This is the big one!Hello, good afternoon and welcome to NUFC Blog’s “match banter”.
Today sees Newcastle playing host to hordes of unwashed from the less developed side of the North East. Unfortunately though, these days they have support from a Dallas based billionaire caled Ellis Short, and we can no longer count on them rolling over as they used to in the good old days when it would take them a whole season to muster 15 points and get relegated to back to where they belong. Indeed, as sportingpreview.com say in their preview of the match:
“Such is the strength of Steve Bruce’s squad at present that £9million goalkeeper Craig Gordon, Champions League finalist Bolo Zenden, World Cup quarter-finalists Cristian Riveros, Paulo Da Silva and John Mensah and Ballon d’Or nominee Asamoah Gyan can’t get in the starting XI.”(more…)
SuperMac's poisonous words.....Derby day fever has certainly caught up with me now, which is why I haven’t slept a wink all night and why I decided to get up at 5am rather than rolling around trying to get to sleep, and getting irritated in the process.
Anyway, I was perusing the ‘comments’ section on the ‘blog to see if I had missed anything and to catch up on the gossip when one thing struck me. It seems that the media bandwagon regarding the future of our manager is rolling on.
Those who listened to ‘The Legends’ radio phone-in during week will have heard Malcolm Macdonald bleating on about Chris Hughton and launching some quite scathing attacks on our current manager. The reason being that he is somewhat annoyed by the team selection that Chris Hughton made against Arsenal in the Carling Cup in midweek.
Now I see things differently and fully backed Hughton’s decision to rest a good number of first-team players in midweek as I wanted our best possible team to be available to play in today’s derby, but I understand that others feel differently and feel that fielding a weakened team during the week equates to us missing out on an opportunity to progress into the Carling Cup quarter-finals at the expense of a team that has scored an average of three goals in every game this season. (more…)
Hughton: Target of speculation.On the eve of Newcastle United’s home derby clash with the Mackems, Sunderland manager, Steve Bruce, ex Newcastle United chairman, Freddy Shepherd, and current club captain, Kevin Nolan have all come out in support of manager, Chris Hughton.
Hughton’s position as Newcastle manager has recently been called into question by journalists such as the People’s Alan Oliver and the Daily Hate Mail’s Colin Young, and bets on whether Hughton would be sacked were suspended at Ladbrokes recently. In response, the club issued a club statement after Wednesday’s League Cup defeat against Arsenal. The statement said:
“Chris is our manager and will remain our manager, and it is our intention to renegotiate his contract at the end of the year.”
Speaking in an interview for Talk Sport meanwhile, Freddy Shepherd said of Hughton’s time as the Magpies’ manager:(more…)
Highlights from yesterday evenings’s 0-4 League Cup defeat against Arsenal.
Sadly, a mostly second string Newcastle team were not strong enough to overcome Arsenal, with a desperately unlucky first goal coutesy of Ryan Taylor’s and Tim Krul’s respective heeds, and a second goal from Walcott which never should have stood. Still, the Gooners did put two more past us, courtesy of Bendtner and another from Walcott, and it is quite hard to argue with 0-4.
Hughton backed by board.Much of the speculation surrounding Newcastle over the last week or so has been regarding the future of current manager, Chris Hughton.
Now let me go on record early in this article to say that I am fully behind Hughton and believe that in no way, shape, or form does he deserve to get the boot from the St James’ Park hotseat.
Anyway, most of this speculation has been dreamed up by a number of people in the press, with Newcastle “fan” Alan Oliver being one of the main culprits, as Workyticket highlighted in his excellent article entitled Alan Oliver desperately tries to keep Hughton sacking story alive. Sadly, that particular media bandwagon has gathered some pace in recent days and has led to certain betting markets being suspended. This has, of course, all been fuelled by the club dithering on making any official announcement on the future of Hughton, who only has a contract until the end of this season. (more…)
