Tiote gives injury the finger

Posted on February 21st, 2011 | 37 Comments |

Cheik Tiote, Newcastle United
Oops, a bit high perhaps!
Newcastle United midfielder Cheik Tiote has a ‘minor hand injury’ but will be fit to play against Bolton on Saturday.

When you’re as tough as Cheik Tiote you don’t let trivial injuries stop you playing and such is the case with his ‘minor hand injury’, believed to be a fractured finger.

After recuperating with a robust diet of house bricks and steel girders and some leisure time wrestling enraged alligators, Tiote will apparently be available for next Saturday’s game against Bolton.

This is good news as there’s the small matter of revenge for the 5-1 slaughter they inflicted on us at their place, and Tiote is now a very important part of our midfield line up.

We bought the 24 year old Ivory Coastian (which sounds like a tea set and probably isn’t the right word) from FC Twente back in August 2010 for £3.5m, which seems like a fantastic bit of business now, and he just seems to have got better and better this season.

He had a reputation for being a hard tackler but, whilst that’s certainly true, there’s a lot more to his game than that. He can take the ball forward too and is certainly not shy about taking a shot, with the ball usually travelling fast enough to warp space and time around its path. He scored his first goal to even things up in the 4-4 draw against Arsenal and it was a cracker.

He does unfortunately head our discipline ‘table’ with 9 yellow cards and 1 red card. Some of those are undoubtedly deserved but he also gets caught by some of the namby-pamby, oversensitive refereeing that’s all the rage in the Premiership these days as he’s not at all what I’d call a ‘dirty player’.

Still, it’s good to have him as part of our midfield, which I genuinely believe is up there with any team outside of the ‘Big 3’ (Man U, Chelski and Arsenal) and will be even stronger when the likes of Ben Arfa, Gosling and Ireland are fit.

I’d like to see him playing alongside Barton in the centre of midfield with Jonas and Benny taking a wing a piece, although that would mean dropping Nolan and he gets a lot of goals. Just speculating!

Tiote puts me in mind of Stuart Pearce a bit in some ways – remember him trying to ‘run off’ a broken leg once?

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

37 Responses

  2. Tiote is everything we the fans want to see in our players.
    Committment, skill, dogged determination to win for the team, fans, club and city. If they dont win, the oposition will have had to have played one hell of a game, and we will always applaud that in victory or defeat.
    His injury reminded me of when Marcelino was out for 1 month with a broken finger, and this brings me to my point.
    Understand what makes this fella tick, make sure he understands he is the future of the club, and then recruit others in the team obviously with different skills but with the same mentality. Then you have a winning formula!

  3. @1…. funny but yes i think he was.. fingernail wasnt it?
    Anyway, i see we are dicking barton around now and have only offered a two year contract extension!! wtf, he is only 28 man and is in form of his life. our club really are a bunch of t@ssers when it comes to taking care of their staff, the man managment at nufc these days is a joke.

  4. Barton has 16 months left on his contract and a 2 year extension to that would take him past 32. I don’t think that’s harsh – I’m sure players like Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes had to jutify contract extensions on a regular basis after they reached that sort of age.

  6. Craig why not get your facts straight b4 opening your gob.
    :evil:
    I think its a good offer but doubt it will convince him to take a wage cut. But then again he may not be asked to do that either.
    If its a good deal for JB then I am sure he will stay.
    Here’s hoping.

  7. @4…….he is 28 years old man….you are talking pap. Barton is a KEY player for us at the age of 28 and in his prime. Can you tell me one single PREM team that gives their key player a 2 year offer at age of 28?? nope.. i think not. Giggs and co are on 1 year extensions now but they are nearly mid 30’s lol lol.

  8. @6…. i have my facts straight, perhaps you need to practice what you try to preach a little bit..

  9. Calm down! He’s just in the process of negotiations, and this is all part of that. All that’s happened is either a leak or (more likely) total fabrication by the press.

    Anyway – Tiote. Yep, great – but has anyone else noticed he does occasionally ‘do a Parker’ and faff about rather than get a pass off quickly? Tends to end a lot of promising positions with players going forward, by trying to play out of a position when he should have released the ball to someone making a run.

    Don’t get me wrong; I really like this guy – but that side of his game is annoying at times.

  10. Hugh – regarding Tiote and Barton in the middle: I think it’s worth pushing Nolan forward with Shola/Best/Ranger in front to try the formation you’ve suggested. We’d lack a bit of pace in the middle up front, but that can come from Benny on the right.

    Nice problem, eh.

  11. Craig – the facts are it’s a 2-year EXTENSION to a contract that runs out in June 2012 – that takes it to June 2014 i.e 3 more seasons – 11-12, 12-13, 13-14.
    So pee po belly bum drawers to you!

  14. I’d be surprised if they offered Barton a deal past his 32nd birthday. Neither the club’s status nor his own ability to keep a lid on his ‘issues’ is a known quantity; he’s far from out of those woods yet.

    So a starting offer of 3 more seasons seems reasonable to me, even if it is made up by some journo. They should settle on a 3-year extension with behaviour and relegation clauses, IMHO. If he’s serious about keeping a lid on his behaviour (i.e. no more punching out players) then he should be prepared to put his money where his therapist’s mouth is. Also, let’s not forget that there’s a new distrust between Barton and the club since the CH and AC departures, and Barton’s been pretty vocal about it, which the club won’t have liked. I’d be amazed if this was a quick or easy negotiation.

