By Tyne-Talk
March 4 2009

Obafemi Martins is confident he can put the ball past Manchester United keeper Van der Sar this evening and quash his ambition of beating the overall European record for keeping the ball out of the back of the net for 1,390 minutes. Van der Sar needs to keep a clean sheet for another 89 minutes to beat the record set in 1990/91 by Dany Verlinden in the Belgian First Division. Van der Sar will return between the goal posts after his colleague Ben Foster saw off Tottenham in the Carling Cup final penalty shootout on Sunday.

Martins, who has just returned from injury, told The Gazette;

"I scored against them, but I'm not the only one who's going to play - we have to play as a team.

I've been training and I'm back now. It's difficult now because we lost, and we have the Man U game. We'll see what's going to happen.

I will find it difficult, and so will the team. They're a great team, and have a lot of great players. We just have to go out there and play our football."

Whilst Oba is hopeful he and his team-mates can take something from the game he acknowledges that it will be a team effort and not a solo performance that will do the job. However the 24 year old will be confident in his ability as he is just one of four players to score against Van der Sar in the league this season.

Caretaker manager Chris Hughton is also hopeful that they can get something from the game, after a disappointing defeat at the Reebok Stadium on Sunday.

He said;

"What you can draw from that game is that you can play Manchester United, the best team in the country, and get something.

We're under no illusions that they're in very good form at the moment, and are able to make changes.

But I think it's about us. We have a group of lads who will all want to play a part in what is always a massive game."

MATCH PREVIEW HERE

Martins Hopes To Deny Van Der Sars Record Ambition

Discussion started by TyneTalk (IP Logged), 04/03/2009 14:33

TyneTalk
04/03/2009 14:33

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tunyc
05/03/2009 18:15

Well, unless Martins morphed into a tall Scandinavian man...

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Rob-15-92
06/03/2009 17:48

All them multi million pound strikers that tried. . .

It was a freebie that broke his dreams!

The Eastenders of football.. Newcastle!

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tunyc
06/03/2009 20:02

Life's like that, son!

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