ALAN Pardew says Newcastle United must “force the situation” at Old Trafford – as he signals an intention to attack Premier League champions Manchester United.
United will recall Gabriel Obertan, retain Hatem Ben Arfa and could even hand Sammy Ameobi a second successive start as Pardew backs his attack-minded side to trouble the Red Devils. Injuries will rule knee ligament victim Cheick Tiote and Leon Best out of contention.
Whether or not they can end a miserable run of results at Old Trafford or not remains a matter for debate, with even the Newcastle boss admitting they will need to clamber through any window of opportunity that comes their way in the North West.
He is under no illusions about the size of the task facing them tomorrow, even if he wasn’t quite aware that Newcastle’s last win on Manchester United territory came some 39 years ago.
“1972 – really?” he said. “If you go to Old Trafford against the quality of players and the atmosphere created in that stadium, of course you are going to find it very difficult. The odds are you will not get many victories and 1972 suggests we are due one.
“But you need a bit of luck, sometimes you need the ball just to roll your way or fortune to favour you. But you’ve got to force that, force a situation where they might make a mistake or we have a forward running beyond and a player commits himself and they are down to ten men.
“You have to force the issue like that. We almost did that at Man City, almost scored the first goal.
“And as I say, that is crucial. When that chance comes along take it because we ain’t going to get many chances there.”
United lost their unbeaten run at the Etihad Stadium last weekend but the way that they played did not dent the momentum generated by the club’s stirring start. And Pardew has been pleased with the reaction of his players to the setback, noting a determination that has given him renewed optimism ahead of the trip to OId Trafford.
“There was disappointment in the changing room afterwards and that bodes well, I think, going forward because we genuinely thought we could have done better,” he said.
“Not just the manager or the coaches but the playing staff inwardly – and that’s important that they feel that. Training has been lively this week.
“When you get a defeat, you look at everyone’s stats. Did they run enough, did they work enough, did they pass the ball enough? And put it all up for the players to see but you know, there is a work ethic here that we expect and we need to take and improve on what we did at Man City.
“We will gain confidence from the fact there was obvious things we could do better against Man City and we will need to bring that to the playing surface against Man U, for sure, otherwise we will get beat again. And we don’t want that so we are determined to get a result.” Meanwhile, Pardew dismissed links with Celtic midfielder Scott Brown and Montpellier’s central defender Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa. Newcastle have been credited with interest in both, but the United boss said there was nothing in either.
“I do not want to be disrespectful to those two players but conversations about those particular two? No,” he said.
