"Spend, spend spend" says Shearer. Writing in his column for the Sun, Alan Shearer has laid the blame squarely at the door of Mike Ashley for the Newcastle United’s current lack of form.
“Newcastle missed a huge opportunity in the summer” he began, continuing:
“Having punched above their weight last season and almost made it into the top four [sic], this was the time to spend. The club was up and running again after so many years mired in uncertainty. There was once again a feel-good factor and even Mike Ashley was enjoying it. But he needed to put his hand in his pocket and strengthen with two or three quality players. The best time to buy is when you are in a position of strength.”
Which is fair enough, especially the last sentence which is very true. “Momentum” is vital in football, something which the ex Toon hitman acknowledged himself when he continued later in the piece:
“Sadly the momentum built up by Alan Pardew last season has been lost and Saturday (Newcastle’s 1-3 defeat to Man City) was a stark example of that.”(more…)
What a load of old cobblers!“Alan Pardew backed by 95% of fans Chronicle poll reveals” wrote the Chronicle.
This staggering revelation would give Toon’s Silver Supremo the same kind of popularity as Kevin Keegan in the heyday of his “Entertainers” side, or Bobby Robson when Newcastle United were once again a top four side who were competing in the Champions League. Yet Pardew’s Newcastle United are currently 14th in the table and sliding downwards, with only one win in our last ten games.
So how can this be?
Let’s look at it another way. If you look at the image below displaying the results in the form of a bar chart, you may also observe that the story linked above could also have had the title “Over 50% of Newcastle United fans are less than content with Pardew Chronicle poll reveals.” (more…)
Nolan: Still Chicken dancing on a regular basis.Of course, Newcastle United’s game against West Ham on Sunday will see the return to St James’ Park of two ex Magpies, Kevin Nolan and Andy Carroll, and also an ex manager, Sam Allardyce.
In this piece I intend to concentrate on one of those, Kevin Nolan, who has received much undeserved flak from the less “gifted” sections of Newcastle United’s fanbase since his departure. Though Carroll has almost certainly received even more, that is undoubtedly a whole story on it’s own and as a Newcastle United blogger, I am still suffering from Carroll fatigue, and possibly you are too?
Getting back to Nolan though, below is one example of the kind of thing I’m writing about from so called “fans”. It is from the commments section below a story on the midfielder in local rag, the Chronic.
“Yes kevin Nolan, one word springs to mind that actually rhyms with “Fishbowl” when talking about the south….”**ithole” Thank you for your service, but sorry, you wouldn’t get into this squad ahead of Ben Arfa or Cabaye, get your head out of the smogg air son, big clubs have demanding, passionate fans, that’s why so many can’t handle the pressure up here and depart for debt laden clubs willing to overpay on salaries, smaller crowds, less expectation, and poorer playing standards installed by useless fat Sam!”(more…)
Pardew: More hot air.Alan Pardew has revealed to the Shields Gazette that though he feels that Mike Ashley has found the manager of his dreams at last, he’s going to need players who can pass the ball better to improve the team.
Although some of us might say that the teams problems in possession might have something to do with Pardew’s direct style with lots of very long passes to go astray, Pardew has chosen to blame the quality of the players in his current squad. Newcastle currently make the third highest amount of passes over both 25 and 35 yards in the Premiership, behind his Reading protege Brian McDermott, and of course, Stoke City.
Speaking on the recent eight year contracts handed to himself and his assistants recently, and how he feels Mike has found his dream manager at last after being let down by predecessors such as Chris Hughton and Kevin Keegan, Pardew reflected: (more…)
Vampires.“And how the poverty of these unfortunates, among whom even thieves find nothing to steal, is exploited by the property-holding class in lawful ways.” – Frederick Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England.
It is no longer news that Internet loan shark “Wonga” will be the club’s sponsors from next season for a period of four years.
I was going to write this piece a few days ago, but on reflection, I decided to leave it for a short while to see what emerged in terms of further details about the deal itself, and also the level of opprobrium which was inevitably going to follow the announcement. The exact amount is still shrouded in secrecy, though a figure of £24 million for the four years (£6 million per year) was bandied around in the media after the announcement was made, then the Telegraph claimed that the figure is more like £8 million per year (£32 million over four years). When this was put to the Managing Director, Derek Llambias, he suggested that the £8 million figure was “not far off.” As it’s Llambias though, this may not be true, but it is all we have to go on. As well as this, it is also been claimed that Wonga will be investing a further £1.5 million in the club’s Academy.
Llambias had the following to say on the new deal: (more…)
