Newcastle United – News Roundup – 11 August 2009.

Posted on August 11th, 2009 | 32 Comments |

Jonas pleads for exit
Jonas pleads for exit
The Daily Mail is reporting that Barry Moat must find another £10m for his offer if he wants to buy Newcastle United after Ashley is said to be ‘insulted’ by his current offer. Let’s have a whip round.

The Guardian speculates that Moat is making his bid with backing from local nightclub owner Allan Rankin, rather than the previously speculated ‘American Backers’, and that the two have set up a new company called Tandem Bars specifically for the purposes of acquiring the club.

The vacant manager’s position gets some exposure with The Shields Gazette claiming that four managers have been short-listed by Ashley, should he keep the club. They claim those managers are David O’Leary, Gordon Strachan, Alan Curbishley and some unnamed ‘overseas manager’.

The Telegraph goes one better and claims five managers have been short-listed although it doesn’t name any others beyond the three listed by The Shields Gazette. Any advance on five? Surely one of the papers could manage six.

Harry Redknapp claims that Seb Bassong has served his two game ban because he missed the Villa match at the end of last season and the West Brom match on Saturday, even though he’d signed for Spurs before Saturday’s game. I’m not sure how that works because there’s no way he was in contention to play for us on Saturday if he was already a Spurs player. If Redknapp gets away with that one it will be a huge stroke of luck.

Chris Hughton may finally get to dip his toe in the transfer market according to The Chronicle. Apparently when Bassong was sold to Spurs there was some discussion about Newcastle taking a few of the Spurs youngsters on loan. Hughton said:

“I am realistic enough to know that if I’m still in the seat as the weeks go on, discussions will have to take place over players going and so on, but at the moment it hasn’t happened.”

According to The Mirror, Jonas Gutierrez has ‘pleaded’ with Newcastle to accept a £7m offer from Olympiakos for him. Jonas said:

“I want to leave Newcastle and go to a club which will give me the chance to fight for this place in my national team.

“I believe if I play well in the Champions League then Maradona is going to take a look at me.

“My agent told me that he received a call from Olympiakos’ people, who asked him if I wanted to play for them.

“I told my agent that I wouldn’t say no to Olympiakos if they are going to make a good offer to me.

“Of course, everything depends on Newcastle. I have four more years on my contract and Olympiakos must agree with them first of all.

“My agent told me that the upcoming week is going to be crucial. He is expecting a new contact with Olympiakos. They are a huge club. They are the Boca Juniors or the River Plate of Greece.

“For me is a big challenge to play the Champions League. I have a lot of energy in me and I want to make a fantastic season in order to be with my national team in South Africa for the World Cup.”

The Mirror is also reporting that Arsenal have stepped up their interest in Krul, who is apparently valued at around £3m. Krul is definitely one I hope we hang on to but I suspect Ashley will see £3m as a good return for a youngster with only a few first team appearances to his name.

That’s it for now.

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

32 Responses

  2. It’s amazing isn’t it? After a summer of being told we were being sold to Malaysians, South Africans, Americans, Chinese, Mackems (ahem), The Profitable Group of Singapore yahdee yahdee yahdee yah…..

    It’s all down to a previously unknown “geordie” who clearly dyes his hair and made his fortune selling fluffy toys…..

    You just couldn’t make it up…..

  3. Call me silly, especially with all the other more massive things going wrong for out club but the fact that Bassong looks like he is going to get away with serving his second ban, due to the Spud’s jiggery pokery sticks in my craw. The FA should not allowo this to happen.

  4. Sorry for the typos,must read through before hitting submit – meant ‘our’ and ‘allow’.

    Rant over.

  6. Spurs used to loathe the fact that Arsenal had their man, David Dein, at the FA. Now the chairman of the FA is ‘Baron Triesman of Tottenham’ (his official title).

