It's international break time!One thing struck me over the weekend, and it is something we all know. That is that when Newcastle aren’t playing it leaves a massive hole in our weekend.
The reason for Newcastle not playing over the weekend? International breaks. Are they a good or a bad thing though?
From the outset they look like a really good thing, especially for a club in the position that we are in at the moment.
Unfortunately we don’t have that many international players at the moment, and that means that when every international break rolls around the vast majority of our squad can kick back, relax, and most importantly, wrap themselves up in cotton wool at our own training ground away from any nasty injuries, like what happened to Michael Dawson on Friday for example.
There is another advantage to international breaks though, particularly this one. This break came straight after the transfer window closed, which has unfortunately meant that we are yet to see anything of our two newest recruits, Hatem Ben Arfa and Cheick Tiote. (more…)
Nacim Boukhelifa - On trial at Newcastle.Chris Hughton has today confirmed that 19-year-old attacking midfielder Nacim Boukhelifa is training with the Newcastle squad.
The former Racing Lens prospect caused a stir when he was photographed at Darsley Park before the transfer window closed, but as Boukhelifa is currently not attached to any club it means that he can be signed outside of the transfer window.
Boukhelifa is not the first trialist we have had over the last few weeks, and he won’t be the last as Newcastle look to get the next generation of Toon stars sorted out. The focus is on the future at Newcastle, and giving our lack of forward planning over the last few years, the move is a welcome one. (more…)
A strangely formidable partnership?Newcastle seem to be getting the hang of this transfer window malarkey, as evidenced by the way business has been done in the last two transfer windows.
It is just my opinion, but I would class the last two transfer windows as a success, and that success has been achieved without the club spending a fortune.
I think that by now most fans are aware that the days of signing stupidly overpriced players, like the Mackems did with Asamoah Gyan, are behind us. That is fair enough, but the club must make make sure that they don’t go too far in the other direction and end up not spending enough to improve the squad. (more…)
A right proper selection headache!I think we are all in agreement when I say that we have strengthened the squad over the course of the summer transfer window.
Brilliant, fantastic, just what we needed. But where are all of these new faces going to fit in?
That is a problem that Chris Hughton must now face, but given the fact that we won’t be seeing our beloved Newcastle in action again for a week I thought we could try and work it out ourselves.
I think the main problem is going to be in the midfield, particularly in the centre of midfield. We have an abundance of players who can play varying roles in the middle of the park nowadays, which adds depth and will hopefully instigate competiton for places. In truth, the fact that we have started off pretty well so far this season probably hinders the selection process a little and makes the decision to leave any of our current players out of the team very hard indeed. (more…)
Ben Arfa - Ready to impress.Newcastle new boy Hatem Ben Arfa has been speaking to The Chronicle today, in quite some depth actually, about various things surrounding his move to Tyneside.
I’ll put links in for all the articles a bit later on, but having read them all it certainly seems like Ben Arfa is ready to kick-start his career with us on Tyneside.
Now whether or not this the usual new signing charm offensive or not remains to be seen, but it definately looks as though wor Benny has been doing his homework on Newcastle. One thing that has impressed me about him has been his desire to want to sign for us. In fairness he did claim all along that he wanted to move to Newcastle, but with things getting lost in translation plus the many twists and turns that the transfer saga ended up taking I personally took any claims like that with a pinch of salt. (more…)
