For the sake of poor fans says Llambias.Newcastle United’s Managing Director, Derek Llambias, has been speaking to David Conn for yesterday’s Guardian.
In the interview he spoke on how he has received so much abuse from Geordie ingrates that he doesn’t hear it any more, how Mike Ashley told him that he would have “a horrible job” in May 2008, just before he took over as managing director to oversee Ashley’s Sports Directification of the club, how the club spent all of the £35 million Andy Carroll money (although the club made a mighty profit of £36.731 million on player trading without amortisation in their last set of published accounts). Conn also wrote of many other things Llambias supposedly revealed to him in what is a rather fawning piece overall.
Irritatingly, for much of the “interview,” Conn give his own version of what Llambias told him, rather than just giving the quotes themselves in something which reads like a PR piece, something Llambias usually reserves for his friends at Mirror Group titles such as the Mirror, People, Chronicle and Journal. But I digress. (more…)
A previous battle at Stamford Bridge.Venue: Stamford Bridge, The Big Smoke. Date: Weds, 2nd May, 2012. Kick-Off: 7.45pm. Referee: Mark Halsey (Lancashire).
Well, it couldn’t be much closer now in the race for Europe’s premier international club competition, with Newcastle United currently being the meat in a London sandwich.
In the words of Brian Moore, “It’s all up for grabs now!” with Chelsea a mere point behind us, and only goal difference seperating the Magpies and the fighting cocks of Tottenham Hotspur. In other words, this game is without doubt the most crucial so far after our capitulation to an excellent Wigan side on Saturday. Unless of course, Chelsea go and win this years Champions League final, in which case Chelsea would definitely be the fourth team to go through, making everything else academic. One thing that is for sure is that we should at least find ourselves in the Europa League at least.
Stats, previous matches etc…
In our previous meeting (at St James’ Park last December) Chelsea ran out as 3-0 winners, with Didier Drogba, Salomon Kalou and Daniel Sturridge doing the honours for the Pensioners. (more…)
Venue: D.W. Stadium, Wigan. Date: Saturday, 28th April, 2012. Kick-Off: 3.00pm. Referee: Mike Dean (The Wirral).
Aye, we lost, and we lost badly too, but painful as that is, the match is still worth watching for the beauty of Wigan’s play in the first half in what was a masterful performance from Roberto Martinez and the Wigan team. They actually lined up like a highly defensive 5-4-1 at the start, then quiclkly morphed into a highly offensive Cruyffian 3-4-3 formation which just devastated the Magpies in short order. Painful as it was to watch as a Newcastle United fan, as a lover of the game it was also quite beautiful to see such verve and flexibilty from Wigan. The first half was some of the best football I have seen all season, and no disrespect, but it was Wigan, not Barcelona! Once again, fair play to ’em! Why do they always leave it so late though?
Wigan - Coming good just in time?Venue: D.W. Stadium, Wigan. Date: Saturday, 28th April, 2012. Kick-Off: 3.00pm. Referee: Mike Dean (The Wirral Whistler).
Hmm, well despite the large difference in the Magpies’ and the Latics’ respective league positions, this could well be an interesing game.
Roberto Martinez and Atletico Wigan’s progress has followed a fairly similar pattern to that of last season, ie staring into the abyss most of the time, then finally pulling themselves together for a string of stylish and surprising results which look like pulling them out of the mire at the eleventh hour, well they would if fellow strugglers, Queen’s Park Rangers hadn’t decided to pull off one or two surprising results of their own as the Premiership season edges towards it’s denouement. The catalyst for this change in form seems to have been a switch from what has looked like a 4-5-1 formation earlier in the season, to a highly offensive Cruyffian style 3-4-3 formation from Señor Martinez. Of course, our Silver Supremo, Alan Pardiola, has been on a similar road to Damascus recently, switching from his old 4-4-2 to more attacking 4-3-3 which has reaped remarkable dividends with the electrifying form of players such as Hatem Ben Arfa and new boy, Papiss Cisse, leading the way.
Amalfitano: Bringing "Champagne football" to Newcastle?As regular readers of this site will know, we usually bring you the hottest Toon news first.
Well, back in early March, I wildly speculated reported that Stade de Reims midfielder, Romain Amalfitano, had signed a pre contract agreement with Newcastle United. In truth, I wasn’t quite the first to report it. The Independent ran a fairly insignificant story reporting that Derek Llambias was “happy” with the club’s latest set of accounts, but tacked on to the end was this:
“The club yesterday completed the signing of the French winger Romain Amalfitano from Reims on a three-year deal.”
Which was odd. No one seemed to take a blind bit of notice of it at the time apart from yours truly, so I did some background research on it, eventually tracking back to this story from the in France sports journal, “L’Equipe”, which went as follows (according to my rough as a bear’s arse French translation):
“Scoring three times this season with Reims, who will rise, Romain Amalfitano will have caught the eye of recruiters from Newcastle, who will recruit for next season. According to our information, a three year contract has been proposed to the young attacking midfielder (22 years old). He arrived in Champagne in 2010 from Evian Thonon Gaillard F.C. and will be out of contract in June.” (more…)
