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…)
Captain Colo: Emotional letter to San Lorenzo. Dear Reader, below is my own personal translation of the letter Fabricio Coloccini allegedly sent to his old Argentinian club San Lorenzo, who have of course been trying to exploit Coloccini’s personal problems to their own ends over the last few weeks.
There is another English translation floating around on the Interweb, however they can be somewhat misleading sometimes so I thought I would check for myself and do my own translation of el Capitano’s original Spanish missive just to be sure.
So, here’s what I came up with, but please bear in mind that my Spanish has become rather rusty in recent years!
A bright new dawn for NUFC?Many thanks to “ToonBano” from the Toon blog www.toonbano.com for his second guest blog here – wt.
Today is the two year anniversary of Alan Pardew’s very first game as NUFC manager, when we defeated Liverpool 3-1 thanks to goals from Kevin Nolan, Joey Barton and Andy Carroll. Just looking at the goal scorers that evening and the impressive overall performance, compared to who we have in our team now after another defeat at the hands of Fulham Monday Night, it’s safe to say things have changed a lot over that period of time.
Most people were confused and concerned as to why Alan Pardew was even in the dugout that night two years ago as Chris Hughton was doing a sterling job in our first season back in the Premier League after the ultimate humiliation of relegation. Which of course was thanks to him for rescuing this club from certain doom by getting us promoted at the first time of asking, even though he had no previous managerial experience at that point of his life. Most fans thought he was unfairly sacked and I was one of them. (more…)
P45 for Georges Leekens this week.Venue: Jan Breydel Stadium, Bruges. Date: Thursday, 8th November. Kick off: 6:00pm Referee: L. Banti. UK TV: ESPN.
Well, alot has happened in the world of Club Brugge since since our 1-0 victory against them at St James’ Park two weeks ago.
Back in those dim and distant days, their manager was Georges “Mack the Knife” Leekens (that’s his nickname, honest!) and they were top of the league, having just suffered their first league defeat of the season (1-4 against Zulte-Waregem). Since then however, they have suffered a further three defeats (not counting the one at St James’ Park), and Mack the Knife has been given the order of the boot!
So, will all of this Belgian bedlam be a good thing for our quest to preceed to the next stage of the Europa League ASAP? Or will this make the planning for this game more complex for Alan Pardew? Leekens was sacked following their last game (another defeat to Zulte-Waregem), so our Silver Supremo will be facing a team which will be far more of an unknown quantity under caretaker, Philippe Clement, who is the club’s reserve team coach. Will it be a case of “business as usual” for the team under Clement, or will he strike out with his own tactical ideas to try and arrest the team’s slump in both the Belgian Jupiler League and the Europa League? Of course, there is always the old cliche about the “wounded animal.” Altogether, this will add a bit unpredictabilty to preceedings this evening, both for Pardew and myself in preparing this humble preview. I did as much homework as I could on Brugge in my previous preview, but who knows now?
