English Premier League Round 4 Game Preview:
Newcastle United @ Aston Villa
Game Time: Saturday, 10:00 AM EST
Newcastle's head coach Alan Pardew was in tremendous pressure on his team's last game against Fulham. Newcastle had been crushed by Manchester City on the first game of the season and on their following game against West Ham, Newcastle couldn't do better than a scoreless draw. Their streak of scoreless games at home was at four games, so the urgency was not just to win, but also to finally score a goal at home as well!
Newcastle completely dominated Fulham, but they just couldn't score due to their mental block. I remember that they had the remarkable feat of having 16 shot, but none on target, against West Ham in the previous week, while against Fulham, they were creating multiple chances to score, but they just couldn't get it done. At the end of the game, Loic Remy and Yohan Cabaye came off the bench to add some extra creativity to the team and finally at the 66th minute, Newcastle finally scored by Hatem Ben Arfa.
Now that Newcastle has won a game (and scored a goal), I believe that they will play more freely in the following games, without a big amount of pressure. They clearly play better with Remy and Cabaye on the field instead of Ameobi and Anita, so I expect them to be more active offensively on this weekend's game.
On the other side, Aston Villa hasn't played a league game since August 24th, as their round 3 game against Chelsea had been anticipated. Their schedule is by far the toughest in the league so far, as they played on the road against Arsenal and Chelsea plus hosted Liverpool. After two solid performances against Arsenal and Chelsea, they had a subpar effort against Liverpool, especially in the first half, where they used a quite defensive attitude like they do on the road, but that simply doesn't/won't work at home. Their coach Paul Lambert had plenty of time to prepare for this contest, so we can expect Aston Villa to play more open this time, as they won't face a top team for the first time this season.
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