NUFC Blog on metro.co.ukMy two latest blogs for metro.co.uk are now up!
The first one, entitled “Pardew – Is he deluded to the point of insanity?” takes a look at some of the talking points from Monday evening’s game with Manchester City. Talking points such as the gossip surrounding Yohan Cabaye and not least, something all we Newcastle United fans have become wearily familiar with, Alan Pardew’s total lack of a grip on reality in his post-match assessment of games.
The second one is called “Were Newcastle’s ‘Three Stooges’ in Nice to sell Cabaye or buy Cvitanich?” (The sub-editor changed the original title so don’t blame me!). Basically, it is my ruminations on what Newcastle United’s “Three Stooges,” Alan Pardew, Joe Kinnear and Graham Carr might have been doing at Nice airport, where they were spotted and photographed by a Northumbria University student and Toon fan who calls himself “Sewelly” on Twitta. (more…)
Kinnear and Carr: NUFC’s scouting “dream team.”They are two chubby old men who swear so much, they even make Bernard Manning and Chubby Brown sound like a pair of Vicars.
One is reviled and one is revered by significant sections of Newcastle United’s fanbase, yet they are almost like peas in a pod. Two chubby, foul mouthed, old school pros with two lifetimes worth of experience in football. Carr has already been an excellent scout for Newcastle United, and there is no reason why Joe Kinnear can’t add to that significantly too, as a scout himself, as well as a bridge between the football side of the club, Mike Ashley and the future Managing Director, whoever that might be.
Since Kinnear’s return to the club, the first lazy stereotype of uninformed newspaper hacks was that Kinnear was putting a stop to the foreign signings because he’d never heard of them, that he was looking to sign more Kevin Nolans and Ryan Taylors, and also that Carr was set to walk out of the club in disgust. However, if you cast your mind to his time as interim manager at Newcastle, Kinnear was actually exploring the French market long before Carr came to the club. One transfer target Kinnear bid for was potential Butt replacement, Stephane Mbia, then a Stade Rennais player who eventually moved to Marseilles for over £10 million and eventually, QPR. There were others too such as Toulouse right back Albin Ebondo, who was looked at by Kinnear before he eventually moved to St Etienne. (more…)
Christopher Jullien – He’s a very big lad.Well, I hadn’t seen a great deal of the previous subject of my little mini series of players being followed by Graham Carr, EA Guingamp’s Gilbert Imbula Wanga, but I have seen even less of this tall (6’5″) Centre Back from another Ligue 2 side, AJ Auxerre.
I have only seen the compilation below and a few very small bits on the Ligue 2 highlights I picked up on YouTube, plus a very brief glance of him in a film on Carr himself. Hence, I can write even less from personal experience, and am pretty much totally reliant on a few snippets about the player online. In other words, not alot!
As you will see from the highlights video below, at the start at least it looks more like a collection of “bloopers” than “highlights,” with the defender being shown in the worst possible light. In many of the better bits, he is mostly at the other end of the pitch using his height as a target man heading crosses at goal. The player can’t really be assessed to any degree from that though. (more…)
Imbula: A midfield General of the future?The first in my mini series on players being followed by Newcastle United’s chief scout Graham Carr is the much fancied 20 year old, Gilbert Imbula from French Ligue 2 side, Guingamp.
Though Imbula is yet another central midfielder, and yet another player from France, he does look like a very talented central midfielder who could well be a top player in the fullness of time, the downside being that Carr isn’t the only scout to realise this, as he has also being watched by Carr’s collegues from the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea and probably several others too.
Before I proceed further, I must issue a warning that I usually like to watch players in several full matches before I write about them. However, when it comes to the lower leagues overseas, obviously this is much more difficult. Hence, I must admit that I have not seen much more of this player than the videos you can see below, so please bear this in mind! (more…)
A curse or a blessing?Well not if your surname is “Ferguson,” “Wenger” or “Mourinho” perhaps, but for most, if not quite all of the others who won the award, it has seemingly been a ticket to disaster, despair, and possibly permanent career oblivion, or at least a prelude to a big dent in the manager’s CV.
In this story, I will take a look at many of the previous winners for whom the award seemed to be more of a curse than a blessing. So, lets take a look at the prevous victims of the curse, and also ask if Newcastle United’s very own Silver Supremo, Alan Pardew, might be another one.
Kenny Dalglish (Premier League Manager of the Season 1994–95).
When Kenny Dalglish won the Premier League “Manager of the Season” award for 1994-5, he was the golden boy of the football management world, just as he had been as a player in the years before that. With a little help from his most illustrious predecessor Bob Paisley, he had won three league titles, two FA Cup titles and four Charity Shields as manager of Liverpool. Moving on to Blackburn Rovers, he then took them to promotion, and even the 1994-5 Premiership title in their third Premiership campaign and it was for this that he received his award. (more…)
