park. Most of their goals come from the midfield. I, again, believe that our mids will thoroughly control theirs.
However, I can't see us scoring much this game either. I'm guessing Ameobi will probably hobble off injured again in the first half, leaving Martins up front, hopefully with Rossi. This could possibly be a great pairing, but we're yet to see it. The net lack of height scares me, but Rossi has already shown his briliance in the short time he's been on the pitch. If Newcastle get a bit of luck on their side we could squeak out two goals.

My official prediction:
Newcastle United: 2-1 :Bolton Wanderers