Tonight is the night. To date so far, it’s our biggest game of the season so far. And it comes in the UEFA Champions League . To kick off the new campaign in the competition, we face a very tricky away fixture. Live from St James Park, from 8pm local time in the UK. It’s Barcelona up against Newcastle United.
By far and away this is going to be one of the biggest tests of our champions league season, the atmosphere is going to be fierce and the stadium will be rocking, all against us. And if the tie wasn’t hard enough, we will have to play without some of our most important players. So without further ado, let’s jump straight into the preview!
A look on our opponent
Newcastle as a team is known for being very physical, but not only that they also have players who can create, who can score from nothing. They are a very strong team in possession and out of possession too, with a very powerful midfield including Joelinton and a Bruno Guimares. As a team, they are brilliant at the high press and are relentless at it. And with St James Park acting as the 12th man, they really do harness that energy and apply it on the pitch. However I think the most obvious advantage they will have over us is their height.
We are not a very tall team anyway, but Newcastle have a lot of height which will be dangerous on the set pieces. Especially players like Dan Burn, Schar and their new record signing upfront Woltemade. That is something we are going to have to be aware of later tonight. They will look to make set pieces count and as a whole, it’s going to be a physically testing game.
Possible starting lineup
Turning the attention to us though, it’s going to be very interesting to see how Flick decides to line up for the game. Sadly, on such a big night in Europe we will be without Lamine Yamal, Gavi and Alejandro Balde. That’s pretty much the spine of our team wiped out, and it is a real shame but it can’t be an excuse.
Frenkie has been declared fit for the game tonight, but I doubt he will start. Lewandowski should start at the number 9 position with the rest of the attack picking itself. The only real question is, who will partner Pau Cubarsi in defence. Or will Flick decide to go with our tallest players in defence. It’s all in Flick’s hands.
My Starting 11:
Joan Garcia
Kounde- Araujo- Cubarsi- Martin
Pedri- Casado
Raphinha- Fermin- Rashford
Lewandowski
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