Newcastle United – News Roundup – 06 August 2009 [updated]

Posted on August 6th, 2009 | 21 Comments |

Barry Moat
Barry Moat
The Guardian reports that the sale of Newcastle United is imminent.

Apparently Ashley is being urged to accept a bid from a consortium led by Tyneside businessman Barry Moat. It is thought that Moat, who has financial backing from investors in the United States, is Keith Harris’s preferred bidder. The Guardian speculates that if Moat gets the club he will favour Alan Shearer as manager.

Additional reports on this issue can be found in The Times, The Chronicle, The Journal and The Sun, but I would suggest remaining cautious about this news until a formal announcement is made from the club. There is no guarantee that Ashley will accept any bid recommended by Harris (assuming the stories are true in the first place).

There were reports yesterday that the club had, incredibly, offered Joe Kinnear a two-year contract. This was covered last night in an article on this site, so I don’t really need to mention it too much here except to say that there’s an article in The Times that claims the club is denying offering Kinnear a contract and insists ‘he has his wires crossed’.

The Chronicle also has an article about Nile Ranger’s enthusiasm to prove himself in the first team squad. He told The Chronicle:

“That’s what I am aiming for – it’s great playing for England, but I was dying to get back to Newcastle.

“It’s an awesome experience playing for England.

“Everybody would love to play for England and I’m no different.

“Ukraine was a good experience, but it was very hot and the food wasn’t very nice.

“I am just buzzing to be back, come on and score.

“Now I’m just hoping to be on the bus on Friday to go to West Brom.

“I don’t know if I will be in the squad and I won’t take anything for granted.

“I just have to show Chris Hughton what I’ve got.”

I hope he gets the chance. Younger, keener players are what our squad needs in my opinion.

According to The Journal, Villa are closing in on signing Habib Beye and are ready to meet his £4m price tag. Apparently they are also keen on signing Seb Bassong, although it is reported that he would prefer a move to Spurs. Either way, it looks like we’ll lose these two players and that’ll mean we’ll have lost five first team players (plus Edgar, who also made some first team appearances although not regularly).

I wonder when (if?) we’ll see those players being replaced from the transfer market. I guess that’ll have to wait until we either get a new owner, a new manager or they authorise Hughton to make some buying decisions. I can’t believe that even Ashley or Llambias would be stupid enough to try and decide who to buy without significant input from someone who can judge whether a player is appropriate or not.

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Update 09:20: The Chronicle is now reporting that Newcastle United are playing down reports of the Moat takeover, although there’s nothing on the NUFC site either way yet.

NUFCBlog Author: Hugh de Payen I'm a baby-boomer of the punk rock persuasion, currently exiled in Somerset for crimes committed in a previous life where locals keep trying to poison me with something called 'scrumpy'. Hates sprouts, coat-hangers, Cilla Black, ornaments, Steven Seagull movies and 50 Cent (he's not worth 10). Hugh de Payen has written 634 articles on this blog.

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Comment on this post

21 Responses

  2. When I told my old man about this Barry Moat story he thought he was one of Shepherd’s mates. Hope not…

  3. If he is mates with fat fred then you just know that it will be Barry Chuckle as owner and Fat Fred as Chairman. At least Fat Fred wouldn’t be as dangerous if he was only the chairman.

  4. Ever seen a mackem in Milan says:
    August 6, 2009 at 8:34 am

    “When I told my old man about this Barry Moat story he thought he was one of Shepherd’s mates. Hope not…”

    ESAMIM, Your dad is correct. They know each other and play golf together at least. But it looks like yet another dodgy story though.

  5. It’s all a load of bollocks isn’t it? Rumours and snippets of information about Newcastle United are cobbled together by the press, printed as if they’re foregone conclusions and then denied in some later revelation.

    Kinnear claims he’s been offered the Manager’s job and then we’re told the club has denied this. Now Kinnear is properly quoted as saying he’s been offered the job but the club, as far as I know, is only unofficially rumoured to have denied this, so who knows? Either Kinnear is making it all up or the rumours about the club’s denial are untrue.

    Meanwhile Shearer hasn’t got a clue what’s going on and wonders why Kinnear has been asked for his input about things when he hasn’t. Of course that’s also assuming the reports about both Kinnear and Shearer are correct.

    One day we read a report saying that Ashley will hang on to the club for another season and the next day we read that a sale is ‘imminent’.

    The press reports that Harris has recommended Moat’s offer to Ashley but then, mere hours later, the club is said to be unofficially rejecting the idea. Maybe there was a mix up. Maybe what Harris actually recommended was that Ashley should build a moat around his house and fill it with sharks to prevent angry fans from getting to him and inserting a custard coloured shirt where only a proctologist could find it.

    We can’t expect the club to respond to every rumour a bored journalist makes up in a slack moment between writing articles about Jordan’s boobs and speculating on the latest Big Brother sensation, but I think a few official situation reports would help calm the circus at least a bit.

  6. Hugh de Payen says:
    August 6, 2009 at 11:21 am

    “Kinnear claims he’s been offered the Manager’s job and then we’re told the club has denied this. Now Kinnear is properly quoted as saying he’s been offered the job but the club, as far as I know, is only unofficially rumoured to have denied this, so who knows? Either Kinnear is making it all up or the rumours about the club’s denial are untrue.”

