Click here to go to the discussion thread by TJR

Five in a row? Premier League survival? Flaccid or erect Dick? Those are just some of the questions that will be the topic of many conversations in Wearside pubs leading up to this prestigious fixture. Ultimately the answer to the first two will provide the answer to the third. We are about to find out just how the latest Sunderland manager will perform.

I just called this game a prestigious fixture; it once was a celebration of North East football. Now though, the derby of despair would perhaps be a more accurate description. The footballing mood across Tyne and Wear is gloomy to say the least. Newcastle fans are far from pleased with mid-table mediocrity, and John Carver is hardly a popular choice of manager, but those in charge of the club have no greater ambitions. Sunderland could end the weekend in the relegation zone, like Newcastle they have been in woeful form of late and the league table is a sorry sight. Advocaat has a tough task on his hands.

Sunderland are on their fifth manager, seventh if you include caretakers, since Newcastle’s last victory in this fixture back in August 2011 when a Ryan Taylor free kick pushed Steve Bruce towards his exit from the Stadium of Light. Around two months later he was relieved of his duties and replaced by Martin O’Neill. The Irishman took charge of two 1-1 derby draws before he was replaced by Paulo Di Canio. The eccentric fascist won his one and only derby by three goals to nil, and also kept Sunderland in the Premier League. A lack of tomato sauce and a strict management approach turned the mackem squad against him and he was replaced.

His successor was the equally eccentric Gustavo Poyet. A real Newcastle nemesis. From his playing days to his spell as Brighton manager to his Wearside reign he has always got the better of Newcastle United. He won three derbies from three and Geordies are certainly glad to see the back of him, however so are the mackems, with Sunderland flirting dangerously close to relegation. The decision was made to bring in Dick Advocaat as a hopeful saviour, and this is his first home game.

Newcastle have had more managerial stability than usual in the past few years, although that hasn’t amounted to more derby success, rather the opposite. That 1-0 win in August 2011 was Alan Pardew’s one and only win in eight attempts. Just one of many dreadful records that led to a campaign by the Newcastle fans to get him sacked. In the end he jumped ship to Palace.

Now we enter our first derby since the 5-1 win, in October 2010 under Hughton’s guidance, without the hopeless Alan Pardew in charge. The only issue is a lot of Newcastle fans aren’t convinced that John Carver is the right man either, and so far he’s done very little to suggest he’s any better than Pardew. How he will fare in the derby remains to be seen.

Carver’s favourite hobby appears to be telling everyone he’s a Geordie at every opportunity which is now getting rather tedious. He’s also made it known that he knows what this game means, Pardew certainly didn’t seem to get it but to me knowing what it means helps but isn’t that important in the grand scheme of things. Good tactical knowledge and the ability to execute an effective game plan is more important. Sadly to date Carver has shown that, like Pardew, he comes up a bit short in that area.

For what it is worth I do like Carver, he comes across as a genuinely nice guy who wants the best for the club. The opposite of Pardew in that respect although the similarities in poor results is what puts me off Carver as a manager.

This is the 152nd competitive Tyne Wear derby, overall Newcastle just about have the upper hand with 53 wins to Sunderland’s 49 win, and there has been 49 draws. Although the Toon just edge it on the victory front, the black cats have scored one more goal in those matches with 223.

The last time Newcastle United made the short trip mackemland on an Easter was in April 2006. The hosts took a 1-0 half time lead, but Newcastle turned the game around in the second half with four goals. In that game Alan Shearer scored his 206th and final Newcastle United goal from the penalty spot in what would be his last ever appearance for the Magpies. Newcastle went on to finish seventh and qualify for the Intertoto Cup, a competition they went on to win. Sunderland finished bottom of the league and were relegated with an incredible 15 points.

It is often said form goes out of the window in a derby which can only be a good thing for both sides, given that they have none. A look at the form table sees Sunderland bottom, currently the worst team in the league, and Newcastle not much better at fourth from bottom. Not only does both the actual league table and the form table make for unpleasant reading in the North East but to compound our and Sunderland misery even further the fair play table also paints a dark picture; Sunderland bottom and Newcastle fifth from bottom.