  15. Whumps, it is nice problem to have with plenty decent midfielders to choose from.

    Personally, I’d drop Nolan for the rest of his game (I’m not saying he’s pants like, just that I reckon we have better ‘pure’ midfielders) but he just knocks in too many goals to consider doing that.

  16. @11…. magpie…i am well aware its an extension ffs.. he’s been at newcaslte for over three years already. Its just not going to entice him at all is it….this will be bartons last big contract sign up and a two year gig extension taking him for another 3 1/2 years total only takes him to the age of 31 years old. Thats cos he is only just 28 in septemeber last year. So the obvious problem for barton is that he is not old at age of 31 at all but he has very little chance of getting long term work with top club at age 31 onwards. His value will be far less as will his bargaining place. NUFC have to be careful and a compromise needs to be reached, perhaps three year extension etc otherwise barton would be better off leaving in summer for low fee and getting five year contract at another midtable prem club. He wantsto stay of course and we want him to stay, but we have to make some middle room and create a compromise.
    What makes no sence is that Joey said himself that a deal was aleady in place before the carrollgate affair. if it was in place why is it now not? Why have newcastle ‘reportadly’ reduced the contract duration??

  17. Fair point, Craig. He does have to think about his next contract, and 31 is not a good age to be finding one.

    I think he’ll sort it. The bosses must know that he will be seen as the barometer and that they can’t afford to send yet another message to the squad that we’re a selling club.

    …um they must know that, right…? :(

  18. On Barton,
    i think you must take into consideration that only a select few clubs/managers will ‘want’ him, or have the bottle to take him to their club.
    He’s worth a new contract, for me like.
    While fans across the country think they hate him, his work on the field of play has been excellent, since he came back from a long term injury & jail.
    Damaged goods, aye, but great player, aye.
    ;)

  19. On Tiote,
    sore finger?
    salt’n’vinegar?

    Arrrggghhh!
    Attack, attack, attack attack attack!

    Tiote rools!

    ;)

  20. On the Barton thing, I can’t find anything about him being unhappy with an alleged 2-year contract offer beyond one report that quotes nothing to back it up.

    I’m not saying it’s not true, just that I’m reluctant to take it too seriously just yet.

  22. @20 and 21……..i agree, could be all crap and lets hope so. Mind you, i do think we have leak in squad and that its even several key players as they are concerned at lack of commitment on the field from ashley. I think they al lwant to stay,really i do but i think they are using the media to apply pressure to ashley. its a high stakes game and i just dont know which way it will go. ashley must be careful though as if barton and enrique go hot on the heels of carroll then the squad is going to implode, 100%. He will be f@ckd. It is like a game of cat and mouse one feels.

  23. CC,
    you could be right mate.
    But at this point, it’s very difficult to know for sure as there’ll always be this kind of press mongering going on.
    They just love having a pop at us, don’t they?
    We just have to hope lessons have been learned & the summer brings a clearer picture.
    The lads just have to push on & continue their great work ’til the final game of the season.
    It’ll all come out in the wash, as they say.
    ;)

  24. In all seriousness tho, we all know nowt about the JB contract negotiations. Just speculation, and media BS.
    I’m just hoping he gets an offer he is happy with and stays at NUFC.
    I suspect he is waiting for guarranteed PL survival 1st before signing anything, and who could blame him.
    6 points from next two matches would be fantastic, but not gonna be as easy as that.
    HWTL

  25. I mean,
    are other clubs getting this kinda treatment since the window closed?
    The press just see an easy story at the expense of NUFC.
    Gotta fill their bog roll up with something when there’s no real football happening for a week or so.
    Sigh!

  26. BB,
    i like to use the compound word ‘specujecture’ when this happens, it’s all speculation & conjecture.
    Just for a laugh mind.
    :)

  27. Totally unrelated, but I see Barry Herne is taking Layton Orient to Vegas as a reward for drawing with Arsenal! Legend.

  28. What was the result Micky?
    Didn’t he do that before, when they had a top result?

    Gotta admire his attitude.
    He’s also got the hump about wetspam moving onto their manor, if they get the olympic stadium.

  29. 1-1. He really doesn’t like being overlooked on the Olympic stadium issue. He’s talking about going to court! A bit daft as sense dictates that they will struggle to fill an end, never mind the stadium.

  30. Micky,
    i think it’s more the issue of wetspam moving in & sucking up some of their fans to fill the stadium.

    I think it was Charlton & Gillingham who had the hump when,
    again, wham were sending free coaches out to their areas to glean (steal)fans away.

    Not nice.

  31. Where were our lot taken after the Arsenal draw? Was it to the Taj Mahal or the Great Wall?
    Or did they go for a Pizza instead?

  32. Micky I think BH is trying to get a financial slice from the olympic stadium to help secure the future of his club rather than take over the stadium.

    More a compensation package for allowing another football club to muscle in on the support for his club.

  33. Sounds like something the Mackems would do. Drop free tickets over south shields from a hot air balloon to get people in the stadium.

  35. CLiNT FLiCK says:
    February 21, 2011 at 1:34 pm

    “Micky,
    i think it’s more the issue of wetspam moving in & sucking up some of their fans to fill the stadium.”

    Aye, that’s what ‘Earn is really radged about.

  37. Contending for player of the season. Fantastic, absolutely been a key player for us. Cheik Cheik Boom!