It's Demba Ba day on NUFC Blog!Demba Ba got his Newcastle goal tally up and running against Blackburn on Saturday at Saint James’ Park in sensational fashion.
After early indifference from some, when he was not quite up to pace due to his religious commitments, he’s slowly started to build his fitness. He started to show some of his movement, touch and hold up ability last week versus Villa and before that in a brief cameo at home against Fulham.
Like all players coming into a new club, and in this case a ‘new’ team, it was always going to require a little patience while he found his feet and got to know his new team mates and surroundings.
Well it seems he has!
What a cracking first goal for your club at home his first strike turned out to be! (more…)
Demba Ba: Hat-trick hero and M.O.T.M performance.Right, let’s have some ratings for the Blackburn win!
It was pretty much good stuff all round with a decent showing from a team that’s starting to gel. Very few black marks, the odd smudge, but nothing we couldn’t surmount.
Here goes!
Tim Krul 7.5:
Tim is fast becoming yet another top Toon ‘keeper and Toon legend at a young age. He did most things well, well, he didn’t have too much to do! Maybe needs to bark at his retreating defenders a bit to get them into position when facing an attack, as it was a case of players stood waiting for the shot that got Blackburn back into the game with a goal. Not wholly his problem though.
Danny Simpson 7:
Getting better with every game. His only smudge was backing off a bit when Olsson put the cross in for Hoilett to score. Got up the field to support (even in the dying minutes), but got back to defend. Good fitness too. (more…)
In all the numerous striker targets Newcastle United were linked with and failed to “get over the line”, one name seemed to be something of an afterthought, though according to his current club, German Bundeliga side, Freiburg, Newcastle United actually did made a late bid for Papiss Demba Cissé which was refused.
Newcastle were reported to have bid around £7 million for Demba Ba’s 26 year old Senegalese striking teammate, though there didn’t seem to be any official confirmation of the amount, just that a bid was made. One thing which is certain though, he is worth quite a bit more than £7 million and his current contract contains a release clause of around £14 million. Though such release clauses, which are quite common on the mainland of Europe, are usually inflated in terms of the players real value, in this case it isn’t. (more…)
Krul: Sparkling form.After the victory over a very average Fulham team, it is still far from being all rosy in the NUFC garden.
Apart from the obviously self imposed transfer chaos, club policies, missing transfer revenues and off field dramas filling up the headlines before, during and after the game, some fans don’t seem content with another vital three points and are fault finding at every opportunity. I am dismayed at the criticism being directed towards Newcastle and Holland’s current Number 1 after arguably his man of the match performance on Sunday?
It is has been an excellent start to the season with the momentum picking up nicely on the pitch and we are looking in decent shape so i am quietly optimistic that with a few extra faces though the door before deadline day, we should be ok this season.
But am I in the minority when it comes to Tim krul?(more…)
On the news of former Inter Milan defender, Davide Santon, to Newcastle United, I have trawled the Interweb for some more extensive videos of our new player. The ones I have posted above and below are merely a quick taste from ‘YouTube’. No less than 69 more videos of the player in action are available for download here. They encompass extended Santon action from the last three seasons and more.
Alternatively, they are also available here, either to watch on YouTube once again, or to download to your own machine using ‘megaupload.com’. It’s a Polish site, so click on ‘Zobacz’ to watch the streaming clips, or ‘Pobierz’ to download the files. (more…)
