Newcastle vs Everton

Yet we keep on picking up points, cumulating in that being our eighth straight win at home – a feat not matched since the mid eighties when we were terrific.

Endurance is a great asset to have, and that rings true across many things in life. But this isn’t a training course and I’m not telling you this while clicking on a PowerPoint while trying dead hard to not look at the slides to show my prowess as a top class trainer. That’s right, feel good you. Use smart words. Chant a mantra and love the company more. Think outside the box.

Just do one and stop alienating me further from any employer because of a HR policy made up by a hormonal self loathing HR Manager who got fingered by your mate in a quiet corner of Rigby’s after five glasses of cheap white wine.

So we might as well enjoy the ride, hopefully a ride under this new manager that’s just starting and will get better. He’s certainly making free spending Man Utd and Spurs look a bit crap by comparison this season. European togger is there if we truly want it. And hell yeah you do, Thursdays are dull without seeing a load of Evertonian loons far too wrecked off the local delights to enjoy the actual football in some weird foreign land.

So Newcastle stands in the way of your potential enjoyment and deal with them we must. They’ve had a peculiar season, after we produced our best half of the season against them in the reverse fixture it seemed they would be in trouble under their fourth cock of the village pub manager, but more of him in a bit. He’s an absolute gift to anyone looking to poorly preview a game truth be told.

Like most Newcastle teams of the past 20 years this one does have a smattering of some decent players on their day and some of them have carried them through the season where they’ve been consistently pushing the top half without getting too close to troubling our little pack of top-four-wannabes-but-not-quite-enough.

Obviously they’ll be paining at having to hand over the ceremonial everyone’s favourite second team baton to the kopites – even if it’s only our lovable neighbours and their bells in the media who’ve declared them that. But that’s how it works – only your own staff and dickheads in the media can declare you everyone’s second best team for which the criteria is to have not won the league for absolute beards but have a team that scores goals but defends like Ukrainian naval base. I see some papers try and level this at us during the first half of the season and I winced – it’s a prefix for absolute whoppers and I include both Newcastle and Liverpool firmly in that. So its not surprise there’s a loose affinity and “mutual respect” between both sets of supporters. Bellwipes.

Just on that favourite second team note, I’ve seen in the media that Manager, player and media bells are proclaiming Liverpool as the team that the wider public want to win the title, even marketed as plucky underdogs. I can’t think of anything more appropriate than a ‘LOL’ here, apologies.

When it comes to potentially wanting the unwashed mob of the red outraged tribes to prevail then I believe everyone is pushed firmly in one of two camps and no middle ground. A little like being pro Jo Guest OR Charmaine Sinclair. Either you want the blonde bob and sensational arse propped up in the air, or the magnificent brown saucer nips and guaranteed aggressive animal coital instincts of Ms Sinclair. Unfortunately for der redmen: Joe Public aren’t too daft and have recently seen the mask drop revealing bitter one eyed kopites inside happy to endorse cheating, racism, biting and various other undesirable human traits.

Does Malaysia Air want to pull off a publicity coup? Then claim that Suarez’s black cousin was flying the plane that disappeared into a sea somewhere. Half of Asia, Cornwall and token workplace quegs all over the world are going to do the PR campaign needed to worm your way out of this.

Back to Newcastle and apologies as its difficult to stop grouping the two clubs and fans together, I was going to rip into Alan Pardew but on second thoughts he does a great job of that himself. He’ll be missing for this as he’s banned for being the tithead Uncle at a party who tried to bully the 15 year old nephew by squaring up to him. Lay off the Scandia Green you nugget. The fact he’s in a job is an endorsement to his own boss being similarly a nugget, but a minted one. Broken Britain eh? He must have sat at the front of their aforementioned training seminars and participated in all the role-plays.

So it’s onto the true Newcastle quandary – their fans. You see, Geordies as a rule of the thumb are sound enough. I even like their company. It’s at this point I should hashtag the words jovial, good fun and dirty girls but we’ve done that before. Put a black and white shirt on them however and it all goes wrong – there’s acute twattishness abound.

I don’t know how or why it happens. I do know that as away fans they’re all sweetness and light and good humoured interaction with the home support (although they need to swerve that fancy dress thing). Put the shithouses on home soil and they’re insufferable. You can see the friendship with the kopites based on a misplaced sense of entitlement and a legion of fans that try to prove their adoration by behaving like whoppers. They have also convinced themselves that they’re some agreed giant of English football based on John Swales and Les Ferdinand taking the piss out of relegation haunted clubs, and Philippe Albert chipping the United keeper a long time ago. A preview should never ever pass without pointing out that our main problem is them trying to look down their noses at us when finishing second and third. We never done to then when actually winning stuff. Evertonians have a long memory for such things.

