First team future?Nile Ranger scored a hat-trick for the reserves yesterday, but where does he stand in the pecking order of Newcastle United strikers?
I can’t help but think that Ranger is sliding down the list of strikers as far as Alan Pardew is concerned.
Given that Andy Carroll is our number one striker, it seems that Shola Ameobi, Peter Lovenkrands and Leon Best are all likely to be picked ahead of Ranger, with Best’s ranking undoubtedly helped by his hat-trick against West Ham.
And what about Xisco? We paid £5.7m for him and I can’t remember seeing him since he came on as a sub during the 6-0 thrashing of Villa. I suspect that Ranger is at least ahead of him in the pecking order.
But it may even be worse than that for Ranger because there’s always the option of pushing someone like Nolan or Ben Arfa up to support a striker, which could drop Ranger even further down the list.
And then of course there’s the rumours that we might be looking to sign another striker.
So where does this leave Nile Ranger in terms of his first team status? (more…)
Well 2010 is nearly a piece of history as we prepare to welcome in the new year. So what better time is there than now to look back at he best goals of 2010?
Of course, some of these goals will have come in The Championship, which is where we are going to start with contender number one.
Beeny boy deal sealed?Another piece of good news, well hopefully some good news anyway, as it appears that Hatem Ben Arfa is about to finalise a permanent move to Newcastle.
Local journalists started reporting the news on Twitter late last night, then national journalists such as George Caulkin and Simon ‘you’re a ***’ Bird also backed up the claims which seems to indicate that the news could be true, hopefully, possibly.
It has made today’s copy of The Mirror and The Times and the general concencus seems to be that Ben Arfa will cost Newcastle £5 million with the capture set to be confirmed in the early part of next week when the January transfer window opens up for business.
Of course, nothing is ever true until it is confirmed by the club, but the fact that so many journalists appear to be reporting pretty much the exact same details should hopefully point towards this rumour being true. Let’s not forget though that we are in silly season and rumours will be rife. (more…)
Benny back in action soon?Hatem Ben Arfa has been continuing his recovery from a horrendous double leg-break injury by spending hours grafting away at a rehabilitation centre in the south of France.
And it appears that the hard work is paying off as Ben Arfa has been pencilled in for a return to training at Newcastle at the start of February.
This would be great news and would mean that the skillful Frenchman would return to action a hell of a lot sooner than was first feared. Obviously it will still take some time for Ben Arfa to return to full fitness as he will need to go through a kind of pre-season again and take it slowly so as not to aggravate the injury, but it would still signal a remarkable recovery from an injury that could quite easily have seen Hatem ruled out for the rest of the season and beyond.
“Hatem is doing really, really well,” his agent, Simon Stainrod told The Journal. (more…)
Nasty Nigel doing what he does best.Manchester City’s midfield hatchet man, Nigel De Jong, has been once again been omitted from the Netherlands team by manager, Bert Van Marwijk for their game against Turkey on 17th November.
Van Marwijk’s refusal to select the player could possibly for his complete lack of contrition over his assault on Newcastle United’s Hatem Ben Arfa, which left the player with his leg broken in two places, and out of action for several months in what was only his fourth game for the Magpies.
Speaking of his meeting with De Jong after the incident, Van Marwijk said:
