Welcome to the Newcastle United v Manchester City preview.
An FA Cup 5th Round clash on Saturday 7th March with an 8pm kick-off.
Newcastle and Man City do battle for the fifth time this season, as both teams look to earn a place in the FA Cup quarter-finals.
Man City have visited St James’ twice already this campaign, Newcastle coming out on top in the league but the blues winning 2-0 in the first leg of the League Cup semi-final.
A winner in this one has to be found on the night with extra time and potentially penalties if the teams can’t be separated after ninety minutes.
Form
Newcastle have reached this stage of the FA Cup by beating Bournemouth and Aston Villa. A topsy-turvy third round tie with Bournemouth eventually saw the Toon triumph on penalties after a 3-3 draw. We beat Villa in the fourth round having battled one of the most incompetent refereeing performances of recent times. Behind at the break due to an offside goal, we roared back in the second period with a double from Tonali and a late strike from Woltemade to set up this tie with Manchester City.
Man City have beaten Exeter City and Salford City in the FA Cup this season, both at home. Exeter were dispatched 10-1 whilst Salford put up more of a fight in a 2-0 win for the blues.
Last time out
Newcastle hosted Man U on Wednesday night and were delighted to come out with three points from an extraordinary match. The Toon had already created a number of chances when dominating proceedings in the first half and came close again when Gordon tried to play in Ramsey on forty-five minutes. Ramsey stumbled in the box but didn’t appeal for a penalty and play should have then resumed as normal. Unbelievably, the referee issued a second yellow card and VAR didn’t intervene, meaning the Toon were reduced to ten men in farcical circumstances. A minute later and Toon fans were celebrating when Gordon won and then converted a spot-kick to give NUFC the lead. The referee then incurred further wrath from the St James’ Park faithful when gifting Man United a number of soft freekicks and playing well over the allotted injury time until Man United could force home an equaliser and he promptly blew the whistle for the fifteen minute break. At this point, it looked like the Toon were in for a tough second half having to play an entire forty-five minutes a man down. What we got however was an incredible attacking performance where Newcastle continued to take the match to their illustrious opponents. On the rare occasions the Toon’s defence was breached, we had Ramsdale pulling off world class saves to keep the scores level. With the clock ticking down to ninety minutes, Osula’s fresh legs allowed him to keep the ball in play and terrorise the Man United defenders, running at them with some fancy stepovers. He picked his spot and curled home an absolutely glorious winning goal to send the stadium into raptures! Beating an in-form Man Utd with ten men in the last minute goes down as one of the highlights of the season so far.
Man City hosted Nottingham Forest on Wednesday night hoping to keep the pressure on Arsenal at the top of the league. All was looking well at half-time as they led 1-0 but Forest hit back with an equaliser at the start of the second half. It looked like normal service had returned a few minutes later when Man City retook the lead, but there was still time for former-Newcastle player Elliot Anderson to net a late equaliser to ensure Forest took a share of the points, on a desperately disappointing night for Pep Guardiola’s side.
Stat attack!
-Newcastle have met Man City in the FA Cup on ten occasions and won six times.
-NUFC have won eight of their last nine FA Cup fifth round ties.
-The Toon have played Manchester City on four occasions so far this season with an aggregate score of 8-4 to Man City.
Memorable match
In 2002, Newcastle and Man City met in the fifth round of the FA Cup. This was one of the rare occasions when the match wasn’t the main talking point. Kevin Keegan was managing Manchester City and this was to be his first return to Gallowgate since suddenly walking out on NUFC five years earlier. There was such a clamour for the return of KK that fans were waiting outside the stadium to cheer him in! This was nothing compared to the reception he received when coming out of the tunnel to an ear-splitting hero’s welcome, the press crowded round to get a picture of the man of the moment whilst the entire stadium gave him a standing ovation.
At this point, it was easy to forget that a match was even taking place, but when the two teams kicked off it was NUFC who started brightest with Alan Shearer blasting an effort just wide. The twenty-eighth minute then saw future-blue Bellamy sprint through on goal before being hauled down outside the area by last man Richard Dunn who was issued a straight red card. Despite being a man down, it was Man City who almost took the lead at the end of the first half when former-Toon player Darren Huckerby was played in on goal only to prod the ball past the ‘keeper but wide of the Gallowgate End goal. The key moment came in the fifty-ninth minute when a long ball from Gary Speed led to Solano muscling in behind the city defence and touching the ball past the stranded ‘keeper before tapping into the empty net for the only goal of the game. This set up a mouth-watering home quarter-final against Arsenal with both teams having ambitions of winning the double. Newcastle 1-0 Man City.
