Chattin' With The Oppo's - Latics Up At Newcastle

Latics travel up to the North East to face Newcastle in the televised Monday Night Football special on Sky Sports, in the build up to the game I managed to grab a few words with Talk of the Tyne website editor and massive Newcastle fan Mark Robson, aka TNMW, lets see how it went:

How's it going so far Mark? You must be disappointed after last seasons heroics

It's not going so well mate. Disappointed is one word we can use but it's not entirely a surprise considering a lot of us were worried that a side who finished 5th in as tough a league as you can imagine, not only got rid of a lot of youngsters but a lot of decent fringe players as well without replacing them

It's well documented that the relations between Mike Ashley and the fans aren't the best and you have to question what the thinking was behind such a daft plan

How have the new signings settled in?

hahahaha. A very sarcastic question that one. In fact I'm not sure what the word 'signings' means...

Seriously though, we brought in one senior player, Vurnon Anita, but he will take time to fit in. Also, we bought 2 youngsters. Gael Bigirimana, who's actually a great prospect and Romain Amalfitano, who's not really played at all.

Alan Pardew, are the supporters getting a little disgruntled?

The supporters are frustrated with the lack of strengthening and Pardew isn't really getting the blame for this, so there's no real heat on him.

What doesn't go down so well is his speaking and this has been an issue since day one. Many confusing statements or contradictory words has his own language named after him up here. Pardish.

His stubbornness to persist with the 4-4-2 formation to keep Demba Ba happy also gets on most people's nerves with his interview recently where he reckons we're still playing 4-3-3, another example of what riles us.

How do you see your season going, a struggle or will you get the points to pull safely up the table?

A hard question to answer as we'll only pick up if the injuries clear as well as buy in the window, not to mention, Pardew finding a formation that suits everyone.

I wouldn't be surprised to see us either qualifying for Europe or getting relegated as I've seen it all before. The big issue lies in the window. We have to buy.

How's Ryan Taylor after his injury, really gutted for him, must be the unluckiest player ever!

We haven't really heard that much from him but he's a bit of a miss from dead ball kicks as we've been absolutely crap at them since he got cattled.

Any Latics player that you'd like to see in a Newcastle shirt?

I quite like your keeper, Ali Al Habsi but he'd have a tussle with Tim Krul

How do you feel the Latics will fare this season?

You have similar problems to us in the way of personnel available and I'm not sure what finances are available for you's to strengthen, so I reckon, anywhere from 12th to 17th.

How do you see the game going?

I see a nervy frustrating first half which may be 0-0 or 0-1 to you`s lot but second half, I expect us to up the tempo and go for the throat. Head says home win, 2 or 3-1 but I'm going for a 1-1 draw.

Thanks very much for taking the time out to answer the questions Mark, best of luck for the season, after tonights game of course, there is an article with yours truly answering some questions over on Vital Newcastle


















Latics and Proud



Fancy writing an article about the Latics? Why not get in touch, we are always looking for new contributors, after all we are all Latics fans here and want to get the Latics message to the world, so if you have a favourite match or Latics memory get it jotted down, or whatever you want to say put it into an email and send it to us here at Vital Wigan

To get your article published just click here and we will put it onto the site

Click here to join in the debate on the club forum.