Pardew: Problems at the rear.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…)
On their way to SJP? Probably not.I was thinking about this recently – if I was sitting down writing my letter to Santa Ashley c/o the Sports Direct North Pole, what would I want as a Newcastle United fan this Christmas?
I suppose the first thing I’d ask is for Santa not to take any of our best players away and deliver them as presents to the boys and girls who’ve been good at other clubs. But knowing the track record of Ashley in dealing with transfer business I don’t suppose that’s very realistic. If the money is right, the presents will be delivered. So I’m left with the line from the current Fosters TV advert ringing in my ears “that thing you’re thinking? It won’t be that!”.
So let’s concentrate on what we could get – the positives. We believe that Santa Ashley has already got Modibo Maiga wrapped up in Christmas paper and hanging in our Christmas stocking. That pressie sounds like a really good one, with the mouth-watering prospect of Maiga lining up alongside Demba Ba as a perfect foil for our top scorer. (more…)
Taye Taiwo in actionIt would appear from various reports in the media that Newcastle United had hoped to resurrect the deal to sign Erik Pieters from PSV Eindhoven during the January transfer window. However the Dutch club are not willing to part with the Holland international according to quotes attributed to their Sporting Director, Marcel Brand.
As a result, speculation is rife that United have turned their attention to AC Milan player Taye Taiwo. He’s a left-footed left back – wouldn’t that be a novelty!
At 26, the Nigerian is probably getting on a bit in terms of the player profile owner Mike Ashley will usually agree to spend money on, however it may be a runner as United are only talking about a loan deal at the moment. Taiwo only joined the “Rossoneri” over the summer, but he’s finding it tough to feature regularly in the team. He has played in just two Serie A games and four Champions League ties so far this season.
According to Italian sources, United are said to be prepared to offer Milan €1m to make the deal possible. They would also get an option to buy him outright at the end of the season.
The Player
After starting out playing for a couple of clubs in Nigeria and then moving to Marseilles, he signed for AC Milan on On 9 May 2011. He made his debut with the club on 24 September 2011 in the home league match won 1–0 against Cesena. (more…)
AVB: "Show a bit more respect" says Pardew.I’ve always had my doubts about some Chelsea fans, most notably their intellectual ability and capacity for absorbing and understanding larger chunks of information. I mean, I can only speak as I find and the one’s I’ve met at various games haven’t really come across as the brightest buttons in the box.
Lately my fears have been confirmed by the London media, who have even had to dumb down the name of the Chelsea manager for them, as they just can’t cope with, never mind pronounce, his name. So the mightily named Luís André de Pina Cabral e Villas-Boas who is known in shorthand to the rest of the world as André Villas-Boas has had to be further shortened to simply AVB for the benefit of their poor fans.
Why is this significant?
Well, you may have noticed that there is a war of words going on at the moment between “AVB” and United manager Alan Pardew. If you have read some of the Chelsea fan blogs at the moment you will find the strangest, wierdest logic being applied to anything Alan Pardew has uttered on the subject. So my point is, when reading such blogs, bear in mind they are written by people who need to call their manager “AVB”. By the way, I’ve continued to use “AVB” here so that any Chelsea fans reading this can skip the big words and try to follow the story. (more…)
Highlights of our disappointing 4-2 defeat at the hands of Delia Smith’s Canaries at Carrow Road. As usual, I will endeavour to update these when better, longer ones become available.
Alan Pardew went into this game matching his opponents with a two big lads upfront appraoch, forsaking Ben Arfa for the silky skills of Shola Ameobi. However despite their good work upfront, a patched up Magpies’ defence found themselves outmuscled in the air by the powerful Norwich frontmen, Steve Morison and Grant Holt, who scored three goals between them in this 4-2 victory for the home side.
Newcastle did settle into the game more quickly than Norwich in the first ten minutes, but there were no big chances either way. The first real shot coming from Cabaye in the ninth minute after a fairly poor lay off from Ba, but it was straight at the Norwich keeper. However there was a scary moment for the Magpies fairly early in the game when Davide Santon handled the ball in the area. The referee didn’t give a penalty, but after looking at it a few times, both Santon and Newcastle United were very lucky to get away with that one! (more…)
