Bashing Geordies sets us up for main course

GEORDIES are a strange breed; Newcastle only have to announce the signing of a second-rate player and for whom they have paid well over the odds and they all descend on St James’s Park in their thousands, loud and invariably bare-chested (and that’s just the women), telling all and sundry that this is the signing that will change their fortunes.

So when it was revealed that Alan Shearer would be taking up the reins, there was mass hysteria in the North-East on the scale of a Duran Duran gig circa 1984.

There was a bizarre atmosphere at Saturday’s game, considering the hype and excitement outside the ground. The Newcastle fans were very quiet and subdued inside — perhaps it had finally dawned on them, as their team laboured around the pitch, that it was going to take more than their Messiah to save them from the ignominy of relegation.

They are a very poor side, and I think what was needed was a manager with experience of a scrap to avoid the drop. What can Alan Shearer teach them? He has no experience in management and they looked little different on Saturday to how they have been playing all season.

The result was no surprise to anyone in that stadium, least of all the Geordies. However what surprised me was why we made such hard work of it in the first half. We cannot take 45 minutes to get into a game — it’s dangerous against poor sides like Newcastle, never mind teams like Liverpool and Arsenal. We did have a bit of a makeshift side on Saturday but that is no excuse for the opening spell and had we not upped our game considerably in the second half, who knows what could have happened? That said, we still should have won at least 4-0.

As it was, those “best supporters in the land” started streaming out of the ground with 10 minutes to go and the only Shearer chants that could be heard were the ironic ones coming from the Chelsea end.

If, and when, they go down, I won’t be sorry, because of this myth that they are everyone’s “second team”.

So tonight’s the night — Media Darlings v The Enemies of Football and for once we are entering this game as the underdogs, which suits me just fine. Not difficult to understand why. Liverpool are the side with the momentum and with the special relationship with this competition and have a manager who has demanded backing from the club on a significant scale, and as such, is under some pressure to deliver.

Hiddink too however is also under some pressure — Abramovich has made little secret that this is the prize he seeks obsessively and I imagine Guus has been made more than aware of this fact. Should he harbour any secret desire to remain at the Bridge beyond his known stewardship, then the Cup with the big ears would put him in an unrivalled position of strength.

I imagine that Drogba will be fit for tonight’s encounter, which is a relief as Anelka is still playing out wide for some unfathomable reason — and coincidentally his goals have dried up — and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist does it to work out why. We need to play for the full 90 minutes as we must score early as this Chelsea team seem to relax and play their natural game once they are a goal up. They also need to play right up to the final whistle and take nothing for granted as it has been a trademark of Liverpool’s season to find the net in the last 10 minutes — and on at least eight occasions in time added on.

Whatever happens, it will only be half time and we will have the home leg to hopefully make good any mistakes we may suffer this evening. The only thing I could not bear is the possibility of penalties as we just don’t do penalty shoot-outs. Our keepers seem unable to save any, our players unable to take them and the fans seem unable to believe that we will get over this particular bête noir — so we will just have to win it in ordinary time, in tonight’s leg, by a good few goals to settle the nerves ahead of the home leg.

What? I can dream, can’t I?

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