What's your choice?Alan Pardew has so far favoured the 4-4-2 formation at Newcastle United, but will that remain the favoured formation in the long-term when we have a fully fit squad?
The recent disclosure by Alan Pardew that he seems to see Leon Best as Hatem Ben Arfa’s main competition for a starting place in the team got me to thinking about formations in general.
Since Pardew has been here we’ve mainly stuck to a standard 4-4-2 formation, but is that out of necessity or choice?
Does Alan Pardew have a particular preference for 4-4-2 or is it just that he thinks it best suits our current available players?
When we have a fully fit squad, we would seem to have a lot of midfielders vying for a place: Jonas, Tiote, Barton, Nolan, Gosling, Ireland, Ben Arfa … possibly even Ryan Taylor and Danny Guthrie.
Now, if Pardew is thinking that Ben Arfa is a replacement for Best, are we looking at:
——– Striker — Ben Arfa ——–
Jonas — Nolan — Tiote — Barton
Jose — Colo — Williamson — Simpson
————— Harper —————–
That would leave Ireland and Gosling as ‘swaps’ in the midfield, either as subs or replacements if another players gets an injury or has a bad run of form. (more…)
Look, it was her or Keegan. Sorry Kev.Ex Newcastle United manager Kevin Keegan has been doubting Pardew will see much of the £35m we got from Carroll, Nolan tried to drink his way to international stardom and Nile Ranger nails a glamour model.
Wor Kev has been talking to Radio 5 and doesn’t fancy Alan Pardew’s chances of seeing much of the £35m the club got for Andy Carroll. Keegan said:
“I saw an interview with Alan Pardew where he said he hoped to get some of the £35 million and I thought ‘Alan, you ain’t going to get any of that’.”
Well, time will tell on that front. Keegan goes on to say that he’d have sold Carroll for £35m, but he was also critical of last minute sales like that as he’d have wanted to get a replacement for any player sold. Keegan said:
“I think £35 million for Andy Carroll … if I’d been manager I’d have taken it.
“But how can you spend it on the last day of the transfer window?
“My big argument was that we were selling James Milner for a lot of money – probably above the value we put on him – and I said, ‘Please don’t sell him before we get someone in’.
“The reason I didn’t want them to put that out and to hold on a little longer was so I could get a good value signing. It’s business. It’s a sensible way to do to do it.
“If you sell Milner for £11 million then they say, ‘If he’s worth £11 million, our guy must be worth £9 million’.” (more…)
As a prelude to the morra’s clash with Tottenham, here’s one of the highlights of the Keegan “Entertainers” era involving both teams.
This magificent drubbing actually came after something of a barren spell for Kevin Keegan’s squad, and also after the disappointment of “that” season when we almost cracked it, and Keegan cracked up under the pressure of Alex Ferguson’s psycho-war. (more…)
Hughton accepting the award.Ex Newcastle United manager, Chris Hughton won the “North East Sports Personality of the Year Award” at the BBC North East and Cumbria Regional Sports Awards yesterday evening.
The event, held at The University of Sunderland, saw Chris winning the award despite being sacked as Newcastle manager in December of last year, supposedly for being too inexperienced to manage the club in the Premier League. He was, of course, replaced with current manager, Alan Pardew.
The judges commented that Hughton received the award because they were:
“Impressed with his quiet determination and skilful handling of what was at times a tricky situation.”
Newcastle United also received the “Team of the Year” award for their achievements under Hughton, including being promoted to The Premier League as champions with a massive 102 points.
Speaking at the award, Hughton was asked if he was “a little bit hurt by the way it all ended.”
Farewell, but not goodbye.It is with extreme sadness that I am announcing my intention to cease writing articles for NUFCBlog.org.
But I just wanted to pen one last article to thank each and every one of you for being so supportive during my writing tenure on this very site. So here goes.
A couple of years ago I only ever used to post comments on blogs and forums and never really thought about getting involved in the writing side of things.
I always thought, never having being the best at creative writing, in fact writing full stop, that I would never be any good at it. I guess that is something that is up to each individuals taste I guess, whether I was any good with writing articles, but I decided to ask and see if I could give it a go, and Workyticket very kindly gave me the opportunity to do so on here.
I’ve made many friends on here and try to get on with everyone, although obviously things get heated from time to time. Still, I caught the bug and enjoyed writing about everything that happened to be going on at our beloved Newcastle United at any given time. Usually there is quite a lot to talk about when it comes to NUFC! (more…)
