Hughton suited, now booted.The breaking news is that Newcastle have today parted company with Chris Hughton.
Chris Hughton has been the manager of Newcastle United for the past 18 months and masterminded promotion from The Championship at the first attempt. Goalkeeping coach Paul Barron also leaves his role.
The betting had been suspended earlier in the morning, which has happened before, but it appears that this time around they were right. The team has been in a bad run of form of late, but this decision has shocked me to the core as I was fully behind Hughton and feel that he just needed time to turn things around. It’s still early days and there will need to be some time to digest this news before the speculation starts regarding Hughton’s successor.
Are Newcastle interested in Young Boys striker?Talksport seem to be reporting that Newcastle are winning the race to sign Emmanuel Mayuka from Young Boys Bern.
Quite how they know that is beyond me, but that is what they are saying anyway.
Now most of you know by now that I like to cover speculation when a new name crops up, regardless of whether or not I have any faith in the report or not.
It’s all part of my plans to put together a database of different players we get linked with over time, and my primary plan of all round world domination! That was sarcasm of course, maybe, but we do get linked with an awful lot of players.
This latest one has me a little bit interested though, mainly because I’ve never really heard of him. Talksport claims that Newcastle have sent scouts to several of his games and that Newcastle are at the front of a queue to tie up a £2.5 million deal for the 20-year-old. (more…)
Captain Shola? Gerraway!It’s an interesting question, and I probably know the answer that most people will give as I will probably give the same answer myself.
Now this isn’t an exercise as to whether Shola Ameobi should be in the team or not, as that is not really our decision. We all have views on it as, like the saying goes, opinions are like arseholes – everyone has one, well unless you are some form of freaky creature that… never mind.
Anyway, basically does anyone else feel that Shola Ameobi deserves the armband? Does he deserve to be leading the players in the absence of Kevin Nolan and any number of other players who would be ahead of him in the pecking order? Probably not to be fair, but does he deserve to be captain of this rag-tag group of players that have been thrust together due to injury and suspension? Again, probably not.
I suppose it depends on what your own personal view is of a captain. If it is some kind of long service award then fair enough, Shola should have it in the bag. The problem is that I just don’t think it suits him. (more…)
Newcastle limply surrendered at The Hawthorns yesterday as they were outclassed and outfought by an impressive West Brom side.
I don’t want to take anyting away from West Brom as they did play really well, but the disappointing thing is that they didn’t need to play well to get a result such was the shocking performance that Newcastle put in.
Every team has off days, as I am sure that most of us will agree, but our off days are starting to happen far too often. We’ve picked up two points from a possible fifteen, which is relegation form, and with tough fixtures coming up I can understand a bit of the doom and gloom that is flying around at the minute. The rumour is that Chris Hughton locked the team in the dressing room for an hour after the final whistle yesterday. The lads were lucky, because if it was me they would still be there now!
Joey Barton had been expected to some back into the side to replace either Danny Guthrie or Wayne Routledge, but a mysterious groin injury put a quick end to that notion and left us with an unchanged team from the 1-1 draw against Chelsea. West Brom also had their injury doubts, although unluckily for us, all of their injury doubts managed to be fit enough to start the game. (more…)
Can Carroll be the key to survival?The month of December will mark the half way point in the Premier League season, and will hopefully give us an indication of whether or not we look set for survival or struggle for the rest of the season.
Of course nothing will be guaranteed, but it should give us a decent idea of where we stand with regards to ensuring Premier League football for next season.
With the way the season has gone so far it would be foolish to count any chickens until safety is mathematically assured. Teams are taking points from each other, from top to bottom, in what is turning out to be a very tight Premier League season. A couple of wins can push a team into a European spot, but also a couple of results that go against you could see a team being sucked into the relegation zone.
Luckily for us it has been the former so far this season, but there is always a chance that we could hit a sticky patch of form. Some will say that we are in one now having only taken two points from a possible 12 on offer, but all that really matters is getting enough points on the board to survive this season. I couldn’t give a toss where the points invariably come from, as long as we have enough come May. (more…)
Newcastle limply surrendered at The Hawthorns yesterday as they were outclassed and outfought by an impressive West Brom side.