The Africa Cup of Nations and Newcastle United – A Geordie’s guide.
Posted on December 24th, 2011 | 15 Comments |
This incredibly awkward competition is held bi-annually, unlike the European Championships which are held every four years. Also unlike the Euros, it is also usually held right in the middle of the bloody football season! This time the tournament will be jointly hosted by Gabon and Equitorial Guinea from January 21 to February 12 2012, but players will usually be called for duty by their national teams some time before that, even as early as the 8th of January for pre tournament training camps and warm up games.
Cheick Tiote and Demba Ba will definitely be there representing the Ivory Coast and Senegal respectively. Inspired by Manchester City, who also wish to hold back their talisman midfielder, Yaya Toure, from joining Tiote in the Ivory Coast team for as long as possible, Alan Pardew is now trying to delay Ba’s and Tiote’s departure until around the 15th January.
If Pardew and City manager Roberto Mancini fail in their quest to hold the players back until the middle of the month, the two Silver Supremos could be missing their important players for as many as six or seven games according to my calculation. Of course, this will almost certainly have a much greater effect on the Magpies than it will on moneybags Man City with their wealth of strength in depth. In Newcastle United’s case the potential games missed will be the following if Tiote and Ba depart on the 8th January:
Blackburn Rovers (FA Cup) Sat 7th January, Queen’s Park Rangers (H) Sunday 15th January, Fulham (A) Saturday 21st January, Blackburn Rovers again (A) Sat 7th January, Wednesday 1st February, Aston Villa (H) Sunday 5th February, and finally, Tottenham Hotspur (A) Saturday 11th February.
If Pardew is succesful in his bid to keep the players back until the 15th, they will only be missed from the Fulham game onwards, however the length of Ba’s and Tiote’s absence will also be determined of course by how well their respective teams do in the tournament, however Ivory Coast are hotly tipped to win the the tournament and Senegal are quite fancied too this time, despite recent problems centred around their head coach’s contract.
I need hardly tell you how important our very own Mr.T. has been as a sentinel guarding the back four. However Demba Ba has scored no less than 13 of our 23 Premiership goals so far, so to say that his absence will be worrying would be something of an understatement. The last person other than Ba to score was Dan Gosling in our 2-1 victory over Everton on the 5th November. This game was also our last victory. With a somewhat alarming dip in form since that time, with the Magpies only collecting a mere two points in their last six games since that victory, Ba’s goals are needed more than ever. As I pointed out in this piece a couple of days ago, if the form of our last six games continued until the end of the season, despite our great start this term, we would only end the season with the same amount of points we were relegated with (34) in the 2008/9 season.
Getting back to Alan Pardew and his bid to keep Ba’s and Tiote’s absences to a minimum though, he recently said on that subject:
“It’s important to keep players until January 15. The scheduling isn’t great but we aren’t going to moan, we knew about it.”
In another interview, he said of losing Ba next month:
“He’s a great player, and you are going to miss great players. He is going to the African Cup of Nations and he will probably want to win that. Knowing Demba and the way he is playing, he probably could. He has been absolutely terrific for us.”
Meanwhile, there is the good news that Newcastle United’s other African goal machine, Shola Ameobi, will be staying at St James’ Park for the duration of the tournament. For some bizarre reason, the Fenham Eusebio has missed out amidst competition from forwards such as West Bromwich Albion’s Peter Odemwingie and Toon old boy Obafemi Martins, who is now playing for Wolfsburg in the German Bundesliga.
Finally of course the January transfer window could be a chance to bring in some reinforcements, however Pardew has been speaking more of bringing in defenders than forwards. On this he commented in a recent interview:
“We are having to look at our squad because we are stretched, especially defensively. We have made some calls to try to find out who is available, but it’s a difficult window. You want to try to get a good player in a window when teams don’t want to lose their good players, so it’s not just difficult for us, it’s difficult for every team. You locate a player, but then they have got to get a replacement and is another first-team going to let a replacement go? There’s a knock-on effect.”
We shall just have to wait and see on that front then.
Before I sign off, as this will almost certainly be our last blog before Christmas, I would just like to once again wish all of our readers very happy Christmas and a great new year!
NUFCBlog Author: workyticket
workyticket has written 1095 articles on this blog.
Chuck – & any geordie exiles, you may wish to share this
Christmas Message from the Queen
sent to my professional blog To:
Merry Xmas.
To the citizens of the United States of America from Her Sovereign
Majesty QueenElizabeth II:
In light of your immediate failure to financially manage yourselves and
also in recent years your tendency to elect incompetent Presidents of
the USA and therefore not able to govern yourselves, we hereby give
notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.
(You should look up ‘revocation’ in the Oxford English Dictionary.)
Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties
over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas , which
she does not fancy).
Your new Prime Minister, David Cameron, will appoint a Governor for
America without the need for further elections.
Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be
circulated sometime next year to determine whether any of you noticed.
To aid in the transition to a British Crown dependency, the following
rules are introduced with immediate effect:
1. The letter ‘U’ will be reinstated in words such as ‘colour,’
‘favour,’ ‘labour’ and ‘neighbour.’ Likewise, you will learn to spell
‘doughnut’ without skipping half the letters, and the suffix ‘-ize’ will
be replaced by the suffix ‘-ise.’Generally, you will be expected to
raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up ‘vocabulary’).
Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such
as ”like’ and ‘you know’ is an unacceptable and inefficient form of
communication. There is no such thing as U.S. English. We will let
Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be
adjusted to take into account the reinstated letter ‘u” and the
elimination of ‘-ize.’ ‘
3. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.
4. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns,
lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and
therapists shows that you’re not quite ready to be independent. Guns
should only be used for shooting grouse. If you can’t sort things out
without suing someone or speaking to a therapist, then you’re not ready
to shoot grouse.
5. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything
more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. Although a permit will be
required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.
6. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will
start driving on the left side with immediate effect. At the same time,
you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of
conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you
understand the British sense of humour.
7. The former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been
calling gasoline) of roughly $10/US gallon. Get used to it.)
8.You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries
are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips
are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal
fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.
9. The cold, tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually
beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to
as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be
referred to as Lager. New Zealand beer is also acceptable, as New
Zealand is pound for pound the greatest sporting nation on earth and it
can only be due to the beer. They are also part of the British
Commonwealth – see what it did for them. American brands will be
referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat’s Urine, so that all can be sold without
risk of further confusion.
10. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as
good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to
play English characters. Watching Andie Macdowell attempt English
dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having
one’s ears removed with a cheese grater.
11. You will cease playing American football. There are only two kinds
of proper football; one you call soccer, and rugby (dominated by the New
Zealanders). Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play
rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not
involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar
body armour like a bunch of nancies).
12. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to
host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played
outside of America . Since only 2.1% of you are aware there is a world
beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn
cricket, and we will let you face the Australians (World dominators)
first to take the sting out of their deliveries.
13. You must tell us who killed JFK. It’s been driving us mad.
14. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty’s
Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all
monies due (backdated to 1776).
15. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 p.m. with proper cups, with
saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes;
plus strawberries (with cream) when in season.
God Save the Queen!