(I was reminiscing about this match with a mate from work who travels all over Europe supporting Manchester City, here’s what he had to say: “I went to that game. I always remember it was the loudest I’ve ever heard a stadium when Newcastle scored – I thought my ears were going to burst!”)
Played for both
Darren Huckerby signed from Lincoln in 1995 but his chances of career development at the Toon were massively hindered by Keegan’s decision to scrap the reserve team due to a rule that they’d have to play some matches at St James’ Park. A little known fact is that his signing inadvertently brought about Alan Shearer’s first ever NUFC goal. Part of the deal was that Newcastle would travel to Lincoln in the pre-season of 1996 and by that time we’d signed Mr Shearer, who converted a penalty on his debut in a 2-0 win (Albert adding the second). Darren only made two appearances for Newcastle and was unlucky not to find the net during an impressive performance at home to Chelsea in the FA Cup. He went to Millwall on loan and played for both Coventry and Leeds before signing for Man City in 2000. He scored twenty-two goals in sixty-nine league games, including a winner against Toon in 2002.
Stephen Ireland started his career at Manchester City in 2005 and spent five years at the Blues before signing for Aston Villa. He scored sixteen league goals for Man City including a late equaliser against the Toon in 2008. An amusing anecdote from Ireland’s career came in a match against our arch rivals Sunderland in 07/08 when he was still at Man City. After scoring the only goal of the game, Ireland (for reasons probably best kept to himself) dropped his shorts to reveal some rather tight superman underpants! The FA failed to see the funny side and there was even talk of banning him, before a decision was made that a warning would suffice. He signed on loan for Newcastle in 2010 but struggled with fitness and only made two appearances for the black and whites.
Stuart Pearce is one of the best footballers England has ever produced. He was near the twilight of his career when signing for NUFC in 1997. Often ridiculed as part of a ‘Dad’s Army’ brigade of Dalglish signings, Pearce became an integral part of the team and rifled home a fine free-kick in a 2-0 Champions League win against Dynamo Kiev. He also played in the 1998 FA Cup final as Newcastle made the showpiece occasion for the first time in twenty-four years. He began the next season by firing home a brilliant effort in a pre-season friendly at home to Juventus but the replacement of Dalglish with Ruud Gullit was the beginning of the end of his time at Newcastle and he didn’t play a match after December 1998. Forced to train with the reserves, Pearce went to West Ham for two years before spending the 01/02 season at Kevin Keegan’s Manchester City, captaining the club to promotion and scoring three goals in thirty-eight league appearances. He stayed on at the club as a coach and was made caretaker manager when Keegan left in 2005. He was then given the job permanently and lasted two seasons as Man City manager.
Managers
Eddie Howe after a tremendous 2-1 win at home to Man United:
“We got a red card and it would have been an easy feeling for the lads to feel sorry for ourselves and think, ‘Here we go again’ That’s the biggest compliment I can give the lads: they really stood up in that second half and have all given more. They have all believed they can win the game. That’s one of the best emotions that I think I’ve felt. I’m sure a lot of people will say the same. An amazing night. It was a great performance all the way through. Eleven v eleven or eleven v ten. I thought we deserved to win. The main emotion was trying to work out how we’d play in that second half. We wanted to regroup. I thought Jacob Ramsey’s sending off was really harsh. I don’t think he’s looking for a penalty there. We knew we wouldn’t have the majority of the ball and that we’d have to defend well. There have been a lot of questions about our defending lately, so it was a good opportunity to answer those questions and we did. At ten men, you know your goalkeeper is going to have saves to make. He’s a top-class goalkeeper with really good experience.”
Pep Guardiola after a 2-2 draw at home to Nottingham Forest:
“In general there were many good things. I would like to concede fewer, but it’s not about analysing one specific action. I never point fingers at my players. We did everything, had the chances at the end and in the first half. The momentum. But something always happens and we could not win.”
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 to Newcastle Foodbank
Prediction
Something happened in the ninetieth minute of the match on Wednesday night and I don’t just mean the winning goal. Belief visibly flooded back into Eddie Howe’s team with both fans and players celebrating a famous victory, especially under such difficult circumstances. That belief will be needed tonight, as will the same spirit, endeavour and commitment that reaped such rewards on Wednesday. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this go to extra time but I have a sneaky feeling, we may just pull this off. Newcastle 1-1 Man City (2-1 AET)