Cabaye: Monaco medical?Goal.com’s French football correspondent Robin Bairner has been tweeting that French sports channel “L’Equipe 21” are reporting that Yohan Cabaye has actually passed at medical at moneybags Monaco.
The first if his tweets on the matter said:
“Newcastle midfielder Yohan Cabaye has passed a medical with Monaco, according to L’Equipe 21’s evening edition.”
Which was swiftly followed by:
“L’Equipe’s report comes from a “sure source” who works in Monaco’s medical centre. Would be v surprised if story was run with no foundation.”
And finally:
“A Sports TV station run by L’Equipe. 21 is the channel it’s on.” (more…)
Who made it? And who didn’t?Below you can see two Newcastle United “teams of the season,” which I have assembled based on player statistics from whoscored.com, OPTA and transfermarkt.co.uk.
The first (and most important) is based on performances in the Premier League, with the second based on performances in the Europa League. The figures below the player’s names are their ratings from whoscored.com, which are based on a range of performance metrics based on OPTA stats. To put these into some kind of perspective, whoscored’s most highly rated Premier League goalkeeper last season was Sunderland’s Simon Mignolet with an average of 7.0. In defence it was Tottenham’s Jan Vertonghen with 7.6 and in midfield the honours were shared between Arsenal’s Santi Cazorla and Tottenham’s Gareth Bale, both with 7.9. Finally, up front, Liverpool’s Luis Suarez narrowly pipped Manchester United’s Robin van Persie (7.8) with his 7.9 rating.
Getting back to Newcastle United though, although the goalkeepers, defenders and strikers were pretty straightforward overall, things became more complicated when it came to midfielders who had been played in several different positions during the season, gaining different ratings in different positions. However, after some work, I have finally managed to sort it out. (more…)
As you may know already, a team of Newcastle United’s younger players led by Academy coach Willie Donachie will be competing once again in the seven a side “Hong Kong Soccer Sevens” this weekend, which is being held in (you guessed it) Hong Kong.
They will be defending their title for the main trophy, having won last year’s final against a side of Aston Villa youngsters (a video of that final is below). Here’s hoping we can make it two in a row! (more…)
Pardew: Blaming inexperience now Europe is overIn his latest defence of his French players, this time against alleged criticism in the media, Alan Pardew’s continued with his latest “inexperience” offensive, which seems to have replaced injuries and Europa League fixtures as his main explaination for Newcastle United’s poor form, which now has the club in a relegation dogfight.
Seemingly relishing the chance to shift the the cold finger of blame from himself to the players in the guise of defending them, the silver one reacted to Luke Edwards’ Observer story which alleged a rift in the dressing room and earned the former Journal hack a ban from Press access to the club. On this he began:
“Some of the criticism of the French group has been so unfair on them.”
He then went on to explain that the latest reason for the club’s recent hammerings has been the Premier League inexperience of his January signings (Debuchy, Gouffran, Sissoko and Haidara), along with Cheick Tiote’s “overmotivation” apparently. On this, Pardew continued: (more…)
