Newcastle United Football Formation

Lineup (4-3-3)

Newcastle have always been a team I have had a soft spot for. Whether its the fans, the countless players I have like of theirs over the years or simply that they sold is Didi Hamann, I have always like to see them do well. It was surprisingly hard to choose their team due to some tough competition in places and also not finding an obvious shape for them. Ultimately I opted for an exciting team with bags of talent, picking players largely from Kevin Keegan's spell. Given is one of the safest pair of hands the PL has ever seen and was one of the first players that came to mind when thinking of who could be in this league. The back 4 are all long term servants of the club who have all, over the years, proven why they deserve a place in the team. The idea of the midfield is that Batty drops deep and protects the defence, whilst Ginola provides pace and skill down the left, and Solano provides the crosses and the dead balls. If you need an explanation on the attackers then you might as well just switch off your laptop now and never talk about football again. Honourable mentions are a plenty. Hislop needs a mention for sure, Bernard and Robert were on the left for a long time, until I decided an all time PL without Ginola would just feel wrong. Sissoko and Tiote were serious considerations, as were Dyer, Bellamy (a lunatic but a terrific player), Owen and I was extremely close to putting in big Carroll, who I am a big fan of, and feel his injuries have majorly hampered - in terms of talent I think he is HUGELY underrated. The captaincy goes to the very reliable Coloccini (I do like CB's or CM's to be captain as you may be able to tell). The manager has to be the one and only Sir Bobby Robson. Keegan gets an honourable mention though, he was always a close second.