I'm not touching him, okay?Cheik Tioté has, I think, looked pretty solid since he joined Newcastle, showing strength and proving to be a handful when players are coming at him, yet also showing not a little skill when he’s going at them.
I remember reading rumours about him having a ‘reputation’ at Steve McClaren’s FC Twente when we bought him and I kind of expected him to be sending the opposition home on crutches after most games. Or at least clutching their shins in abject agony.
That has not however turned out to be the case.
Sure, he’s tough and he tackles hard and he certainly will pick up cards, but I don’t think it’s anything beyond the realms of ‘good hard football’. Not so far, anyway – and I have no reason to think he’ll suddenly turn into a screaming psychopath.
It turns out that fellow Ivory Coast team-mate Didier Drogba rates Tioté highly too: (more…)
Tiote - Key to Newcastle this weekend?Let me introduce you to yet another nufcblog.org feature, well I hope it will become a feature anyway.
I’ve been thinking about the weekend trip to Arsenal, and just who Newcastle will need to try to keep quiet if we are to walk away from The Emirates with any points, or indeed if we are to walk away without being thumped, which against Arsenal is always a possibility.
So I thought of having an article that will highlight the key areas that I think Newcastle will need to control if we are to do well on Sunday lunch-time. This isn’t a match preview, that will come later on tonight, or perhaps tomorrow morning when I can get my grubby little hands on all the team-news. Instead this is a few key personal battles that I feel that the players in the black and white shirts will need to win if the odds, which are stacked against us anyway, are to be tipped in our favour. (more…)
Cheeky Cheick is fitting right in.When Newcastle fans heard that the club had signed Cheick Tiote from FC Twente, a lot of fans were left wondering just what he would be like.
It’s fair to say that Cheick was a relative unknown quantity. He came to Newcastle after appearing in the World Cup for Ivory Coast and having been a lynchpin in an FC Twente side that won the Dutch Eredivisie under the guidance of the ‘wally with the brolly’, or Steve McClaren if you want his real name.
McClaren got an awful lot of things wrong with the England team whilst he was managing them, so when he turned around and told us Newcastle fans that we would love Tiote as a player at Newcastle you could be forgiven for remaining a little sceptical. It turns out that the former Middlesbrough manager was absolutely spot on with assesment and Tiote has gone on to establish himself as somewhat of a crowd favourite amongst the Toon Army. (more…)
Cheick Tiote - The impressive Ivorian.Whilst the vast majority of the headlines and adulation may have been directed at Hatem Ben Arfa over the weekend, we mustn’t forget the role that some of our other players played in the victory at Goodison Park on Saturday.
It is correct that Ben Arfa should recieve some praise for the way he played during his full debut. His goal was fantastic and some of his play was exceptional, but how did the other debutant of the day get on?
Very well by all accounts, and if I was Alan Smith I would be quite concerned over how I was going to get back in the team after the way that Cheick Tiote performed on Saturday. The Ivory Coast international looked every inch the accomplished Premier League player on his debut and went about his work exceptionally well. I hope that is a flavour of what is to come from Tiote. (more…)
Cheick Tiote - A pleasant surprise.The aftermath of the result against Everton yesterday is still rumbling on in the minds of many today. After all, it was a fantastic result, and far more than most of us has thought we could get from Goodison.
I’ve been out most of the day taking in some fresh air and walking the dog up and down some big hills, which has given me a fair bit of time to reflect on things.
Are we not getting just a little bit carried away?
As I said in the opening paragraph, there is no doubt beating Everton in their own back yard is a fantastic result. My concern now is that after the exceptional full debut performances of Hatem Ben Arfa and Cheik Tiote yesterday we get ourselves into the position where too much is expected of them. I mean they have started off pretty well in the black and white, but what if they don’t perform like that in every match? (more…)
