Building up expectationsAlan Pardew puts paid to the idea of bringing in any free agents to plug any gaps in the Newcastle United squad, and he looks forward to the return of Hatem Ben Arfa.
You are probably not surprised to find out that this is ‘it’ now in terms of the squad until January. Pardew has previously told us that the loan market isn’t the way the club wants to go to plug any gaps – such as the striker we missed out on in the transfer window – and he has today confirmed that we won’t be pursuing free agents either. Pardew said:
“I’ve no intention of bringing a free agent in. I’ll go with the group.
“I think you have to remember I’ve got Hatem Ben Arfa training now. His imagination and flair on that pitch would have been a big asset for us – hopefully, fingers crossed, in two weeks’ time he’ll be on that pitch for us.” (more…)
French flair or English doggedness?How important is an English spine to a Football Club?
The thought crossed my mind the other day, after pondering the comings and goings from this transfer window:
“Just how important is an English spine to NUFC?”
Many sports pundits have criticized Arsenal over the years for a weak English showing in their teams, and cite this reason for the failure over recent years. On the same sort of note how will our recent shift to cheap foreign imports play out in the long run?
I have to admit, last year looking at the group of Carroll, Barton, Nolan and Harper (to name a few) I always felt that we would stay up. The guys had been through the relegation, bonded in the Championship and knew what had to be done in order secure our Premier League status. But now with the French Revolution going on with the club, how much passion and desire do these guys have? (more…)
Won't be rushed backGood news as Newcastle United’s Hatem Ben Arfa – injured since the pre-season game against Sporting Kansas City – undergoes a light training session with the physio.
Given our failure to recruit an additional striker, we have to hope that Best continues the way he’s been going and that Shola and Ba come good. Alternatively, we’ll be looking for goals from midfield and Hatem Ben Arfa could just be the man to come good for us in that respect.
It’s good news then that he seems to be making his way back from injury and took part in his first training session yesterday. It was apparently only a ‘light exercise’ session (my equivalent of which is just lifting the one pint) but it gave physio Derek Wright a chance to assess the player.
Apparently the club aren’t too keen to rush him back from this injury and I get the impression it’ll be October before we see him available for first-team selection. (more…)
Somehow I doubt itNewcastle United are allegedly considering a move to take Wayne Bridge on loan if they fail in their attempts to sign Erik Pieters.
This is one from the Daily Mail. They claim we’d consider paying £80k/week to bring Wayne Bridge to Newcastle on a season long loan if we don’t manage to sign Erik Pieters.
Personally, I think that’s poppycock and the Mail doesn’t even attempt to justify its claims in any way whatsoever. It merely states that we will ‘consider a fresh move’ for the player if all else fails.
I rather suspect such ‘consideration’ will amount to about 2 minutes of side-splitting laughter from board room at St James’ Park. Manchester City are apparently not keen to pay any of Bridge’s wages if he goes out on loan and there are even rumours that they want £2m up front merely for the privilege of loaning a player from them.
I really can’t see any of this appealing to Ashley’s methods of running a football club. And rightly so in this case. We need to ‘build’ a team for the seasons ahead rather than just plug holes in it for the short term. (more…)
Happy campers?From what I can recall, at the start of last season, Newcastle United were seemingly going about their pre-season in reasonably quiet fashion.
We had of course, just dispensed of the Championship at a canter, and were looking forward to a return to the Premier League. At the start of that particular summer, we had a statement from the Newcastle board, citing mainly that:
“The first team squad that won the Championship this year will form the basis of the team for next season in the Premier League.
“There is no plan for new capital outlay on players.”
Well, that particular line certainly had a few people up in arms at the time. In the end though, Newcastle did do some business recruitment wise, bringing in Dan Gosling, Hatem Ben Arfa, Sol Campbell, Cheick Tiote and the majestic James Perch.
More importantly last summer, I remember the current crop of players being reasonably happy with life at St James Park. There was no moaning or bitching about the ‘politics’ of the club. This could be due to the explosion of ‘Twitter’ this past year (certainly in Newcastle United’s case anyway), with a fair few of our squad now signed up to the social networking site. (more…)