  11. You know £7.5m profit on a player isn’t too bad. Granted I would have liked to get closer to Shearer’s £15m price tag that he allegedly slapped on Bassong, but beggars can’t be choosers. I sound like a broken record, probably Babylon by Meat Beat Manifesto(there’s one for you BBM. Rave on!) but if we had sorted out the club at the end of the season we would have been able to keep who we wanted and build a team of good championship level players around them. We would have kept Bassong and Beye who were the only two worth keeping apart from Krul and we would have thumped WBA and be favourites to win the league. At the moment we aren’t even favourites to win our next game. Probably.

  12. Anyone see the interview with david craig on ssn?? What a waste of 3 minutes of my life that was, all fence sitting hypotheticals!! May as well of just said:
    “I know nothing…..back to you guys in the studio”

  13. I get that feeling reading the Chronicle Girth. They write things but go on to say it could be completely different. Speaking of David Craig his interview is on again now.

  14. Nobody knows what’s going on except for Mike Ashley. Anyone who says different is a liar, plain and simple.

  16. The introduction of frequently updated forums and blogs like our’s has done nowt for our sanity either like. Feeding each other with our negative vibes.

    I guess we’re all gluttons for punishment.

    I remember back in the day when I only ever relied on John Gibson and the back of the Chronicle for updates.

    My head hurt less then.

  17. It would help if the club made an announcement about things once in a while.

    NDAs will prevent specifics but a general progress report should be possible.

  18. bowburnmag says:
    August 11, 2009 at 3:21 pm

    “I remember back in the day when I only ever relied on John Gibson and the back of the Chronicle for updates.”

    So you weren’t much of an ‘Anal’ man then, Bowburn?

  20. Skirting carefully round that subtlely loaded question…….actually I always thought it was Gibson writing articles back in the day but clearly they were a deadly duo with more recent hindsight. My memory isn’t what it was. I though Oliver took over the ropes circa mid-90’s at a point in time rather than them running in tandem from way back when but it seems my hazy brain let me down?

  21. beyethegreat says:
    August 11, 2009 at 4:14 pm

    “worky you posted a website with a toon caraciuture on another thread”

    Ah. I think that was Bowburn, Beyebutnotformuchlonger.

    I’ll stick your your thing up soon BTW.

  22. workyticket says:
    August 11, 2009 at 4:31 pm (Edit)

    I’ll stick your your thing up soon BTW.

    ——

    Don’t you just love innuendo!

  23. Double words for double entendres worky? What’s got into you today? (you’ve got me at it noo!!)

    Here, I’m proper hetro me like. Ask the missus (soz for the reference Toon_Factor ;))

  24. beye – have a look on a previous thread. I replied to you belatedly and told you that you can check out the fella’s impressive work on his site (it’s not a porn site in keeping with worky’s mood).

  29. I see the NUSC morons are at it again, making it obvious that they’re going to give any manager who isn’t Alan Shearer a hard time if they have the nerve to accept the manager’s position here.

    Why can’t they just eff off and stop making things even worse?

  30. worky i completely agree now i have never been so embarissed

    i thought nusc spoke on behalf of the fans it seems to me as though they are speaking without talking to their members as i hadnt heard of them having a recent meeting and deciding that the statement is ok to release

  31. They were bugging Moat a few days ago, reminding him that he had to appoint Shearer if he bought the club.

    They’re actually Shearer’s worst enemy as far as managing Newcastle goes. They are doing everything they can to turn him into a sinister, divisive figure who should be avoided at all costs by any would-be owner. They could even be deterring them from buying.

  32. To be honest, I think most people are aware that NUSC is only a small representative group and I don’t think it would put off potential buyers or sway anyone’s decisions.

    As many of us have mentioned, we’re crying out for someone with business nous and balls in abundance, so hopefully their points will be moot as they will be entertained but not to the detriment of the owner’s plans and the good of the club (as far as their plans go)

    Either way, it IS a bit knee-jerk and surely they’ve gone out on a limb by saying this without getting a unanimous vote which is what they claimed to be delivering on most issues.