Barcode battlers
Manchester City return to Premiership action on Saturday with the visit of the Premierships other undefeated team, Newcastle United.
A win for City will put them eight points clear of second place Manchester United who play newly promoted Swansea in the later game.
Statistically Newcastle have the edge with Saturdays game being our 151st League encounter with the Geordie nation. Of those games we have only won 51, with Newcastle winning 64 and of course the remaining ending in draws. That said, recent history is all on our side. Our last defeat, at home to Newcastle came on September 30th 2000, when Joe Royle was still at the helm.
Last seasons run of this fixture saw City pick up the points in a 2-1 win but most people will remember the 3-1 win in September 2007. Petrov, Mpenza and ‘that’ freekick from Elano that beat future City keeper, Given. In that game you might remember that the visitors actually took the lead through Martins before Martin Petrov equalised eight minutes later. In the second half Mpenza scored to put City in the lead and three minutes from time Elano scored that postage stamp freekick and elevated the Brazilian to legend status.
Other notable wins against Newcastle came on Boxing Day 1978 with Dennis Tueart scoring a hat trick to give City a very good holiday season, pushing us on to a fifth place finish, whereas Newcastle were relegated. We had warned them though a couple of seasons before, with the same scoreline. This time though Tueart scored twice from the spot and future City boss, Joe Royle netted the other two.
January 18th 1975 ended in a 5-1 with that man Tueart scoring another hattrick. Bell and Hammond were the other two City goal scorers on that day. However the best League win against Newcastle surely without a doubt must be the May 11th 1968 season finale. Eventually City came out the victors in a seven goal thriller to snatch the title from neighbours, United.
It hasn’t always been good for City in these clashes though. On October 1983 we would be on the wrong end of a 5-0 spanking, this while both teams were fighting to reclaim top flight football.
However the worst match must have been the October 1986 game in which we lost 3-1. Although it was early in the season it would be a regular sight for City fans to see that City had lost. Out of the 42 games that season we would lose almost half and win just the eight. In 18 games we wouldn’t even score a goal and that is not the form that keeps you in top flight football. As a result, City were relegated.
It is now 2011 and both teams are frantically trying to keep their good runs going for as long as they can but something has to break this weekend. City have been free scoring and tend to put their opponents to the sword, showing no mercy. If this is not possible, as demonstrated in the QPR game, they can also grind out the 3 points.
Newcastle, on the other hand, are happy with frustrating teams and snatching the win. This is demonstrated in the tables with City conceding just two more goals than Newcastle but scored more than double!
1 comment