Newcastle: Paul Merson Says City Win Was Better Than Spurs

Despite continuing to get every prediction he's ever made about Newcastle spectacularly wrong, Paul Merson continues to be the man Sky Sports turn to to put together their weekly run down of who will beat who for the weekend's run of fixtures. Inevitably, he's said that Liverpool will win, choosing for some reason to believe that Mario Balotelli will suddenly just come good and fire in a pair of goals because he scored midweek. That's no surprising at all - though he said he thinks Newcastle will be fine this season and won't get relegated, he's never been one to say too much positively about the club, being a dyed in the wool Southerner: he's already said Villa are a bigger club, after all. But the more intriguing part of his prediction this week is that he says Alan Pardew has a selection issue now because of the performance against City:

"Who does Alan Pardew play in this game? The kids that did great against Man City in the Capital One Cup or go back to the team that won at Tottenham."

The suggestion moreover is that Pardew will go for the Spurs team, since he dropped players from that line-up for City precisely because Liverpool was coming up, but Merson thinks that result was far more impressive, and should perhaps be taken into account when the Newcastle team is chosen:

"I would say winning at Man City was a better result!"

It certainly was - and one achieved precisely despite the manager, rather than because of his selection. That team should not have won, and indeed was not set up to win, regardless of how much credit is given to the manager: he consciously weakened the team as a tactical measure, and the team won despite that. They should be heralded, rather than him. But heralded he no doubt will be - we'll just have to see whether he thinks the win was impressive enough to earn his cast of second stringers a chance against Liverpool.