FA Cup Round 4 Preview - Brighton Away
Pardew Takes Troops Down To Face Old Foe Gus Poyet
Saturday tea time sees Newcastle come up against an old foe as Alan Pardew takes his side south to face Gus Poyet's Brighton side in the FA Cup 4th round with Newcastle looking to put last weeks Fulham horror show behind them and keep this seasons silverware dreams alive.
This will be a tough game with Brighton having acquitted themselves well in the Championship since gaining promotion convincingly last year and Poyet has them playing some good football too.
After starting this season well their form tailed off a touch but they still find themselves nicely placed just outside the playoffs.
A big blow could be the fact that Coloccini is doubful having picked up some kind of knock in training - a centre half pairing of Williamson and Perch doesn't fill me with confidence further emphasising the need for some defensive reinforcement this trasnfer window.
Again I would personally give Tamas Kadar a go in there ahead of Perch but for whatever reason he seems to be well and truely out of favour with Pardew.
Saying that we still should be able to go there and get a result. Other than possibly Coloccini the only other main absentees are going to be the African players so if we play a strong side then we should have too much for them.
We will however need to tighten up defensively after last week as they have some good attacking players like Craig Mackail-Smith who could cause us problems and they will go into this with no fear having dispatched Premier League opposition in the form of the Mackems out of the Carling Cup earlier in the season.
As I say I would like to see us take this as seriously as possible and I think we will. I woudl go with the following 11: Krul, Simpson, Coloccini/Perch, Williamson, Santon, Cabaye, Guthrie, Jonas, Ben Arfa, Best and Ameobi.
The players certainly owe us a performance after the capitulation in the 2nd half last week and with this being out last chance of silverware especially when you consider who is left in and the number of all Premier League ties this weekend then I will be disappointed if we don't see a reaction.
After a break in the Tenerife sun earlier in the week when hopefully the Fulham match will have been reviewed and worked on then this is the perfect opportunity to give a response in front of the TV cameras and make sure it isn't another long wasted trip for our dedicated fans that make the trip.
