I wondered where I'd left themThe stretchering off of Newcastle United’s Hatem Ben Arfa has raised some questions (at least with this writer) about whether we are indeed an injury-prone club.
As I write this, we sit at the top of the Premier League injury table alongside Spurs and the rabble from down the road and my perception is that we get a lot of injuries compared to other teams.
However, my perception might be clouded by the fact that I support Newcastle, so I set about trying to find some historical stats about injuries and – in the main – failed dismally to do so. I did find a site called LadyArse – a gooners’ fan site – which does contain an injury list that has us 5th, but I can’t vouch for the accuracy of said table.
Another thing that might cloud my perception is that injuries to key players are obviously noticed more than those to squad players, and we seem to have had a lot of those in recent seasons too.
So I guess my first question is: do we get a lot of injuries for a Premier League club? (more…)
Birmingham target, allegedlyBirmingham allegedly want Newcastle’s Leon Best. Dan Gosling and Hatem Ben Arfa gets in some early pre-season training. And Michael Owen seems to have upset a few people.
With all the speculation about who we might be buying, I’d quite forgotten that other teams might want some of our players other than Jose Enrique.
If you believe the Mail (no tittering), freshly relegated Birmingham are after Leon Best to replace Cameron Jerome who Alex McLeish seems resigned to losing. I actually thought Leon Best did a decent job for us last season, getting 6 goals in 12 games, and of all our current strikers he’s the one I’d most like to keep, but I guess it depends on who we bring in over the summer to enhance our goal-scoring capabilities.
How much do you think Best is worth anyway?
Both Dan Gosling and Hatem Ben Arfa have made an early return for pre-season training to ensure that they’re fully fit for next season. (more…)
Injured, as usual.Michael Owen hints that Newcastle United were a ‘poor team’ when he was playing for them.
Michael Owen, who has recently signed a deal to keep him at Man Utd for another year, has allegedly had a bit of a pop at the Toon. According to Twitty, he said:
“Just to answer some of your tweets. Prefer playing less often in a top team than every game in a poor team. Been there and didn’t enjoy it.
“Training every day at a high standard keeps you performing at a high level. I’m sure I have a lot to offer and so does the boss. Buzzing!”
Unfortunately he’s right – we were indeed a poor team when he was playing for us. Or should I say we were a poor team when he was queueing up outside the treatment room for us.
But despite his factual accuracy, I can’t help but feel there’s some bitterness from Owen about the criticism thrown in his direction from Newcastle fans when he upped sticks and left us relegated without so much as a by your leave. It just seemed like he didn’t care and that rankled. (more…)
Owen: "1 boo and the rest follow".Ex Newcastle United striker, Michael Owen, who was a late substitute for Manchester United in yesterday evening’s game against the Magpies, has been giving it both barrels about Newcastle fans on his ‘Twitter’ page, where he humbly refers to himself as ‘the’ Michael Owen, to avoid confusion with a web developing namesake on the ‘micro-blogging’ site.
Owen, who had a disappointing career plagued by injury on Tyneside after being signed by Graeme Souness in August, 2005, complained that his reception was “disappointing”, later claiming that he played well under Kevin Keegan, and that both Newcastle and Liverpool fans “respect” what he’s done for their clubs when he meets them. Amongst other things, fans chanted “There’s only one greedy bastard” as he made his late entry as an 82nd minute substitute in the game.
To be fair, the pint sized assassin did give credit to the Newcastle side for a good performance against the League leaders. In his first post-gane ‘tweet’ he wrote:
“Disappointing result but credit to Newcastle, they played well and put us under plenty of pressure especially in the first half an hour.”
Same old Shearer, always scoring.Andy Carroll looks set to start for England tomorrow where he will pick up his first senior international cap against France at Wembley.
Fair play to the lad as he deserves his chance. I just hope he doesn’t pick up an injury that will keep him out of action for his club!
Anyway, I digress. It’s been a pretty meteoric rise to the top for the Gateshead lad. Just twenty months ago he was a was a benchwarmer, a young whipper-snapper with a bad reputation. At 21-years-old, he still is a whipper-snapper, and he remains as controversial now as he was back then, but his stock on the football field has risen rapidly, to the point where he is about to become the next Newcastle player to lead the line for England.
Newcastle have been blessed with English goal-scorers, certainly in recent years anyway, and it’s those years that I am going to cover in this article. I will, of course, be looking for your input on this, which will hopefully lead to a good healthy debate about England forwards that Newcastle have had on their books in years gone by. So, where do we start? (more…)