Sunderland have a hell of a lot to play for in this match, as their Premier League status is in the balance. Carver has denied that Newcastle have any less to play for though, and chief amongst our motivations will be pride, having lost the last four derbies. The record for consecutive wins in this fixture is five. That record belongs to Newcastle United, but by Sunday evening that could be shared…

Team News

Papiss Cissé continues his ban for his disgusting spitting spat with Evans, and Fabricio Coloccini continues his ban for a cowardly ‘tackle’. Jak Alnwick, Massadio Haïdara, Paul Dummett, Cheick Tioté, Siem de Jong, Facundo Ferreyra, Curtis Good, and Steven Taylor are all ruled out through injury. Rolando Aarons and Mehdi Abeid have trained this week; Aarons is said to be doubtful and is expected to miss out, while Carver is hopeful Abeid will feature.

As for Sunderland, professional thug Lee Clattermole returns from his latest suspension, likely straight into the starting eleven. Giaccherini, Alvarez, Buckley, and Brown miss out through injury. Having returned to the bench against West Ham Adam Johnson is expected to start after the club overturned his suspension pending the outcome of a police investigation.

Possible Line-ups

Carver is expected to go unchanged from the 2-1 defeat against Arsenal last time out. If Abeid can prove his fitness in time he may come in for Anita.

Personally I’d go into this game with a cautious approach; having lost the last four the main priority is to stop the rot. If we just go for it I can see Sunderland taking advantage of our makeshift back four and catching us on the break. The pressure is on them to win, so let them come on to us, stay solid and frustrate them. The longer it stays 0-0 the more anxious the mackem crowd will get.

We’d get chances on the break and if we can pick them off effectively and take our chances I can see us coming away with all three points. Normally I’d be livid if we approached a derby like that, I’d be demanding us to show our dominance and get at them from the first minute. After the last four though and the the importance of this one for Sunderland in particular I think we have to be a bit more clever about it. It might just come down to another magical over the wall moment from Ryan Taylor.

Pantilimon
Reveillere – O’Shea – Vergini – VanAanholt
Johnson – Clattermole – Rodwell – Larsson
Fletcher – Defoe

Brown will miss out through injury and is likely to be replaced by Vergini. Clattermole and Johnson are both expected to return to the side. Possibly in place of Gomez and Wickham. Otherwise Advocaat is expected to stick with the side that lost 1-0 to West Ham in his first game in charge.

Referee

The 46-year-old Jasper Carrott lookalike, Mike Dean, will take charge of this fixture. Dean is from the Wirral and is said to support Liverpool and Tranmere Rovers. He’s an experienced Premier League official having refereed in the top flight since 2000. He’s took charge of 22 games this season showing 100 yellow cards, and six red.

This will be his fourth Newcastle game of the season, the previous games being: the 0-0 draw at Aston Villa, where he was left with no option but to send off the already booked Mike Williamson for an idiotic challenge; the 1-0 defeat at West Ham where again he had no choice but to show the red card after Moussa Sissoko had a moment of madness collecting two yellow cards in 46 seconds; the 3-3 draw at home to Burnley, Dean kept his red card in his pocket on that occasion. This will be his second Sunderland game of the season, the other the 1-1 draw at Hull, where he sent off a crazy Gustavo Poyet for kicking numerous drinks bottles out of the box they were in and then trying to start a fight with Steve Bruce.

Mike Dean is no stranger to the Tyne-Wear derby. He took charge of the ill tempered 1-1 draw back in 2012, when he received criticism for not sending off Lee Cattermole for a disgusting tackle on Cheick Tioté in the first minute. He then ignored red card offences from Yohan Cabaye and James McClean, and awarded Sunderland a penalty because of shirt pulling from Mike Williamson. Dean eventually got his red card out in the second half to dismiss Stéphane Sessègnon for a vicious swing of the elbow at Tioté. He then awarded Newcastle a penalty when Shola Ameobi was tripped in the box. Demba Ba missed the penalty, which he should have left to ever accurate Ameobi. In stoppage time Shola bailed Ba out by rescuing a point with a fine finish at the back stick. The drama still wasn’t over for Dean though, as he had to red card Lee Cattermole after the final whistle for being vile odious scum.

