Venue: St James’ Park, Newcastle. Date: Saturday 17th Dec, 2011. Kick-off: 3.00pm. Referee: Lee Mason.
With the Magpies still lickng their wounds after a 4-2 mauling by some powerful Canaries, they return to their nest at St James’ Park to face another bird attack, this time from the Swans of Swansea.
In case you were wondering about the title, Newcastle United are not the only team to have a very promising flying Dutchman between the sticks. Tim Krul’s biggest competitor for the Netherland’s substitute goalkeeper slot (behind Roma’s Maarten Stekelenburg) is Swansea’s £1.5 million bargain buy from Utrecht, Michel Vorm. Like his Dutch compatriot, Vorm has also played a significant role in his team’s good start to the Premiership season. The unfancied Swans have certainly been no ugly ducklings in a fairly respectable 11th place, which is quite an achievement for a team on their budget and in their first season after promotion. However, as in our previous game against those other Premiership underdogs, Norwich City, it will be other areas of Pardew’s back end where attention will be focused, but more on that in the team news… (more…)
The last in the series of our player reviews for the 09/10 season will take a look at our strikers and how they have done this season.
We have already worked our way through the team starting with goalkeepers before moving onto have a look at our defence and midfield. Our strikers have been very important for us this season and have combined to score over half of our goals this season, 47 of them in fact, and they have been spread pretty evenly between the various front men. For the first half of the season we spent our time playing mainly one striker with Kevin Nolan in an attcking support role, something that has probably helped Nolan score so many goals whilst limiting the chance of any strikers hitting the 20 goal mark. Still, it’s a team game as the saying goes, and as long as the ball is hitting the back of the net I don’t really care which player scores them. Let’s take a look anyway. (more…)
Many Toon fans had a certain amount of unease about the prospect of the January transfer window. Given the previous few windows under Mike Ashley, and a seemingly ruthless intent to slash the wage bill since our relegation, optimism wasn’t exactly flowing!
Add to that a glut of injuries that started to pile up, loan players returning to their respective clubs, and a series of uninspiring draws on the pitch, and you could see why people were starting to feel like the bubble had burst! So just what has happened in January?
We kicked off the month losing Marlon Harewoodand Zurab Khizanishviliwho both moved back to their original clubs, leaving us 2 players lighter. However,with interest in highly rated Leeds striker, Jermaine Beckord, things looked a bit more positive. Beckford handed in a written transfer request at the start of the month, adding fuel to the fire that he could be on his way to Tyneside. A sequence of bids up to the value of £1.8 million were subsequently knocked back by the Leeds board, with Ken Bates adding that manager Simon Grayson didn’t wan’t to sell the striker. The move pretty much died there.
Danny Simpson, on a 6 month loan from Manchester United limped out what seemed to be his last game for The Toon against West Brom, recieveing a fantastic ovation from the fans for his efforts at Newcastle as he was bing replaced. Simpson had always maintained that he loved playing at Newcastle, that the fans are fantastic and that he wanted to stay. A deal was agreed with Manchester United to make the move permanent but the player couldn’t agree personal teams and we looked resigned to losing him. (more…)
Hot on the heels of the totally unexpected coup of Wayne Routledge from QPR, Chris Hughton has gone on record to say that he’s targeting Everton’s James Vaughan to fill the void left by Marlon Harewood. In view of missing out on Leeds striker Jermaine Beckford, it was expected that Hughton would turn again to the Aston Villa striker after his steady if unspectacular loan spell.
However, with news that Harewood has suffered a broken bone in his foot whilst training with Villa, Hughton has turned his attentions to Vaughan instead. Speaking to local press, including the Chronicle and Shields Gazette, Hughton had this to say:
“Everybody’s aware we’ve been looking for a striker,”
“We missed out on our main target, and everybody knows who that was, and I’d have taken back Marlon had he not been injured badly.”
“James Vaughan is a player we’re aware of, and one we’re interested in, but I don’t know if that one will happen.”(more…)
Well here it is, the third and final chapter of my mid-term player review. And a topical area for discussion, as speculation remains over a move for Leeds Utd’s Jermaine Beckford, or A.N. Other should we fail in that bid.
The No.9 shirt is almost as synonymous with Newcastle United, as St James’ Park, the black and white stripes or that deed funny accent we’ve got. It’s been made particularly special in this part of the world because it’s been worn by some of the best players this country has seen. The likes of Gallacher, Milburn, MacDonald, Cole, Shearer have graced that shirt and it will undoubtedly always be a big shirt to fill.
Ironic then, given that the No.9 shirt and the prestige it carries with it is currently up for grabs, that we have a group of strikers who fall somewhat short of the standards we’ve come to expect from our centre-floorboards, and that none of them look like earning that honour just yet, particularly in this current barren spell…..