Toon's Messi?Hatem Ben Arfa has scored some excellent goals since joining Newcastle United – which is your favorite?
Hatem Ben Arfa has certainly brought some flair to Newcastle United and scored some cracking goals in the process. He also seems to do a job defensively when necessary now too. Earlier in the season Alan Pardew was a little critical of Benny’s defensive work and that might be the reason why a lot of his 25 appearances for The Toon were as a substitute, but he now seems to command a regular staring place so his defensive duties must at least be up to Alan Pardew’s satisfaction.
Ben Arfa started his senior career at Lyon where he’d previously been a youth player. He played for Lyon from 2004-2008 and scored 11 goals in 87 appearances before moving to Marseille for €11m. In his time at Marseille he notched up 15 goals in 91 appearances before first being loaned to Newcastle in 2010 and then being transferred in 2011 for approximately £5m.
He’s played for us 21 times now and scored 7 goals – 6 league and 1 cup – and of course he had to contend with a major leg break injury after a crunching tackle from Manchester City’s Nigel de Jong. Of those 7 goals, I narrowed it down to 4 contenders for ‘Ben Arfa’s Best Goal So Far’, so take a look at these and vote for your favourite. (more…)
Rumours gaining strength?The Dutch press appears to offer further suggestions that FC Twente’s Douglas is bound for Newcastle United this summer, although perhaps the most pertinent question is whether or not we lose any of our current stars this summer too.
Further to an article I posted last week about Newcastle’s interest in FC Twente’s Douglas Franco Teixeira, the Dutch football magazine ‘Voetbal International’ has said that the 24 year-old central defender is indeed likely to switch to Newcastle this summer.
They suggest that a fee of €5m (£4.12m) has been ‘prepared’, which is about half the figure I mentioned in the previous article (which I got from the ‘Transfermarkt’ site). This makes sense I suppose as he will in fact be out of contract this summer.
According to Voetbal International, Douglas wants to wait until late August to make the switch though. This is because he will then have spent 5 years playing his football in The Netherlands and can become a naturalised Dutchman, thus allowing him to play for The Netherlands’ national team, which is apparently his aim. (more…)
C'est magnifique!Bolton rolled into Toon on the back of a bit of a kicking at the hands of the improving Fulham, but with a trio of wins in front of that, it was always going to be a tricky fixture and so it was going to be down to who wanted it more.
Patience was the order of the day for high flying Newcastle United.
Newcastle’s Captain, Fabricio Coloccini, was back in tandem with his partner in crime ‘Iron’ Mike Williamson at Centre Back and Davide Santon had his place at Left Back. Tiote didn’t make the line-up, so Perch moved into a midfield birth along with Jonas, making a return to midfield also after his recent stint at Left Back.
Bolton lined up in a 4-5-1, which, as the game kicked off, looked more like a 5-4-1. They looked very determined to keep things really tight, and didn’t spend alot of time committing too many forward. To say that the first half was cagey would be understating things somewhat. Words like boring, dull, tight, slow, lacking any coherence, painful, kind of summed it up.
I could actually say no more about it, but… (more…)
Newcastle United v Bolton - The whole match!Full match video of today’s Newcastle United v Bolton game. A 2-0 victory featuring a superb solo goal from Hatem Ben Arfa, and a further goal from Papiss Cisse which featured an excellent assist from Shola Ameobi.
Hughton: It woz me!In a brief but revealing interview for the Independent on Saturday, Chris Hughton has decided to put the record on misinformation about his role at Newcastle United.
Speaking on his time at the club, he said (amongst other things) what some knew already, that it was actually he who brought Graham Carr, Hatem Ben Arfa and Cheick Tiote into the club.
Whilst he was managing at the club, the now Birmingham City manager was dogged by rumours in the media that he a mere cipher at the club, that the team was run by a committee of senior players who actually picked the team, and that player aquisitions were out of his control after Hughton brought his old Tottenham collegue, Graham Carr, to the club as Chief Scout. The rumours about the players running team affairs were eventually refuted by Hughton himself, who described it as a “slippery slope,” and also by Kevin Nolan and other senior players. Now, Hughton has finally hit back at other misinformation about the recruitment of key signings, Hatem Ben Arfa and Cheick Tiote, and also the recruitment of the club’s current Chief Scout, Graham Carr. After talking about the days following his sacking by Derek Llambias and Mike Ashley on the grounds they were looking for someone “with more managerial experience,” Hughton had the follwing to say, firstly on whether his sacking was “unjust,”:
“Was it unjust? Yes, and that’s how most people felt at the time.”