Dean will no doubt be hoping for a quieter day this time around. Good luck to him.

Prediction

Tough one to predict this. Neither side has been scoring freely of late, so goals may be hard to come by. That said both teams are catastrophically bad defensively, so you’d expect goals. I can see either side nicking it possibly 1-0 or 2-1, and hopefully we do. I reckon it is going to be a bad tempered clash with cards galore. I’m going to go 1-1, Pérez and Fletcher scoring, with Sunderland winning 2-1 on the red card front Clattermole, O’Shea and Colback all seeing red. Hopefully we’ll get the three points though along with as little as possible in the way of suspensions and injuries.

A Word from the Gaffers

John Carver: “The players know what the derby means. With the staff – most are local – they know what it’s like and what to expect. Any team of mine playing against a Sunderland side will never lack for effort or enthusiasm. My staff and I will be driving them on. We know our record recently isn’t very good, and we have to break that situation. We’ve got enough in the dressing room to do that.

“It always hurts to lose to Sunderland, but it’s the manner of a couple of those defeats that has made things worse. In the last four games, Sunderland have outworked us and that’s not a good stat to have. I’ll be making sure that doesn’t happen again and I’ll be using a whip to make sure we don’t get outworked. We need to do enough to give ourselves a chance to win the game, so we need to do the same as we did against Arsenal in terms of work-rate as that was the highest since I’ve been back at the club. If we can cover anywhere near as much ground with the same intensity as a fortnight ago, it will give us a good chance of winning.”

Dick Advocaat: “I made a mistake in one of my first games against Celtic after I’d taken over. The media said it was a huge game. I said we had 24 huge games or whatever it was. We lost that game and I remember saying in the press conference, when everyone was really upset, that it wasn’t a problem. To be honest, at that moment I did not realise Celtic-Rangers was so huge. I said we have lost but it is no problem for me because it is just one of 36 games and we will not lose any more. Although we became champions that year I would not say that any more. It was not until afterwards that I realised how important the game is there.

“We have to get points from every game between now and the end of the season. But everybody in the squad knows how important this game is. We had some meetings with each other and about how important it is to play as a unit, not individuals. We can only stay up if we think as a team. Our squad is strong enough to get results. The players have shown that for other clubs in the past so why can they not do it for Sunderland?”

Expert Opinion

Lawro: “Blimey. Good luck to new Sunderland boss Dick Advocaat on Sunday – what a mad fixture to face in his second game in charge. He has a lot to live up to, because his predecessors Paolo Di Canio and Gus Poyet both had an excellent record against Newcastle, and Sunderland are unbeaten in a Tyne-Wear derby since October 2011. That puts even more pressure on Advocaat, on top of the fact his side desperately need points in their fight against relegation.

“Ultimately I think the Black Cats will stay up, because there are three teams who are worse than them – I do not see the current bottom three getting out of it. But Advocaat has to be careful against the Magpies, who in contrast are under no pressure whatsoever. He will have to make sure his players treat it like it is just another three points, which won’t be easy.

“Any Mackems reading this are probably saying ‘what on earth is he on about? This game is different’, but the point I am making is that they need to play the opposition, not the occasion. All it takes is some hot tempers, late tackles and a player sent off and that is another three points gone for Sunderland. In their situation, they cannot afford for that to happen. I predict a 1-1 draw.”

Where to Watch/Listen

Unsurprisingly, it’s a sell out. The match is televised live on Sky Sports 1 from 3:30pm. Local radio commentary, as always, is on BBC Newcastle, with BBC Radio 5 Live covering the game nationally, and talkSPORT overseas.

How do you think we’ll get on in this game? Have your say in our discussion thread.