Aston Villa vs Newcastle United Pre-Match Report

By Toon Stig

Newcastle United face Aston Villa at Villa Park this Saturday, in their 5th match of the season.

Newcastle beat Villa 6-0 last season at St. James' Park which will still be in the memory of both sets of fans and players.

Both teams are currently unbeaten in the league.

Aston Villa's Emile Heskey and Jermaine Jenas are out injured.

Newcastle are still without Hatem Ben Arfa.
Davide Santon will not make his debut and could be out for a month (Ligament Damage).
Dan Gosling is looking to feature more in the first team.

Newcastle will be looking to play alot better than they did against QPR.

Not had a look at Gosling any good? not hopeful of many goals in this game but i hope the strikers find there feet soon. haway the lads.

Gosling played a blinder against Norwich in a 6-0 win for the reserves the other night and scored 2. Hopefully a sign of things to come from him.

Ive been a fan of Gosling since his Everton days and they certainly know what a good youngster is.
I was proper glad to see him sign for Toon.
With time and patience he can be a cracking player.

Both Newcastle and Villa will be desperate to keep their respective unbeaten runs going and Villa will definitely still have the taste of that 6-nowt masacre at the beginning of last season still in their mouth. So I think this is going to be a tough game for us.

We will definitely have to play better than we did against QPR who should have put 5 or 6 us. I think this is another away where the first 20 minutes will completely dictate the rest of the game so hopefully we can put the R's performance behind us and come out punching.

Villa play decent attacking football and will be yet another serious threat to our defensive line who are, let's face it, punching a little above their weight at the minute - confidence is a strange and wonderful thing... long may it last!!!

There's also a plethera of ex-Newcastle players at Villa Park and Shay Given more than most will be up for it no doubt... his failed "move for money" to City probably has him wishing he never left the Toon where he could have easily kept the #1 shirt... I'm glad, I think Tim Krul is a better all round keeper at this point in time.

While I'm certain they won't all feature Baye, Irleand, Jenas and Insomnia would all enjoy putting one over on us as well so whatever has been going on in the Toon Camp so far this season will have to be increased and we'll really need to take this game by the scruff of the neck if we want to get anything from it. Oh for a "Joey Barton" right now.

It's very early season-wise and we all know that our lofty spot of 4th is very deceiving... after all, we've only scored THREE goals. I don't rate Darren Bent as an England forward at all - but I'll bet a pound to a penny that he notches up 20 strikes for the Villians this season - you can pick our best two forwards and we'll be lucky if they match him combined.

Overall, I'm worried about this one but ever hopeful that Best or Ba can finally get a grip and start doing what they are paid for and start putting the ball in the back of the net.

Howay the Lads.