Manchester City fans comments on Newcastle United ahead of semi-final at St James’ Park

Manchester City fans watched on as their team deservedly lost against Newcastle United 52 days ago.

A 2-1 victory for Eddie Howe and his players when the visitors were lucky to lose by only a one goal margin, both Nick Woltemade and Harvey Barnes could and should have had hat-tricks, with other NUFC players also having great chances.

Manchester City fans are now returning to a stadium where the last four visits have seen two wins for United, a draw, plus a 3-2 away victory despite Newcastle leading 2-1 with less than 20 minutes to go.

Both clubs with very busy schedules across four competitions and also, both managers missing a number of players, especially in defence.

Manchester City fans were allocated 4,893 tickets for tonight’s semi-final and rather surprisingly, they have sold less than two thirds of their allocation, with three full blocks of tickets returned to NUFC and sold to Newcastle fans instead.

Manchester City fans commenting via their Blue Moon message board ahead of facing Newcastle United at SJP in the Carabao Cup semi-final:

‘The ideal way to do it would be the way Arsenal did it in their two legged game with Newcastle a season or two back, won the first leg 2-0 at Newcastle, then ‘settled’ for the draw in the second leg, if memory serves me right …. but I don’t think a draw tonight would necessarily be a bad result for us, we should be able to get the better of them at home in the second leg.’

‘Gotta be Ake/Khusa at the back for me. Seen a lot on here saying Alleyne.

Yes he’s been steady and not done a lot wrong this last week but it’s one thing playing Exeter and Brighton (arguably the weakest physical prem team) at home.

Newcastle away is a whole different prospect. Gotta be Ake if not for experience alone. Max for the derby at the Etihad seems lest of a risk to me personally. Ake can sit that one out.’

‘Level 7, safe standing, setting off now!’

‘I am more aligned to having strong options on the bench at the expense of a few prospects in the first 11 performing sub optimal. Either way I think we are in a better position than Newcastle right now. Against Brighton we nearly pulled it off in the second half. We were strong after substitutions. Players need incentives as to why to perform. An argument to mix it up.’

‘Go as strong as possible here. There’s only 2 pots we can genuinely win this season and this is one of them. Id play Rodri and Gonzalez in front of the back 4 to add protection – Foden, Semenyo and Bernie ahead of them and Erling up top.

You want to get a postive result and ensure the tie is ultimately decided on our patch and not be out of it beforehand.’

‘Newcastle’s strength is the pace of their forwards, and Ake’s weakness is his speed. They’ll target Ake if he plays. I’d play Alleyne instead of Ake in this game. Horses for courses.’

‘Newcastle Upon Tibet’

‘We had to call mountain rescue last season to get us down.’

‘Just the usual away section. 3,100ish. Could have had 3 more blocks but we ended up handing them back.’

‘Quite surprised at that. Sign of the times now and it’s pretty much right after Christmas, fans are shelling out too much.’

‘Interesting the team flying up and back today like they did with Swansea.

Pep normally likes to go day before and return following day.’

‘There isn’t a planet where I play Rico Lewis with an available cherki or foden.’

‘Rico Lewis is a class act.

Players have to earn their spot, no matter how gifted they are.

If a player comes in, does the business, and then they are dropped again, it sends the wrong message, IMO.

We all know how gifted Cherki and Foden are, but they have had about three relatively poor games on the spin. IMO, they are the ones who now need to earn their places back, and I speak as a big fan of both players.’

‘We can win this but a draw will suit me.

My only concern is how many players they have injured with the referees permission by full time.’

‘Not overly confident here. Our defence was all over the place against Brighton, tough place to go for a young and makeshift backline.’

‘We can`t win the tie tonight, but we can certainly lose it. As such I`d go safety first with a double pivot of Rodders and Gonzalez for extra protection. And a chance for Alleyne, if he passes this test then I`d have no issues with him starting at the weekend.’

‘Joelinton, Guimares and Tonali will foul every time the ball goes in to our midfield. Depends if the ref allows them to continually do that or gets out his cards. Thats their game plan every time we play them up there.’

‘Any chance the able bodied could leave the lift for those who NEED it tonight?’

‘Joelinton is a slimy sly thug !’

‘A huge game. It will be a cauldron of noise. I think Pep will relish it and lead us to a win. He loves these sort of matches.’

‘Bloody hate playing in their place, it will be rocking and the refs will let them kick us off the park, just hope for no injuries.’

‘The 4 teams left in the Carabao are also in the CL and FA cup too, along with pushing for a high PL finish.
Interesting to see how much each team prioritises these competitions.’

‘Hadn’t realised we’ve beaten Newcastle to nil the last 7 times at the Etihad.

Interesting dynamic in this one, we usually go to Newcastle needing to win and it always makes us more vulnerable. Now they’re the team that needs to win, heard their fans say a draw isn’t good enough.’

‘You know what you’re going to get so it won’t be a surprise. They’ll throw everything at us. They’ll appeal for penalties and free kicks and anything else they can and every tackle or misplaced pass will be cheered to the rafters.

But they’ve seen a lot of drama recently, it fatigues the fans as much as the players! Quieten the place down early and SJP can become a morgue quite quickly. It’s a good game for us in our general development. If we want to get back to winning the big trophies, handling this sort of game is critical and to do it without Dias/Gvardiol would be a positive sign moving forwards.’

‘We were able to rotate on the weekend whereas they had another relentless game, that ended up going the distance so we should be able to deal with their physicality better than usual.

They rotated key players as well but to a lesser extent: Bruno G, Joelington and Anthony Gordon were subbed on and played 50-60 minutes.

Livramento got injured again and is likely to miss the game. They don’t have experienced options at CB other than the two fit CBs.

Trippier is poor and Miley (who is likely to start at RB) isn’t a defender… So they have problems in defence too.’

‘Not been to Newcastle away in about 10 years! What pubs do we get for this?’

‘All over the town centre with no colours. No problem in the past.’

‘Expect the usual dirty tactics by Newcastle as Howe always sends his teams out to kick us off the park knowing the ref will allow it. They also seem to constantly get very late penalties of late.’

‘We need to beat this lot at their place, too many times over last 6/7 years we’ve been done over by reffing decisions and that’s not even referring to their constant thuggish behaviour.’