Villa Park awaits – Aston Villa v Newcastle preview | OneFootball

Welcome to the Aston Villa v Newcastle preview.

Saturday 19th April – 5.30pm kick-off.

Newcastle travel to Birmingham this weekend, looking to put a dent in Aston Villa’s challenge for a place in the top five.

The past three matches between the two teams have seen magnificent Newcastle victories and a repeat on Saturday would do very nicely indeed.

Newcastle have climbed up to third in the league on the back of five PL straight wins and Toon fans are still in dreamland, having won a major trophy for the first time in a generation.

Villa are having a great season of their own and both sides will consider this a real six-pointer in the race to finish in the Champions League places.

Newcastle have won five of their past six Premier league matches and six matches in a row in all competitions including the cup final. Wins have come over Crystal Palace, Man United, Leicester, Brentford and West Ham, with that run being preceded by a defeat at Anfield. We’ve scored an astonishing fifteen goals in this sequence and conceded just four. These wins have rocketed us up from sixth to third place in the league. We’ll end the weekend third or fourth and could be just a point behind second place Arsenal should results go our way.

Aston Villa are also one of the form teams of the Premier League having won five of their past six matches. Wins have been achieved over Southampton, Nottingham Forest, Brighton, Brentford and Chelsea, whilst they went down to an incredibly poor 4-1 defeat away at Crystal Palace. They’ve scored twelve goals in this time and conceded six. They’ll end the weekend fifth, sixth or seventh in the table.

Newcastle hosted Crystal Palace midweek and took the game to their opponents from the very first whistle. Jacob Murphy was on fire and whipped in three superb crosses in the opening ten minutes. As his teammates weren’t able to finish, he decided to do it himself and smashed home a fine opener after just fourteen minutes. The key moment in the match came when Palace were awarded a penalty with a chance to level the tie. Thankfully, Eze stuttered into a ludicrous run up and tapped the ball to Nick Pope in one of the worst spot-kicks seen at St James’ in living memory.

Newcastle took full advantage and scored three times in ten minutes to put the game completely beyond Palace. The second half was all about whether Isak could find the net having spurned a few good chances earlier on and our Swedish superstar duly delivered, when finding the bottom corner from over twenty yards. A 5-0 victory was the least the Toon deserved and sets us up nicely for another huge game on Saturday.

Aston Villa went away to Southampton in their last Premier League match and were reliant on three late goals to seal victory. They also hosted PSG in an epic champions league quarter-final on Tuesday night and were desperately unlucky not to progress to the next round. Trailing 3-1 from the first leg, they went 2-0 behind early on and looked dead and buried. Needing four goals to level the tie, they showed great character to pull three back and can consider themselves unlucky not to take the French club to extra time.

Newcastle have won just one of their past eight visits to Villa Park, a 3-1 victory that came last season courtesy of two Schar strikes and an own goal.

Newcastle have failed to score in six of their last seven Premier League visits to Aston Villa.

The Toon have won ten Premier League away games at Villa Park.

Memorable match

In February 2006, Newcastle fans and players were breathing a huge sigh of relief following the end of Graeme Souness’ disastrous reign in charge. Glenn Roeder was tasked with steadying the ship and began with a fine 2-0 home win over Portsmouth, that saw Alan Shearer become the club’s all-time top scorer amid scenes of huge celebration. Our next match saw us travel to Villa Park and take the lead after just two minutes when Shola Ameobi fired home. An Aston Villa equaliser did very little to dampen the spirits in the away end, especially as it didn’t take long for Charles N’Zogbia to restore Newcastle’s advantage. NUFC were all over Villa at this point and Alan Shearer had one cleared off the line as we went searching for a third. It looked like all of this effort may have been in vain when Aston Villa were awarded a second-half penalty and Toon defender Babayaro was sent off for the foul in the area. Thankfully Shay Given pulled off a save to send the travelling Toon Army into raptures. Newcastle hung on for a victory that was celebrated long into the night. Final Score Aston Villa 1-2 Newcastle.

David Ginola was signed by Kevin Keegan from PSG in 1995 and was soon hero-worshipped by incredulous Toon fans who couldn’t believe just how skilful he was. His first few months on Tyneside really could have seen him named one of the very best players in Europe as he regularly terrorised bamboozled defenders before whipping in inch-perfect crosses for Sir Les to power home. He spent two years at the Toon and was an integral part of the team that came so close to winning the title for the first time in sixty nine years. Highlights include stunning goals against Sheffield Wednesday, Arsenal, Man United and Ferencvaros, as well as a number of assists for the likes of Ferdinand, Shearer and Beardsley, as United often ran riot with such an array of attacking talent. He may have gone down as a modern day Toon legend but when playing against us for Tottenham and Villa he was often given a rather rough ride by Toon fans. He signed for Aston Villa in 2000 and spent one and a half seasons at Villa Park, scoring three goals.

Ronny Johnsen played for Aston Villa for two seasons between 2002 and 2004 before signing for Graeme Souness’ Newcastle. Johnson was a talented defender who had previously won the treble whilst playing for Man Utd. Unfortunately, he was to only play a handful of games for the Toon as age and fitness caught up with his career.

Habib Beye spent two seasons at Newcastle having signed for Sam Allardyce in 2007. One of our better players during that time, his one goal was an injury time winner at home to Birmingham. He signed for Aston Villa following our relegation in 2009 and would spend two unhappy years at Villa Park. Sympathy on Tyneside was in short supply and he’d wind down his career at the mighty Doncaster Rovers.

Managers

Jason Tindall (in the absence of Eddie Howe) after a 5-0 thumping of Crystal Palace:

“We spoke pre-game about maintaining the standards we set ourselves at the weekend, about being really aggressive and on the front foot. I thought the players went about that and executed that brilliantly. We’ve got a fantastic squad and the balance of the team has been great. We’ve got some players on the bench who can come on the pitch and make a difference. We’re confident, we’ve had a good run of results and we have to remain level headed and work hard every day to go out and deliver performances.”

Unai Emery after a 3-2 win at home to PSG saw Aston Villa lose 5-4 on aggregate:

“I am very proud of everything. Getting to this level is the next step forward, I want to try to win with Aston Villa. We played two legs, we competed well and it wasn’t even. Today we competed better and we were close to the result. I want to try to work for my next process at Aston Villa. The crowd was fantastic, they gave us energy. Every player at this level has a huge level to play and to try and be a protagonist. We were a protagonist as well with our skills. We were focused on our game plan”.

As it is an away match, Newcastle United fans will not be collecting opposite the Gallowgate end, for the food bank. However, you can still help out and all online cash donations are very much appreciated. For further info and/or to donate to the food bank online go HERE.

This has all the hallmarks of an absolute cracker between two in-form teams at the top of their game. Both sides will go into the match knowing that this is a huge six-pointer in the race for the Champions League. I’m expecting goals in this one with both teams trying to win but ultimately being happy not to lose. Aston Villa 2-2 Newcastle.