    That’s sooo yesterday, Hugh. It’s David O’Bleary who’s been offered a two year contract now, and it’s a Mail ‘EXCLUSIVE’, so it must be true.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1204649/EXCLUSIVE-Newcastle-plummet-new-depths-OLeary-turns-managers-job.html

  7. Kinnear was spouting nonsense while he was here so I think its him who is lying.

  8. “That’s sooo yesterday, Hugh. It’s David O’Bleary who’s been offered a two year contract now, and it’s a Mail ‘EXCLUSIVE’, so it must be true.”

    Lol, I just can’t keep pace with the rumour-mill.

    This morning I bumped into a chap I often see when I’m walking my dog (he’s a West Ham supporter). He reckons Newcastle United’s the best entertainment he’s had since Tiswas was cancelled.

  9. hugh i would disagree smtv live was miles beter than tiswas so we are possibly the best entertainment since smtv live but according to d craig moat is a huge toon fan and already invests loads in to the academy

  10. The only thing that’s giving this story any credibility is the fact that every newspaper and the BBC are reporting this.

    How close it is to be done I doubt they know, but I reckon there’s probably some truth in the actual story.

    Moat is an associate of Shepherds but they are far from business buddies I think. He won’t be doing this for anyone.

  11. John Beresford really seems to have his finger on the pulse. He fears that Newcastle United may be headed for “stormy waters”.

    Well nee sh*t, Sherlock!

  12. beyethegreat says:
    August 6, 2009 at 1:54 pm

    “hugh i would disagree smtv live was miles beter than tiswas so we are possibly the best entertainment since smtv live”

    In my day, you were either a swotty, conformist ‘Blue Peter’ person, or a naughty, rebellious ‘Magpie’ person. I was a Magpie, of course!

    On the subject of Moat, anyone who has hair like that at his age should be barred for life from running a football club.

  14. Greetings from a small corner of the Atlantic Ocean. First time I’ve had chance to drop a comment in because it’s like a blackhole down at the hotel. Sitting on Westward Ho beach although it’s more like Westward Ho Ho beach reading the hilarious lack of progress on the sale and the inevitable fire sale going on in the background. Back off for a beer. Keep faith lads and lasses. Something will happen soon. Just glad I’ve had something to take my mind off it. This Moat fella looks a bit of a character, though I was always told not to judge a book by it’s cover. Speaking of moats, I’m making a moat round this impressive sand castle. I remember not so long ago when I spent my time on the beach checking out the honies. How my life has changed….. Laters

  15. “In my day, you were either a swotty, conformist ‘Blue Peter’ person, or a naughty, rebellious ‘Magpie’ person. I was a Magpie, of course!”

    I think the same comparison was made between ‘swotty’ Swap Shop and ‘rebellious’ Tiswas.

    I definitely preferred Tiswas.

    Yet I preferred Blue Peter to Magpie, although I definitely wasn’t ‘swotty’ at school. I was on intimate terms with the headmaster’s cane for breaking windows, starting fights and reading pornographic magazines amongst other things.

    Ah those were the days. The headmaster had no fear of woolly liberals getting him thrown in prison just because he beat ten bells out of an unruly student!

  16. Hugh de Payen says:
    August 6, 2009 at 4:26 pm

    “Yet I preferred Blue Peter to Magpie, although I definitely wasn’t ’swotty’ at school. I was on intimate terms with the headmaster’s cane for breaking windows, starting fights and reading pornographic magazines amongst other things.”

    Magpie’s Jenny Hanley was my pornography, Hugh :-)

    On my favourite subject, Louise Taylor, she’s now saying that Geordies are far more sophisticated than people think, adding that we now have the abilty to work with computers!!!!!!

  17. That’s good of Louise – she’ll be admitting we can sit on chairs too soon.

  18. Hugh,

    On the subject of Geordies and computers, I know of at least one who’s having incredible difficulties trying to operate his.

    Mine’s got that contantly autoscrolling to the bottom of every window thing. Have you heard of it?

    I’ve tried allsorts, virus scan, cancelling the ‘sticky keys’ updating drivers, changing mouse, checking relevant buttons such as ‘Scroll Lock’ etc with no joy whatsoever.

    Any suggestions?

    I’m also having insufferable problems trying to edit text too, as whenever I highlight something, the cursor goes immmediately to the next line break. I can hardly do any work ATM!

    ps Bowburn, hope you’re having a nice time!

  19. Worky, when I last had similar symptoms with my computer I searched high and low for a software solution all to no avail. What it was in the end was a key sticking down slightly sometimes.

    Might be worth checking your keyboard first. On mine it was just one corner of the SHIFT key sometimes sticking down just enough to cause much confusion.

  20. Thanks Hugh. I’ve checked all the relevant keys, and they seem to be fine, but I’ll check them again in more detail.

    It’s driving me completely mad!

  21. There are a couple of other things you might look at.

    Some BIOS systems log keyboard errors, which you should be able to see by looking at your BIOS screen. The mere act of clearing those errors can often solve unusual keyboard problems.

    It might also be worth booting to safe mode and seeing if the problem still occurs. If it doesn’t, you would then at least know it’s something that’s starting up in normal mode that causes the problem, which you could eventually figure out via a tedious process of deduction.