Steve McClaren has finally got something right!
Posted on November 3rd, 2010 | 34 Comments |
It’s fair to say that Cheick was a relative unknown quantity. He came to Newcastle after appearing in the World Cup for Ivory Coast and having been a lynchpin in an FC Twente side that won the Dutch Eredivisie under the guidance of the ‘wally with the brolly’, or Steve McClaren if you want his real name.
McClaren got an awful lot of things wrong with the England team whilst he was managing them, so when he turned around and told us Newcastle fans that we would love Tiote as a player at Newcastle you could be forgiven for remaining a little sceptical. It turns out that the former Middlesbrough manager was absolutely spot on with assesment and Tiote has gone on to establish himself as somewhat of a crowd favourite amongst the Toon Army.
I’ve said before that I never really rated the defensive midfielder position and always saw it as negative move playing one. Perhaps my blinkered ‘4-4-2 rules’ philosophy is part of the reason behind it, but it had never occured to me just how important one could be for our team. Tiote has shown me the way, even though Chris Hughton says that Tiote is more than just a defensive midfielder.
He does a dirty job that not many people want to do, and he does it well. He breaks up play, keeps possesion and distributes the ball almost faultlessly. He tackles and harries and never gives opponents the time to do anything. Quite simply he is a real asset.
Perhaps the most important thing he brings to the team is confidence. With Tiote in the team it gives other midfielders, like Kevin Nolan, the license to get forward, and I believe this is part of the reason why Nolan has improved in recent weeks. He can now get into the attacking positions that he seems to have the gift of getting in to whithout having to worry about leaving too much of a gaping hole at the back. Cheick will sort that out.
All in all, a fantastic piece of business by the club. An absolute snip at £3.5 million, and if the club can continue finding players of Cheick’s ability at that kind of price then we could be in for some more nice surprises in the future.
Long may it continue.
Buy of the season so far.