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Opinion

Oxford fans comments on Newcastle United team, fans, Steve Bruce and whether fancy chances…

4 years ago
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Almost 4,000 Oxford fans travelled up to St James Park.

A rare chance for them to visit our great city (for football reasons anyway), many of them making a weekend of it to enjoy the Geordie hospitality.

That almost went a little bit too far, as the visitors could have won the tie at the first attempt, Karl Darlow making some decent late saves.

So are Oxford fans expecting Newcastle United to show they are really a different class tonight?

Not really!

Apart from the odd one, the vast majority seem to think they have a real/great chance of turning  NUFC over.

Will Steve Bruce break out of his negative mindset or will it be ‘make ourselves difficult to beat’, the attitude/tactics he admitted he’d approached Saturday’s lame 0-0 draw against rock bottom Norwich with?

Oxford fans comment via their Yellows Forum message board:

‘It’s strange seeing Newcastle fans saying we are favourites… Erm, that’s not how this thing works, you are 2 leagues up and have a wage bill that dwarfs ours, in one player.

So you lot are bang on favourites.’

‘3-0 to Oxford.

Our historic record at home is something like PL10 W8 L2 with our last defeat in the late 1980s when Beardsley and Gascoigne scored in a 2-1 victory.

We got this….they looked utter tripe at home against our weakened team. At our place I make us favorites.’

‘There main threat at St James park other than the steep steps was saint maximin, keep him quiet and they were useless.’

‘Think newcastle will win despite a heroic effort from our lads.’

‘With the Man City game, if it was played 100 times they’d win 95 of them, we’d get four draws and in the apt blue moon we’d nail one win.

If this game was played 100 times? Harder to call.

The favourites are undoubtedly Newcastle by virtue of being the PL team but we’re not out of it and have better odds than when playing Man City.

In fact, put in a performance akin to that League Cup tie and we have a sporting chance.

We’ve had a lot of fun in the cups this season.

Whether we extend that now is incidental to me as the league should really start to take precedence by this point in the season.

Just give them a good game, play to our strengths and let’s see where it takes us.’

‘Oxford United 3-0 Newcastle United, heard it here first.’

‘It’s going to be cold and it’s going to be lively, if Newcastle play as bad as West Ham did we will win easily, if we play as well as we did against Man City we will win easily so I’m going for 4-2.’

‘Newcastle didn’t look anything special when we played them and they couldn’t beat Rochdale away.’

When Steve Bruce was asked if he’d watched Oxford he said he’d watched the West Ham and Man Citeee games, glad to see he’s taking us seriously…’

‘Predicting 2-1 Oxford.’

‘Quote from Steve Bruce:

“They [Oxford] are a decent side. It’s live on the TV and they’ll want the underdogs to turn us over, so we have to be wary of that.”

Getting the excuses in early!’

‘After this game we play 3 times before Newcastle play again so the talk about them resting players is crazy!

Plus, it will be funny when we rest 3 or 4 and still beat them!!!’

‘Oxford fans in Sydney will be watching the match in the Cheers Sports bar, probably vastly outnumbered by Geordies.’

‘3-1 to the mighty yellows tonight,

Full house, 1800 geordies making the trek to the freezing breeze block only to be taken to the sword!!’

‘Ok , this is a big one and if we can get the first 20-25 mins out of the way with them , l feel we can settle down and get a result , as they are not special are they? 2-1 to the Yellows.’

‘We will win this 3-0

Hemmings, Nelson, Martinez.’

‘We’ll win, 2 to the good – though whether that’s 2-0 or 3-1, I’m not yet sure.* As has been said by many, a solid 1st half is crucial.’

‘If KR puts out a strong starting 11 and our players play as we did against citeh & west ham in the league cup I do think weve got a great chance of winning against PL opposition….a few shots on sight would mix things up a bit, besides newcastle are sometimes vulnerable to long range shots.’

‘If we aim to sit back and hit on the counter, and Newcastle set up to do the same, it’s going to be a cagey game.

They don’t like committing men forward, hence their lack of goals but also their quite mean defence.’

‘We will need to put in a hell of a shift, but we are very capable of despatching Newcastle if we play as well as we did in the away leg.
1-0 late on.’

‘Newcastle will undoubtedly be better than the first game but we are a good cup side on our own patch and we will have a right go.

Aside of this tie very rarely, if ever, when I watch Newcastle on the box do I come away thinking ‘wow that was some performance by Newcastle’ – even against the lesser lights in the PL they seem to get outplayed more often than not.

In fairness to them they somehow eke out enough results to get by so there’s a level of fight and stubbornness to them but that first game was no great surprise to me that they couldn’t carve open a L1 side.

I, too, think we will sneak a 2-1 win.’

‘I see not reason why we can’t have another good go at them, NUFC won’t fancy it, 1-0 Yellows.’

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