2010 – A year of relative stability on Tyneside.
Posted on December 31st, 2010 | 265 Comments |
Yes, that’s right, this year has been pretty stable for us in comparison to years gone by, although there have been brief moments of turmoil spread throughout the year, just to keep things interesting.
I thought it might be a good idea to look back on the year and recount some of the events that have made us tear our hair out in frustration, brought a smile to our face, made us angry and so on.
Things went pretty smoothly for us in the first quarter of 2010. The January transfer window saw us strengthen the squad and cement our position as league leaders. Results were good, performances were largely good, we were playing some decent stuff and we were hammering some teams, namely Barnsley and Cardiff.
Then came a bolt from the blue on March 22nd when it emerged that Andy Carroll and Steven Taylor had been involved in a bust up at the training ground, with the former leaving the latter requiring hospital treatment for a broken jaw.
Of course, it was all alleged at the time, and rumours were rife suggesting the reason behind the fallout was due to Steven Taylor texting Carroll’s girlfriend whilst bigger lad was away in Swansea playing football and Taylor was at home being injured. That remains speculation, but Taylor commented in an article later on in the year and pretty much confirmed that something had happened, although the extent of what happens remains a secret.
On a more positive note, April 5th saw us confirm our return to the Premier League at the first time of asking following a hard fought win against Sheffield United, whilst April 19th saw us confirmed as Champions following a 2-0 win away at Plymouth Argyle.
The general feeling was good as the season drew to a close. Newcastle could plan ahead and and begin to make provisions for life back in the Premier League, including recruiting some players which would allow us to compete. Then Mike Ashley put a spanner in the works by delivering the news that the club wouldn’t be going mad in the transfer market on May 9th.
The result of that poorly worded statement was that most of the feel-good factor that had been built up by gaining promotion and winning the league soon evaporated. The statement was misinterpreted by many and the words ‘capital outlay’ are now probably very well known to a lot of Newcastle fans now. Of course, as both myself and Workyticket said at the time, it meant that we would not be buying players on the never never, not that we would never be buying players. The arrivals of several new faces over the summer seemed to back our theories up. Still, it was a balls up from the club and could have been handle a whole lot better.
June and July passed without much going on at the club aside form the odd piece of transfer speculation. Players were linked, and inevitably were never heard of again. Pre-season came into play and Steven taylor got injured again, Leon Best looked to be our best striker as he was the only one who managed to score any goals, and panic started to set in as the fixture list revealed that we would be visiting Manchester United for our first fixture back in the big time.
We lost that game 3-0, which is probably as was expected, but the result of the next match was far from expected. On August 22nd, Aston Villa rocked up at St James’ Park, with their cocky fans in tow. They weren’t cocky for long after we sent them home on the end of a 6-0 hiding. That very same day saw the arrival of the unknown Cheik Tiote at Newcastle for a fee of around £3.5 million – a bargain in hindsight.
As far as transfer activity goes, we had already captured James Perch and Cheik Tiote, but the Hatem Ben Arfa deal was the one that most people wanted to see concluded. It was the most on/off of on/off deals deals and provided me with many articles, but it was eventually on and was confirmed on August 28th as I stood in the stands at Wolverhampton Wanderers.
We saw Benny at his best at Goodison Park in September when he scored the only goal of the game to give us a valuable 1-0 victory at a ground where we traditionally struggle. The start of October signalled the end of what was a promising start for Hatem Ben Arfa after he suffered a double leg break against Manchester City.
October persisted with rumours of Chris Hughton and a potential sacking after Colin Calderwood departed for pastures new, but three wins on the bounce against West Ham, this rather memorable victory of the great unwashed from down the road, and an equally memorable 1-0 win away at Arsenal at the start of November seem to put an end to those rumours, briefly.
November rolled on with no new assistant in sight for Hughton, who by his own admission was overworked, and no new contract for a man that had us sitting reasonably pretty in the Premier League. The sacking rumours persisted though, and wouldn’t go away despite the decent start to the season we had made. Poor results against Bolton and West Brom meant that media prophecy was fulfilled and Chris Hughton was shown the door, amidst widspread uproar from the fans, on December 6th.
The club acted swiftly to appoint a replacement, but the name wasn’t to everybody’s liking as Alan Pardew was shepherded in from the footballing wilderness to become our new boss. His first game was a 3-1 victory against Liverpool, although that result was marked as a tribute to Chris Hughton from the players. Defeats in our last two very tough matches against Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur have seen us slip down the league table and have put great importance on our next two games against Wigan and West Ham.
And here we are up to the current day. I hope you will share with us your memeries of 2010. All that is left for me to say now is all the best to all of you and I hope you all have a very happy new year.
Together, we’ve made it!
NUFCBlog Author: toonsy
toonsy has written 643 articles on this blog.
acording to that cwarris guy andy carroll in talks with spurs arghhhh