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Blog on the Tyne is dedicated to bring Toon fans everywhere the most up to date NUFC views, opinions and comment.

The author Lee Ryder, proudly born and bred on Tyneside, has followed the fortunes of the club over the last three decades as a Toon fan and football writer.

From the high octane atmosphere of St James' Park to the Premiership grounds up and down the country and into Europe - this Blog has been there.

But the coverage doesn't stop at first team level.

Blog on the Tyne is also proud to be there to witness the future of the club with regular coverage of Newcastle United's reserve side, as well as all things black and white.

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Defeat isn't an option for Newcastle United

Posted by Lee on November 9, 2007 9:10 AM | 

They reckon that defeat in tomorrow's Tyne-Wear derby is simply unthinkable.

But no matter how confident you are about tomorrow's big clash at the Stadium of Light, defeat will have crossed your mind at some stage.

It certainly has for me.

For every moment of thinking about 3,000 sets of keys being waved about at 4-1, I've had a Marco Gabbiadini moment.

And for every moment thinking of that Mackem with his corner flags, Eric Gates has crept into my head - mullet as well.

Every Liam O'Brien free-kick has been clouded with a Niall Quinn or a Kevin Phillips and so on and so on.

Losing isn't on the menu for the Geordies this time.

So basically defeat is not unthinkable because we are all intelligent enough to ponder how we are going to feel on Saturday night and for another two weeks if United are gunned down by Roy Keane and Co.

It may well be a local derby but Steve Harper is the closest thing you will get to a Geordie tomorrow in the black and white stripes even though London-born Steven Taylor is aware or should be aware of what defeat means at street level.

And I can't help feeling that we need an Alan Shearer type figure in there or a Lee Clark just to make sure we are on top of the situation.

I'm not for a minute saying that defeat is on the cards because man for man Newcastle should do the business over struggling Sunderland.

But they should have beaten Pompey last week.

Can they conjure up such a dire performance again two games on the spin?

Surely not but this is Newcastle United isn't it?

All I know is that I remember sitting on the Metro - long before they decided to decorate half of their bridge on Tyneside red and white (who was responsible for that stupid idea?) - back in 1999 the night that Ruud Gullit lost the plot.

The Metro was like a morgue, everybody was drenched due to the monsoon and you could tell that a lot of people were thinking "why do I do this with my spare time?" and I remember that day when they done it again a year later when Big Al missed the penalty.

That day I was sitting in the Gallowgate corner and somebody muttered, "We can't get beat man, this will spoil my weekend" and his neighbour turned round and said: "Just ya weekend, I've got to work with half a dozen of Mackems, it's going to be six months man - I've had 14 months of grief for the last one!"

And who can forget the play-off defeat in 1990!

Losing would see us drop in to the bottom half of the table at a time where we haven't even played anybody from the top four to date and talk of Europe a few weeks ago now seems like a sick joke.

It would also mean many months of misery thinking back to this game and that our proud run over three decades without a defeat on Wearside would be over.

And although I think that Allardyce is going to need time to get this right at Newcastle and he should be given that time - losing to Sunderland will crank up the pressure on the manager already and certain sections of fans will call for change once again.

It just bare thinking about any longer.

In a nutshell, just don't lose lads eh?

Comments (2)

mag in boro wrote...

and no lee losing hasnt crossed my mind this week just remember who we playing

Posted by: mag in boro  | November 10, 2007 12:57 AM

James 09 wrote...

By what we’ve seen so far this season, surely we cannot be confident on any result. Defeat, especially with another feeble performance, isn’t an option for Newcastle United, yet a horrifying result is a very real possibility.

Lee - Newcastle “man for man� SHOULD beat alot of teams – it simply does NOT work like that. Over the last couple of seasons we have consistently dropped a truck load of vital points to teams we clearly shouldn’t have. Last season alone was tragic – Fulham, Wigan, Boro, Sheffield United, Birmingham. Last Saturday was indefensible, but at least Pompey had an away streak going and some extremely useful players. We were horrible at Derby and Reading – yet clearly the vast majority of our players would start in both those teams. The same applies to Sunderland. Newcastle should do the business over a host of weak and struggling sides. If ever there was a sport dependent on being and playing as a team – it’s football.

Ashley in the away end – fantastic! If he thought we Geordies were passionate at the matches he’s attended so far, he’s in for different world come Saturday. However, should the “unthinkable� happen, he will be in THE best (perhaps worst!) possible position to hear just exactly what those “certain sections of fans� have to say – more accurately scream.

Posted by: James 09  | November 10, 2007 6:05 AM

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