Exit door loomsWith Enrique looking more and more destined to leave Newcastle United as each day passes and with Neil Taylor signing a new deal at Swansea, the left-back situation is now a priority for the club.
Newcastle are now pretty much resigned to the fact that they’ll have to hunt for a new left-back before the summer’s out. It seems fairly odds-on now that Jose Enrique will leave and last week Alan Pardew said:
“The noises coming out of Jose’s camp are that he wants to get a new club playing Champions League football.
“We cannot offer him that at the moment, so that seems to be his focus. Hopefully that will change. It is a moving feast. We have got to be ready because if he goes, it is going to leave a big hole in the team and we need to fill it quickly. But he does travel to the United States with us.
“It is not ideal for us, as you can imagine. It is difficult. We have offered him a massive contract for this football club and he does not seem to want to sign it, so it is a very difficult position.
“We have had no concrete offers, but we are going to try and have contingency plans in place so that if we do lose X, then Y comes in.
“We are going to have to give ourselves some sort of chance, so that the deadline-day struggle we had after selling Andy Carroll does not happen again. We not want to be in the same position as last time.” (more…)
Pardew: No more anarchy at Benton.Alan Pardew has informed us that the lack of discipline that crept in under previous managers such as Chris Hughton and Alan Shearer will no longer be tolerated at the club.
Speaking in a rare interview, the tough talking, no nonsense supremo called time on the anarchy in and around the club’s Benton training ground.
On the lack of discipline when he arrived at the club he remarked:
“Just in and around the training ground it was a little bit loose.
“You know, a big club like Newcastle, I think it’s important that you have disciplines that carry on through the season, and obviously coming in mid way through the season I didn’t really put them in force so, and I think we’ve all had the benefits of that and the discipline in the training ground, and around it, has been terrific.”
I couldn’t really make much sense of the latter part of that as it seemed a little contradictory, though perhaps if any readers could enlighten me? (more…)
This is the penultimate part of my transcription of Alan Pardew’s long interview for BBC Radio Newcastle’s ‘Total Sport’ programme.
I know I wrote that last time, and that this would be the final episode, however as many of you may know by now, once Alan Pardew starts blathering, you can take it as read that it will be quite some time until he stops!
In this one he tackles the three goalkeeper dilemma, the thorny issues of the £35 million Andy Carroll booty and the departure of Kevin Nolan, along with that of weaker members of the squad, and what’s to be done with them.
We begin this time with a question from Total Sport listener, ‘Phil’.
“Can you ask Mr Pardew about the goalkeeping sitution? Fraser Forster and Tim Krul, as well as Steve Harper on your books, so all of them will be wanting to play first team football obviously.” (more…)
Barca interest may be unfoundedBarcelona may not be after Newcastle United left-back Jose Enrique and Mevlüt Erdinç snubs Newcastle transfer.
It seems that recent rumours about Barcelona’s interest in Jose Enrique may be unfounded. Enrique’s representative (and brother) Salvador Sanchez said this about any alleged links between his brother and a move to the Nou Camp:
“We know nothing, only what has appeared in the press.”
Barcelona are known to want to strengthen their left side and, after recent attempts to sign José Ángel from Sporting Gijón fell through, it was thought they might turn their attentions to Enrique. However, it seems that Valencia’s Jordi Alba is actually their preferred target.
Some sites are saying that Barcelona have actually come out and said “We will not be trying to sign Enrique” but after a thorough search of the Spanish press for statements from Barcelona I can’t find any evidence of this. That’s not to say it isn’t true of course – my failure to find it might just be due to my incompetence with both the Spanish language and Google. (more…)
New skipper, same haircut.Fabricio Coloccini gets the captain’s armband at Newcastle United for the 2011/2012 season.
I would like to mention at the outset that this post has nothing to do with mandolins, which are musical instruments of the lute family. I could talk at length about their origins from the lute and the mandore but I won’t because to my tone deafness they just sound like out of tune guitars. No indeed, no mandolins here – that’s merely what’s known in the trade as a ‘jaunty headline’ (by an idiot writer).
So, to the story. Coloccini has been officially announced as the Newcastle United captain and said:
“I am thrilled to be named captain of Newcastle United. It is one of the proudest moments of my career.
“Leading the team out in front of our supporters in our first game against Arsenal will be a great honour for me and I aim to give my best for the team and the supporters throughout the season.
“I would also like to than Alan Pardew for putting his faith in me. It means so much to me.”
So this is good news in the sense that it must surely mean that Colo isn’t going anywhere this summer, about which there were a few rumblings in the press a while back. We’d look pretty stupid if we gave the captaincy to someone who then left. (more…)
