Who's best?Looking back over Newcastle United’s last two seasons since we were promoted from the Championship, one thing it’s hard to argue with is that most of the club’s major signings have been a success.
Much of the credit for this has gone to the club’s current chief scout, Graham Carr, who was brought into the club in February 2010 by previous manager and Carr’s former Tottenham colleague, Chris Hughton. Of the players included below, Carr was involved in all but three of them (James Perch, Demba Ba and Gabriel Obertan).
I have listed eight of the signings made since the club was promoted below. Of course, there have been more but I have left out more peripheral members of the squad such as temporary loanees like Stephen Ireland and Sheffki Kuqi, bairns for the future such as Mehdi Abeid, those who haven’t been able to make much of an impact one way or the other through injury such as Sylvain Marveaux and so on. All of the players listed below have made at least ten first team competitive appearences; here’s a brief résumé of their Toon histories so far. (more…)
The Silver Supremo blesses the multitudes.Newcastle United manager, Alan Pardew, has been voted as Barclays “Manager of the Season” for 2011/12, after an excellent season which has seen the Magpies claim a place in European competition for the first time since the days of Glenn Roeder’s Newcastle United “Dream Team” in the 2005/6 season.
Depending on our result against Everton on Sunday, and a few other things going our way too, it could still even be top four and the Champions League!
Alan succeeds Alex Ferguson (2011) and Harry Redknapp (2010) in winning this award, and he was selected by a panel appointed by current sponsors, Barclays. Interestingly, this is the first time it has ever been awarded to a Newcastle United manager. Despite coming second (and third) in the League with one of the most exciting teams of the ‘nineties, Kevin Keegan never won it, and neither did Kenny Dalglish for achieving the same feat in a rather more prosaic style, and getting us to two FA Cup finals, after Keegan’s departure. Not even the most popular man in football in his day, the late, great Sir Bobby Robson didn’t manage it despite two top four finishes and a fifth.
So, our congratulations to our Silver Supremo!(more…)
Deal dead in the water now?Does the latest injury to Newcastle United target Erik Pieters scupper any chance of a transfer?
23 year-old PSV left back Erik Pieters has been an alleged target for Newcastle United for quite some time now. Last summer we reportedly offered PSV €7m for the player and PSV went so far as to say the offer was ‘good’ in terms of amount but they withdrew from negotiations when they couldn’t be sure of getting a replacement for him before the transfer window closed.
The idea that we might still sign him has been bubbling under ever since and back in April The Mirror reported that it was pretty much a ‘done deal’.
If you remember, Pieters suffered a foot injury back in October which kept him out of action for four months, and he suffered another foot injury last month the puts him out for the rest of the season and scuppers his chances of playing for The Netherlands in Euro 2012. The first injury was a broken metatarsal and the second injury is a hairline fracture, but I can’t find anything to say whether the injuries are related or even if they’re to the same foot.
Back in mid-April Pieters still hoped to be fit for Euro 2012 when he said:
“It is very disappointing news. I will strictly adhere to the medical team’s rehabilitation programme. The gravity of the injury will be known in three weeks. I will give 200 per cent to get back to match fitness.” (more…)
Half Full Or Half Empty?Like most United fans, I’m over the moon at how well the team have fared this season. The fact that we’ll be finishing at least fifth and qualifying for the Europa League is way above what I expected before a ball was kicked. There is no doubt that Newcastle United have had a very successful season. However, I’m one of those people who can’t help but do the “if’s, buts and maybes” thing at this point in a season, and I know there are quite a few other people out there doing it too.
You know the sort of thing – staring at the league table, seeing we’re only one point behind Tottenham, two points behind Arsenal, wondering what might have been….”if only…”. I find it difficult not to revisit some of the happenings and add the points which might have been. Of course there has to be a cut-off point otherwise we can find reasons why we should have won every game! But there are indeed some happenings which are the most obvious – here’s my list: (more…)
Thumbs-up to fans, says PardewAlan Pardew praises Newcastle United fans for their support this season and reckons the fans have been worth an extra place or two for the team.
So, just the one game to go then. And then what are we going to have in terms of football until next season? Well I suppose there’ll be the Euro’s to keep to keep us amused, although I’m finding it hard to raise any enthusiasm for England at the moment. One thing we will have though is a fair few extra fixtures next season thanks to European qualification and, assuming we don’t manage a miracle next weekend, that’s looking like it’ll be the Europa League.
If we finish 5th, we’d start in the Play-Offs, which take place on the 23rd and 30th of August but if we get bumped down to the 3rd qualifier – maybe due to Chelsea winning the Champions League or us only managing to finish 6th – then we’d have two ties ahead of that on the 2nd and 9th of August.
There will of course be plenty of rumours about players leaving and joining during the summer and it will be interesting to see how our squad looks at the end of the summer transfer window, which opens in July. We’ve already had press reports about teams who might ‘swoop’ for our players and on the weekend the press was suggesting Arsenal would be in for taking both Yohan Cabaye and Demba Ba. As is often the case with such reports, no evidence by way of direct quotes from any official at the club has been offered, so it’s probably all tosh. (more…)
