St James’ Park awaits – Newcastle v Crystal Palace preview | OneFootball

Welcome to the Newcastle v Crystal Palace preview.

Wednesday 16th April – 7.30pm kick-off.

Newcastle host Crystal Palace on Wednesday night, looking to secure a sixth successive victory in all competitions that will see the Toon climb to the dizzy heights of third place in the table.

NUFC go into this one on a high, having taken their Carabao Cup winning form into the league.

They’ll be looking to use this game in hand to take advantage of the fact that a number of rivals for Champions League qualification have recently dropped points, though the race for the top five shows no sign of slowing down.

Crystal Palace will be hoping to build on some good league form of their own but may well have half an eye on an FA Cup semi-final at Wembley in just ten days time.

Form

Newcastle are riding the crest of a wave at present, having won their first domestic trophy for seventy long years. That Wembley success has formed part of five straight victories in all competitions. Our last six league games have seen five wins and just one defeat. Victories have come over Man Utd, Leicester, Brentford, West Ham and Nottingham Forest, with the only blemish in this sequence being a defeat at Anfield. We’ve scored fourteen goals and conceded seven. These fifteen points have seen us climb into the top four and victory over Palace will have us up to third.

Crystal Palace have won four, drawn one and lost just one of their past six league games. They did lose at the weekend however, going down 5-2 away to Manchester City despite taking an early 2-0 lead. Wins have come against Brighton, Ipswich, Villa and Fulham, whilst they drew 1-1 with Southampton. They’ve scored twelve goals and conceded eight in this run and will be hoping to climb one place up to eleventh in the league.

Newcastle destroyed Man Utd at the weekend, running out comfortable 4-1 winners having dominated the match from start to finish.

Sandro Tonali opened the scoring and it seemed just a matter of time until the Toon doubled their advantage. Unbelievably, when the next goal came it was from the reds and the teams went into the half-time break on level terms. An early second half goal was exactly what the doctor ordered and this came when Barnes supplied the finishing touch after great work from Livramento and Murphy to make it 2-1. When Barnes then seized on a defensive error and put the ball in the top corner for his second of the match, it was clearly going to be Newcastle’s day. This was confirmed when Joelinton headed into the path of Bruno to make it 4-1 in front of an ecstatic Gallowgate End.

A brilliant result and performance that hopefully provided the perfect tonic towards a speedy recovery for Eddie Howe. Get well soon gaffa.

Palace went away to Manchester City and looked like they might do Newcastle a huge favour when taking a two goal lead inside the first twenty one minutes. They also had a goal disallowed and hit the woodwork before being pegged back to 2-2 by half-time. The second half was all City and the Eagles had to settle for a disappointing 5-2 defeat.

Newcastle have won three, drawn one and lost just one of the past five league matches at home to Crystal Palace.

Crystal Palace have won just three of their last seventeen visits to Gallowgate.

Newcastle haven’t conceded a goal at home to Crystal Palace in their last four meetings.

Memorable match

In 2016, Rafa Benitez and Newcastle were desperate for a victory that would help the Toon’s push for Premier league survival, having been landed in relegation trouble due to an awful season. We came up against a Crystal Palace side managed by Alan Pardew, who publicly expressed his desire for Newcastle to stay up.

A fairly tepid encounter exploded into life when Andros Townsend absolutely buried a superb free=kick at the Leazes End in the fifty eighth minute to send St James Park wild!

Things looked like they may have taken a turn for the worse in the seventieth minute when Palace were awarded a penalty and former hero Yohan Cabaye had the chance to level the scores. Third-choice goalkeeper Karl Darlow had other ideas however, diving to his left to make a fine save that actually pulled Newcastle, briefly, out of the relegation zone. This was a superb victory under very difficult circumstances. Unfortunately, we would still be relegated, but a fine run of form at the end of the season persuaded Rafa Benitez to stay on and rebuild towards promotion at the first attempt. Final Score Newcastle 1-0 Crystal Palace

Played for both

Darren Ambrose was signed by Sir Bobby Robson from Ipswich Town in 2003. He scored a few important goals for the Toon, including a fine equaliser against Southampton in May 2004 that ensured qualification for the UEFA Cup. He also scored a fantastic equaliser away to Bolton in a 2-1 defeat at the Reebok under Greame Souness. Its safe to say Toon fans never really saw the best of him despite his undoubted potential. He played for Charlton and then Ipswich before signing for Crystal Palace in 2009. He’s fondly remembered by Eagles fans having scored a crucial goal in a relegation battle against Sheffield Wednesday, as well as the winning goal at Old Trafford in a League Cup quarter-final.

Dwight Gayle spent three seasons at Crystal Palace and is remembered for a late brace in a 3-3 draw at home to Liverpool when Palace came back from 3-0 down to gain a point against the title-chasing reds. He signed for Newcastle in 2016 and helped us gain promotion back to the Premier League with a number of important goals, including a hat-trick in an astonishing 4-3 win over Norwich and a brace in a 2-0 victory away at Leeds.

Loic Remy was on loan at the Toon for one season having signed in 2013. My favourite memory of his time on Tyneside was being in the away end at Tottenham when he scored the only goal in a match where Tim Krul made a million saves. He played on loan at Palace in 2016 but failed to find the net in a handful of league appearances.

Managers

Jason Tindall (in the absence of unwell manager Eddie Howe) after a 4-1 victory over Man United:

“I’m super proud of the players. Not surprised because we’ve got a fantastic group of players – we’ve got some great leaders within that. It’s times like this when the manager is not there, when he’s not there to lead the team, you have to step up individually and collectively. Everybody certainly did that today, so really, really proud of the players to go out and deliver the performance that they did today against a good Manchester United team”.

Oliver Glasner after a 5-2 defeat away at Manchester City:

“The players did their best but we will learn from this game. When you play a team like City you have to be in your top level in defence. The last time we conceded five was against Arsenal before Christmas and then we had a great run. We will analyse this again and then train. In four days we have the chance to do it better against Newcastle and this is what we’ll go for.”

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.

Newcastle are in good form at the moment and have everything to play for. We’re up against a Crystal Palace side who have found their rhythm recently, having made the FA Cup semi-final. This could well be a good match between two in-form sides. I don’t think it will be easy but I fancy the Toon to get another three points and keep climbing that table. Newcastle 2-0 Crystal Palace.