Wants to join us ... allegedlyNewcastle United appear to have resolved little in the last week. Still no Neil Taylor, Enrique is in contract talks, Mevlüt Erdinç is looking like a no-go, Shane Long said to be the latest target and Llambias confuses at least one Toon fan.
Alreet Geordies, hope you’ve been well while I’ve been holidaying in the Med. I haven’t seen a single British newspaper for a week and I’m completely out of touch with what’s been going on at the club, so – although I’ve tried to catch up a bit since getting back – forgive me if I cover old ground. The only ‘news’ I saw while away was about someone getting married in Monaco, which hardly had me moist with excitement.
One thing I thought might have been completed in my week’s absence is the signing of Neil Taylor, but I note that’s still dragging on. Swansea Chairman Huw Jenkins said:
“Neil has a contract and he is our player for another two years. The question is not whether he will stay with us, it is whether things will go the other way. We will find out the answer to that in the next few weeks.”
However an ‘insider close to Naylor’ apparently said:
“Neil is due back on Monday for pre-season training, but whether he turns up remains to be seen. He still isn’t happy about the situation and is obviously keen to join Newcastle United.” (more…)
Still no contractJose Enrique is to return to pre-season training at Newcastle United despite not yet having signed a new contract and the club allegedly deny any interest in Moussa Sissoko.
The situation with Jose Enrique continues to drag on. He has not signed a new contract with Newcastle and we understand that various teams are interested in him, yet he’s due to return to the club for pre-season training on Monday.
Assistant Manager John Carver said:
“As far as we are aware, Jose will be back on Monday – I have been told nothing to the reverse – and Jose will be getting a warm welcome like he always does.
“I know he will give us 100%, like he always does, and he wouldn’t dream of letting anybody down. As far as I know, everybody will be back, including Jose and Joey Barton, and it will be great to see them again.
“They are all still under contract and will be ready to start preparing for the new season with Newcastle United.” (more…)
No bids, but is he up for sale anyway?Much confusion abounds at Newcastle United about the futures of Joey Barton, Jonas Gutierrez and Fabricio Coloccini, but it seems that a lot of the confusion has come about from one quote and an awful lot of hearsay.
Micky Quinn sparked up a bit of a storm recently by saying that he knew through a third party that Arsenal have enquired about Joey Barton. To be fair he didn’t say what they’d enquired about and maybe Arsene just wants Joey to feed his fish while he’s on holiday, although it’s reasonable to assume Quinn was talking about Arsenal enquiring about Joey’s availability for transfer.
This caused much discussion – particularly on Gunners’ fan boards – about whether or not Barton’s Arsenal material, how much he would cost and suchlike and so forth.
On top of that we had the Journal claiming that Jonas Gutierrez was next for the chop and then – somehow – Coloccini was added in as a potential leaver for good measure.
Yet with all three of these players there’s very little in the way of evidence to suggest that they’re either for sale or have attracted interest from other clubs, and at the end of last week a flurry of reports appeared suggesting that Newcastle have received no enquiries about Barton, Coloccini and Gutierrez. (more…)
Big, big, big, big playerJose Enrique’s future at Newcastle United still remains doubtful, although Alan Pardew says the club is trying its best to entice him to stay.
The Enrique situation still seems to be dragging on without solution and, in a recent interview, Alan Pardew used a quartet of successive ‘bigs’ to demonstrate what he thinks about Enrique but also says he remains unsure about the player’s future:
“I’m still hopeful that Enrique – who was a big, big, big, big player for us last year – stays at the football club and we can entice him to stay, and obviously we are still working on that.
“Jose’s holidaying and doesn’t have too much on at the moment, so we are not confident we can keep him, but we are not scared of losing him. It’s somewhere in between, really.
“When you have only got a year left on a player of his ability, of course you are vulnerable, and I think it’s nervous times for us on him.” (more…)
I'm not so sure...So at the time of writing, Newcastle United club captain Kevin Nolan, is on his way to join freshly relegated West Ham United.
Before this news broke, I was in the process of gathering some statistical analysis for the past season, focusing on our top 5 performers in the Premier League. What I found was quite interesting, even more so, taking into consideration, recent events.
The statistics I have gathered are from the ‘Actim Index’ found on the official Premier League website. The index, and point scoring, along with a brief explanation from myself, is calculated as follows:-
1) Winning performance
Points awarded for time on the pitch in a successful team. More points awarded to individuals if they are on the pitch for a full 90 minutes.
2) Players performance per match
Points awarded for positive actions such as shots, tackles, clearances, saves and passes. Points are deducted for negative actions such as shots off target, misplaced passes, fouls and yellow / red cards.
