Hughton: Still searching for his perfect partner. It is now well over a month since former Newcastle United assistant manager, Colin Calderwood said goodbye to Tyneside and took up the manager’s position at Hibernian in Edinburgh. Meanwhile, the Magpies are still missing an assistant manager and surviving with one of the smallest first team coaching staffs in the Premiership.
Speaking in an interview, manager, Chris Hughton said of the quest:
“It’s been coming up to five weeks now but no, there has been no new progress in that this week,”
Meanwhile, it is also known that as things stand, Hughton himself is only on a contract until the end of the season with new contract discussions happening in January. Looking at it from a potential candidate’s point of view, this may not inspire the greatest feeling of job security should Hughton’s next contract talks fail, and there would be a good chance that any credible candidate for the job would bear this in mind if approached about the position. (more…)
Hughton: Defending his little angels.Newcastle United manager, Chris Hughton has recently come out and defended his team’s disciplinary record in the wake of three suspensions of major players, namely, Joey Barton for a crafty dig at Blackburn’s Morten Gamst Pedersen, Fabricio Coloccini for an elbow in in the face of Bolton’s Johan Elmander, and finally, Mike Williamson for a debatable ‘headbutt’, once again on Elmander.
Former Magpie, Alan Shearer, has accused the team of deliberately roughing players up in his role as a pundit on ‘Match of the Day’. However, Hughton responded to the accusations in an interview where he referred to a “freak fortnight” of disciplinary lapses from his little angels. He said:
“I don’t think that anyone who has seen us play would call us a dirty team.”
“It’s not a concern that we’ll pick up a reputation at all because we’re not that kind of side at all. But of course the players need to be aware of their actions and what it might mean.
“But what we have had really is a freak fortnight. To have one ban like this is quite unusual, but to have three in two weeks is really quite rare. (more…)
Highlights, or, if you will, ‘lowlights’ of today’s rather miserable capitulation to Bolton at the Reebok Stadium, along with some rather amateurish Chinese commentary! The teams erratic form continues.
Post match interview videos with Chris Hughton and Owen Coyle (below), with Hughton saying that the scoreline did not entirely reflect the match, amongst other things. (more…)
Hughton has his say!Well the England game has been and gone, and so has the tug of war between Newcastle and England that looked like it could boil over.
Carroll’s groin has been a major point talking this week after the striker looked like he could miss the opportunity to make his England debut against France last night.
The concerns from the club appeared to be unfounded, and Andy went on to make his debut anyway amid reports of the club contacting the FA via e-mail.
Basically, the rumour suggested that Newcastle had asked the The FA for Carroll to be withdrawn from the squad for fear of aggravating the groin injury that he picked up against Fulham, although with no confirmation on that from the club you could be forgiven for being a tad sceptical and putting it down to yet more press rumour-mongering.
But this time it appears that the press were right, and there was indeed some contact between Newcastle and The FA. (more…)
Happy Andy will stay forever!Andy Carroll has made quite a name for himself already this season.
He caught the eye with a fantastic season in The Championship last season, bagging an impressive 19 goals.
However, the Premier League is a different kettle of fish with tougher opposition.
I remember speaking to a lad in pre-season who said Andy would struggle to score more than three goals all season in the Premier League. Well good sir, we are only 13 games in and the lad has managed 7 already, making him joint top goalscorer. The term ‘eat your words’ come to mind!
It seems that Andy’s great form has caught the attention not only of the England manager, Fabio Capello. but also of other top flight teams. (more…)
