Newcastle United Stats and Facts
Newcastle United have confirmed that Tim Krul and Fabricio Coloccini will be signing new long term contracts at the club which is excellent news for the club as these two players have formed an excellent part of Newcastle’s spine. Add the additions of Cabaye, Tiote, Demba Ba and Cisse Newcastle deserve to be where they are in the table.
• Alan Pardew is unbeaten in four career PL matches against Sunderland as a manager – 2 wins and 2 draws. He is also unbeaten in two previous meetings with sides managed by Martin O’Neill – his West Ham side drawing 1-1 at home to Villa (September 2006) and Charlton side winning 2-1 at home (December 2006).
• The club are unbeaten in their last 14 PL home matches against fellow North-east clubs in total, since the 2-1 defeat to Middlesbrough in March 2001.
• Conceded 13 goals in their last five PL matches, and seven in their last two.
• Failed to win a single match when conceding the opening goal this season – 3 draws and 5 defeats.
• Papiss Cisse has scored in each of his first two PL home matches for the club. If he scores today he will be only the third player to net in the first three home matches of the club after Les Ferdinand (6 matches) in 1995 and Alan Shearer (5 matches) in 1996.
• Shola Ameobi is one short of his 50th English league goal for Newcastle. He is the top scoring player in this derby fixture in the PL era with six goals – two more than Kevin Phillips (Sunderland) and Kevin Nolan (Newcastle).
• Leon Best is two short of 50 English league goals.
• This referee Mike Dean’s second Tyne-Wear PL derby. Newcastle won 2-0 at home in April 2008 in the previous one.
Sunderland Stats and Facts are on page 3…