So you’ve got the perfect Heinz cockspanner broth of Owner, Manager, fans and players being united (no pun intended) as an almost parody of the things that are wrong with modern football. I pity Sunderland for their proximity.

We’ve already established they have one or two players to look out for. Loic Remy mixes rape with occasional boss forward play but apparently is out for this. Hey kids it’s the all singing all dancing Shola Ameobi show! Like a Britain’s Got Talent Emile Heskey tribute act, he’s their very own Anichebe except they haven’t worked out a way of getting six million from West Brom for him yet. Nailed on to score for that now. They’ll probably prefer Cisse anyway, thinking on.

Their midfield is much weakened by the sale of the super Yohan Cabaye to PSG in the transfer window just gone and its creeping round the edges of midfield like a scalded dog we’ll find one time derby good guy Dan Gosling. Pipe down Dan, you look like crackhead Moomin but thanks for that good times. Ben Arfa is there which deciding on which side of his leopard printed bed he got out of is a good or bad thing. Sissoko being all dead athletic. And some others.

Defence contains names I don’t recognise plus that lad Williamson who is the standard grock for most teams in mid table and down. Coloccini is a game and by game I really mean can pass a ball well and knows how to niggle centre forwards but is ultimately as good at defending as mash. Tim Krul looks like somebody has made a tropical cocktail with two parts gecko and one part pop band Hanson can be super on his day but is allergic to Leighton Baines free kicks.

Like us they’ve clung in there and to their credit against more adversity than we’ve had to face so for all my purposely mocking words these are not to be taken lightly and if we replicate the three points of last year’s fixture then we have done very well indeed. A half arsed Everton stumbling to victories over South Welsh teams should safeguard anyone demanding we tonk them like they’re a weak team, they’re not.

Everton then. Lukaku is a representation of the current Everton thing in that he’s not playing particularly well but is scoring goals, those same goals helping us win games. I do wish he’d stop trying to power past three defenders but he’s starved of receiving the ball facing the goal so seems to try and make the most of it. We have seen why Mourinho deemed him not quite ready and loaned him out but he still is only 20 years old and when he develops those weak areas he is going to be quite unstoppable.

Mirallas is not flavour of the month and might be in line to start a game or two from the bench, with his much needed directness being provided by McGeady at present who looks like he’s about to hit form. Not sure if Pienaar is ready but we need him to help retain the ball in the final third and sharpen our attacking from the left. There’s an excellent site called The Executioners Bong (bookmark it if you haven’t already) who pointed out that usually there’s twenty passes between Baines and Pienaar but on the weekend there was only one pass to either wide player. The fade king togger star of Wavertree was improved against Swansea and I hope it spurts him back form as if it does then we’ll be sound for the rest of the season.

McCarthy and Barry aren’t going to lose too many midfield battles but their weakness is when we are the pressing team as their lack of creativity can stimmy things. Is stimmy even a word? McCarthy we hope will develop into a swashbuckling presence in the final third given time. Anyway I don’t know why I’m even bringing this up like a bad tit pretending he has tactical insight when in fact I know less than something sat on a MOTD sofa. Me-ow.

On the occasionally ace forum attached to this site I noted someone saying that Stones was getting stick on the weekend that took me back a bit. Now you have to factor in that Evertonian pessimism and arl arse is part of our identity and demographics of us as blues and I seldom put myself “out there” for a player but if you can’t see that John Stones is going to be a truly boss central defender then I worry for you. Its not even potential, he’s very nearly there. So much so that a nineteen year old in royal blue can at times take the absolute piss out of seasoned top class strikers. How many other nineteen year olds do you see playing that position in the Premier League, never mind playing it so well? There’s your answer. I’m not too arsed about Distin aging now and that’s the best compliment I can give him. I do however reckon Jagielka will be crow barred back in if he’s fit and rightfully so. Baines, Coleman and Howard complete the taskforce at the back. We have an ace defence and long may it prosper.

About one thousand too many words easily this week so apologies for the 0.014% of you that make it this far. Pictures are boss though aren’t they?

Big game this, so win it Everton ok.