Confident of signing new players.Fully refreshed from his recent holiday, Chris Hughton today returned to work in the cauldron that is Newcastle United, and was promptly put on the spot by the local press.
It seems that although Hughton has been away from his office, work has still been ongoing to make sure we have a squad capable of competing in the Premier League next time around, with the gaffer sounding decidedly optimistic regarding bringing in new faces. Rumours have been rife regarding the signing of some veteran players in the shape of Sol Campbell, Andy O’Brien and Jimmy Bullard, the latter of which is apparently joining Celtic, although Hughton has revealed that we were never really interested in any of them anyway, with the focus thought to be remaining on signing players who still have their best years in front of them rather than behind them. (more…)
Carver - Back in Toon?Since our Championship winning season drew to a close a few weeks back, Newcastle United have had more coaches departing than the local bus station.
The latest one to break rank was Alan Thompson, who relinquishes his role as reserve-team coach in favour of a move up to Celtic where he will become Neil Lennon’s new less than glamorous assistant.
Thompson’s departure follows hot on the heels of another one of our backroom staff, Kenny Wharton, and that leaves us with only a manager, an assitant manager and a goalkeeping coach working behind the scenes with the players. So is this little backroom reshuffle Hughton’s chance to get his own men in? Something he didn’t have a chance to do when he first took on the role as manager. (more…)
Moving on from the last chapter in out one year retrospective, we come to the end of October. With the club still in a state of flux, now departed midfielder, Nicky Butt, was calling for the permanent appointment of the then caretaker mananger, Chris Hughton. Of course though, back in those days there was still one giant figure in Newcastle’s history looming over the position, despite having it already at the time of our relegation and things not working out. I am of course referring to Alan Shearer, who many still presumed would be the choice of a new owner, an owner who never came. So we come to another story by Hugh de Payen which tackled the issue of our next permanent manager. It was titled “Next Toon manager: Shearer v Hughton.“. Despite the title though, he also looks at other options for the position. It’s an interesting read for many reasons, not least to see how much things have changed since those days. (more…)
Rob Lee in his playing days.Former Newcastle midfielder Rob Lee has tipped his old club to survive in the Premier League this time around, even if there are no significant additions to the team over the summer.
Lee is very much the poster boy from the last time Newcastle embarked on a return to top flight football back in 1993, and clocked up and impressive 303 appearances during his ten year tenure on Tyneside.
It’s nice to hear some positivity coming from our former players for a change, especially as a vast array of former players appear to have already written off the current squads chances of survival. Unfortunately it isn’t all sweeteness and light from Lee though, and whilst he does believe that the current squad is capable of ensuring survival, he has also warned that money will be needed in the future if the team are to progress to the next level. (more…)
The loan arrangers?Next season will see the Premier League introduce a new set of rules, with the ultimate aim being to try to force clubs to focus on domestic youth players.
Of course there are ways round it, as is the way with most pieces of new legislation. Even with the new rules teams will be able to go abroad and snap up the most promising youngsters from around Europe, but it does now mean that they will have to be a bit more careful before they proceed with that whilst taking the new home grown rules into account. The definition of home grown is for a player to be trained for three years under the age of 21 by somebody in the English and Welsh professional system, and their must be eight of them in each squad. Players under the age of 21 do not count towards the squad of 25 players so can play at anytime despite not being registered, and it’s that last part that could spell trouble in the loan market for Newcastle this summer. (more…)
