Newcastle United: Back to the Entertainers? A Look at Two Great Newcastle Sides

Newcastle United defeated Wolverhampton Wanderers 2-1 over the weekend. It was a convincing victory. The club's central midfielder, Yohan Cabaye, especially shined, providing an assist for Demba Ba's goal. This win was yet another highlight in a promising start of the season for Newcastle, especially indicated by their fourth-place standing.

It seems that the early-season predictions of relegation struggle and/or mid-table mediocrity were wrong. Newcastle United seem poised to go places.

In the face of this new "era," journalists ( as they are so INCREDIBLY prone to doing), reverse their opinions. They now have compared this Newcastle side with Kevin Keegan's "Entertainers." This comparison is accurate in some ways, but inaccurate in many others.

It is important in this context to provide a background on the Newcastle "Entertainers" to effectively compare these two sides. The Entertainers were born out of the Newcastle tenure of one Kevin Keegan. Keegan came to the club after the disastrous reign of Ossie Ardiles, which had left Newcastle in line to be relegated to the Third Division.

However, Keegan saved the club in true messianic fashion.

He staved off relegation in his first season in charge, led the club back up with an almost unbeaten season and led them to a third-place finish in the Premiership. He achieved this with the help of then-unknowns Robert Lee and Andy Cole, bought from Bristol City and Southampton, respectively.

Keegan had even more success with the club.

In 1994-95 they genuinely looked capable of winning the Premier League, until the departure of Andy Cole to Manchester United. They ended up finishing sixth. Keegan then led Newcastle to another Championship run-in, only to lose it all to Manchester United. A game that epitomises the "Entertainers," as Keegan's team was called, was Liverpool 4-3 over Newcastle, also voted as the Premier League Game of the Decade.

The Entertainers played a team of  young English talent, in the main. Also,Kevin Keegan brought in a mix of known European all-stars, like Belgian defensive midfielder Phillipe Albert.

Newcastle "Entertainers"

GK: Pavel Srnicek

Defense: Watson, Albert, Howey, Beresford

Midfield: Beardsley, Lee, Batty, Ginola

Attack: Asprilla, Ferdinand/Cole 

Newcastle"Today"

GK: Tim Krul

Defense: S Taylor, Santon, Coloccini, Simpson

Midfield: Obertan, Tiote, Cabaye, Gutierrez

Attack: Best,  Ba

Two things pop out from these two lineups.

Firstly, there are foreigners in both teams, though this is more significant for the Entertainers, due to the massive influx of foreign players into the Premier League since then.

Secondly, the tactical setup of the teams is similar, with a creator (Yohan Cabaye and Robert Lee) and a destroyer (Cheik Tiote and David Batty), as well as two creative wing players who put in crosses as well as score (Ginola and Gutierrez, and Obertan and Beardsley).

Where these teams differ is in terms of their attacking tactics.

While Best and Ba are both aerial threats, Les Ferdinand, Faustino Asprilla and Andy Cole were fantastic players with the ball and were very technical, especially Asprilla. Also, the Newcastle Today side is more measured, and, if can be said, more modern, in that they are more pragmatic, with more of a counter-attacking approach than Keegan's swashbuckling "score one more than you" approach.

Overall, the tactical approach of the sides is different but the lineups and style of players are mainly the same. In sum, this Newcastle side is perhaps a modern interpretation of the Entertainers, the basic ideas behind the Entertainers modfied and adapted to the modern era.