We’d be without Brattan AND Grant for the Tards then. Thats a must win - Robbie punchable fucking face Kruse cannot win against us. Ghost of TMac will not allow it.
Kinda strange, looking at the forecast, there’s no mention of smoke for Friday (there is today and Saturday). It’s also only 31, which isn’t that bad.
But that wleague game before is off.
Yeah wonder why that is? Hopefully they mention the reason why in the press release.
All part of the conspiracy to ensure Bratten is available for the Victory game.
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Men clearly have superior lungs.
Huge thanks for that. But what a clusterfuck… leaving Sydney at 2:45 for a 7:50 kick-off.
I shudder to think what it’ll be like getting back.
Look, if you’re gonna go, spend a night in Newy. Hit the local drinking establishments, kip at a hotel or hostel, then walk your hangover at a beach with proper room to move around.
(and then grit your teeth and make that same 4-5 hour trip home)
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Yeah I saw those times coming back and that was enough for me to decide not to go. I was really looking forward to this trip but I guess it wasn’t to be.
If you’re gonna spend the night you might as well drive up and avoid the clusterfuck train situation altogether. Carpool if need be. Leave the car at the hotel/hostel and cab it to the drinking establishments and/or stadium.
Catch the useless light rail 400m, even haha
Country link trains are a (dearer) option where the trackwork slows them down but you don’t need to do the whole bus routine. And they go all the way to Broadmeadow. But no way they’d be running after the game.
I’m out. 
Have a record of missing about 1 game in NSW per year, tonight will be this seasons.
However, there will be no managerless bounce, away win.
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Having some trouble getting the blog post set up so I’m just going to put everything here.
Match preview
Newcastle have been the poorest team in the league this season. This was confirmed in their previous game when they were thrashed 4-0 by Melbourne. Other recent results include a 6-2 loss to Perth and another 4-0 loss to City. For this reason, their coach Ernie Merrick has been sacked. This means that it’s really hard to tell what sort of team we will come up against. There is of course the possibility of a new manager bounce, but without a permanent manager in place it’s very possible that Newcastle won’t be revitalised in that same way.
Newcastle haven’t had a lot of big threats this season but of course the main one to watch out for is Petratos . Dimi is always capable of creating something out of nothing and has a good long-range strike on him. Unfortunately for him, he’s not really surrounded by natural goalscorers. Thurgate started the season well with a bit of a hot streak of scoring, but he’s not someone you can rely on to score many goals in a season.
We have our own selection problems, however, with a few key players missing. Grant continues to serve his suspension. Brattan picked up his 5th yellow card last game. O’Neill is still out injured and we are still easing Zullo back in. In addition, Buhagiar is on international duty and Ivanovic may still be injured. So expect to see quite a few changes and maybe even some unfamiliar names this time around.
After putting in a very acceptable shift, Van der Saag is likely to get his second straight start at right back. He had a bit of a nervous first half against Adelaide, but looked more settled as the game wore on. His defensive work was impressive and he showed a real willingness to try to get forward and help our build-up play. At left back, Corica will have to choose between keeping King in place or starting Zullo . I personally think he will start Zullo and then sub King on in the second half but that’s just guesswork on my part.
Given that both of our midfielders are missing, we are going to almost certainly have to play with Retre and Caceres in midfield. Retre played really well there against Adelaide, picking up both goals. Having Brattan next to him meant that Retre could get forward a bit more and contribute to attacks. With Caceres also playing in midfield, we are probably going to see Retre sitting much deeper than he did last week, because Caceres is likely going to spend most of the game as our more attack-minded midfielder. Hopefully Caceres can provide any defensive solidity we need to shut down Petratos when called upon.
Despite missing the Adelaide game, it looks like Ninkovic will be back for this game. I can’t see Corica risking him for 90 minutes, so hopefully he can have a big impact in the first half before coming off for one of the youngsters. Baumjohann is likely to be our main attacking weapon after that point, because he has shown he works best as our lone creative outlet.
Given the above, I think the line-up will be as follows:
Previous Matches
Head-to-Head
Wins: 27 (60%)
Draws: 10 (22.2%)
Losses: 8 (17.8%)
Sydney FC record at Newcastle Stadium
Wins: 12 (54.5%)
Draws: 5 (22.7%)
Losses: 5 (22.7%)
Last 5 Matches
1/11/19 – Sydney FC 4 – 1 Newcastle
27/04/19 – Newcastle 2 – 0 Sydney FC
19/01/19 – Sydney FC 1 – 0 Newcastle
10/11/18 – Newcastle 1 – 1 Sydney FC
3/03/18 – Newcastle 2 – 1 Sydney FC
Records
Biggest Win – 4 goals:
25/01/09 – Sydney FC 4 – 0 Newcastle
Biggest Loss – 3 goals:
5/02/12 – Sydney FC 2 – 5 Newcastle
Most Goals in a Game – 7 goals (2 games):
5/02/12 – Sydney FC 2 – 5 Newcastle
17/04/15 – Newcastle 3 – 4 Sydney FC
Most Appearances vs Newcastle – Alex Brosque (27)
Most Goals vs Newcastle – Alex Brosque (13)
Key Statistics
- Luke Brattan misses this game through accumulation of yellow cards. Paulo Retre is next in line for this for Sydney with 4 yellow cards so far this season.
- In the previous game, Michael Zullo got to his milestone of 100 games for the club. This makes him the 15th person to reach this milestone for Sydney. The next player in line for this honour is Andrew Redmayne , who has 91 appearances.
- The game against Adelaide also saw Adam Le Fondre bring up his 50th game for Sydney. He has scored 35 goals in that time.
Note: Appearances and goals only include league games, finals, FFA Cup, OFC and AFC Champions League and Club World Cup.
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I’d be surprised if we start Ninkovic and Zullo tbh. It’ll probably mean too predetermined subs and that’s probably risky to have only one to play with. Kings doing well and Id be tempted to give him another games. Would also be excited to see Swibel get another appearance and so too Teague. It’ll be a young bench
And king starts
