Owen: A bit of backtracking.“Newcastle fans, following my Football Focus interview, plenty of you tweeting me saying you don’t blame me for getting injured but for leaving when we got relegated.”
“Despite the club saying they did, they didn’t ever offer me a new contract despite them putting it in the press that they did. How could they when they had just been relegated? It would have been financial suicide. I’ve seen it a million times, a club will blatantly lie to their fans to take the moral high ground leaving the player with no leg to stand on. I’ve taken the stick for years which is fine but you really don’t know half of it. All will be revealed one day.”
Tweeted Michael Owen on his final season at Newcastle United. Then however, he backtracked somewhat, updating his Twitter with the following:
“Just to clarify. My tweet yesterday referred to no contract offer after Newcastle relegation. Which I said was understandable. Newcastle did make me an offer to extend in 2008 when Joe Kinnear was manager. Apologies to the club if there has been any confusion. I just didn’t want the fans to think I had deserted the club after relegation. I didn’t.” (more…)
McManaman – No further action from the FA.The FA have finally made their statement on Callum McManaman’s vicious attack on Massadio Haïdara’s knee on Sunday, with news that they will be taking no further action.
In their statement on the assault, they claimed that “at least one” of the match officials saw the incident and chose not to take any further action at the time, hence they are powerless to take any further action. It read as follows:
“The FA can confirm that no action can be taken against Wigan Athletic’s Callum McManaman retrospectively following his side’s game against Newcastle United on Sunday 17 March 2013.
“Following consultation with the game’s stakeholders (the Premier League, the Football League, the Professional Footballers’ Association, the League Managers’ Association, Professional Game Match Officials Limited and the National Game) in the summer, it was agreed that retrospective action should only be taken in respect of incidents which have not been seen by the match officials.(more…)
Pardew: Pumping his little fist once again.Many thanks to “ToonBano” from the Toon blog www.toonbano.com for his sixth guest blog here – wt.
As I get over the shock of actually winning a game from behind for the first time in over two years and trying to get my head around winning back to back victories for the first time this season, something amongst our latest turn in fortune has jumped out at me (apart from the new signings) and that is the system. A formation of 4-2-3-1 has been paramount throughout recent weeks and it’s about bloody time. Maybe it’s because Demba Ba is no longer in a black ‘n’ white shirt as he gets his head kicked in by Coloccini but the ‘Hoofball 4-4-2’ days seem to be over. Are they over for good?
If this is the case and we are no longer subjected to the nonsense of lumping it up to the strikers, even when we are losing, then Pardew deserves some credit for finally seeing the light. After all it’s in my opinion that it was this factor of a pre-historic style of football that was holding this club back over anything else. Not the injuries or the Europa League, but the totally cowardly non-attempt at even trying to play to our strengths and actually play some football. Our long ball stats are dropping like a stone with every game that goes by. Thank the Lord. (more…)
Captain Colo: The latest vistim of made up media stories?There has been much talk amongst fans in the past few weeks on the situation with Newcastle United’s captain, Fabricio Coloccini.
While there is no doubt that the player is having personal problems at the moment, that he made a request to go back and join his family in Argentina, and that one of his previous clubs, San Lorenzo (where Coloccini’s father Osvaldo works as a youth coach) tried to take advantage of the player’s personal problems by making an audacious attempt to sign the player for free, and finally that the situation has now been resolved until the end of this season at least, there have been other things have been repeated as facts in the media which were completely unsubstantiated.
Is this just the usual dishonest media tripe? Or was a “deep throat” who was party to the negotiations leaking information?
One example without a byeline in the Daily Express confidentally proclaimed: (more…)
Laurent Blanc: Why not?Many thanks to “ToonBano” from the Toon blog www.toonbano.com for his fifth guest blog here – wt.
Apologies for the sensationalist headline but bear with me there’s a point to it. My patience with Alan Pardew has been down to a thread for most of this season (just have a little look in my archive section to see the proof), but since that Brighton humiliation the thread has snapped. For good. The man is totally incompetent at his role and how he manages to get away with it without any real criticism in the footballing world is astonishing. His greatest talent is being soaked in Teflon it seems.
To the eye of the realistic, honest and well informed Newcastle United supporter, his incompetence does not go unnoticed however. In fact, it drives us up the wall! When you look at every aspect of the Newcastle Utd managers responsibilities he holds, it is quite reasonable to say that the one we have in place has failed at almost every single one of them. I’ll name a few and you decide whether he gets a ‘pass’ or a ‘fail’: (more…)
