Paul Merson talks about Newcastle United.
NUFC while fifteen weeks of the new season are over.
A very intense period in which Newcastle played every midweek, because of the Champions League and the Carabao Cup.
Eddie Howe and team are now preparing for their next match.
Kick-off on Saturday at 5.30 pm, away at Everton.
Paul Merson discusses where things stand now for Newcastle United as they prepare for the clash at the Hill Dickenson Stadium.
Paul Merson talks to Sportskeeda ahead of Everton vs Newcastle:
‘I don’t know what’s going on with Newcastle.
“They play like they did against Manchester City and in the next game they lose to Marseille even though they are ahead!
“Newcastle’s away form in the Premier League has been quite poor and the next game is against Everton on Merseyside. This is a tough game for Newcastle, there’s no doubt about that.”
“Everton were excellent against Manchester United. I know Man U put in a poor performance, but you have to tip your hat to Everton for scoring with 10 men and securing the win away from home. David Moyes won’t be too concerned about the Idrissa Gueye incident with Michael Keane, which led to the midfielder’s red card. As a manager, you secretly want that fight between players. When I was playing, these fights happened in every training session! If I were a manager, I would too do.” I wouldn’t mind if my players pushed each other like that.
“But it was still the right decision to send Gueye away. These players are great role models for children all over the world. If he were to walk away without punishment, children would start doing the same on Sunday morning during their matches. That’s why it was important to set an example by taking action against Gueye.”
“Everton look like a much-improved team and are no longer sitting back and playing defensive football. Newcastle have only won one game away from home this season and I don’t know how I can support them in this game.”
“Prediction: Everton 2 Newcastle 1”
My thoughts
Unlike almost all other experts last weekend, Paul Merson did not predict a defeat for Newcastle United against Manchester City. He didn’t predict a win for United, but came close with a 1-1 prediction.
Ultimately, that game had many big chances and Newcastle United had the lion’s share of them. A 4-2 or 5-3 win over Manchester City could well have been on the cards as Nick Woltemade might have bagged a hat-trick for Newcastle United alone and Harvey Barnes had two better chances than the pair he actually scored.
It’s a bit simplistic of Paul Merson to just talk about losing in Marseille without giving any background information. A very difficult place to go, where for over a year Marseille had only lost twice in Ligue 1 and the Champions League. In Tuesday’s match, Newcastle didn’t play badly overall, they did well and ultimately the defeat came due to five minutes of poor defending straight after half-time.
That defeat had left Eddie Howe feeling the need to rest Joelinton and Woltemade, while Hall and Livramento had made their first starts in a long time when they faced Manchester City. The Newcastle boss knew he could take the risk of only using them in France for a limited time.
If Newcastle can play at a level (and create a similar number of big chances) that is somewhere between how they performed against Manchester City and Marseille, then I think today will be a draw at worst, and hopefully a win.
In their last thirteen games, home and away, in all competitions, Newcastle have scored at least once in every game. In total he scored 26 goals in the last 13 games.
Although Everton have only scored eight goals in their last ten matches across the competition, they have scored more than one goal in only two of those ten matches.
So taking all that into account, I don’t see Newcastle United scoring today and I would be surprised if Everton manage to score more than once, barring a similar five-minute meltdown like we saw in the defense in Marseille. As I said above, I expect a draw at worst, but if I create the chances and am decent at the back too, I can see Newcastle win today.
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