White rice is the secret!Newcastle United number 9 Papiss Cisse has been talking about his (half) season with Newcastle and claims the best is yet to come.
Whilst I was browsing around some French sites I came across an interview with Papiss Demba Cisse. I found it on a site called ‘Furturs Medias’, although I’m not sure if that’s where it originated.
Anyway, I ran it through Google Translate and it came back with something vaguely resembling English, which I’ve then tried to ‘tidy up’ with my grade 4 CSE French. That sounds like recipe for disaster but I hope the result is something close to what he actually said.
Talking about his first game for the club, he said:
“Honestly, I did not wish Best was injured. I did not even know I was going to play, because there was Ameobi, another great striker of the club, who has been there for a long time. I even call him ‘Mr Ameobi’ because he’s such a nice guy who works for the team.”
He then says something about Jonas that I can’t translate but I like to think it was about how he parts his ponytail. Then I picked up the translation when he says:
“When Demba scored the first goal I thought ‘it’s going well’ and at the end of the second half I scored the second goal and we won 2-1. The ball eluded Demba and came to me and I tried not to think too much about, I just reacted and it’s in the net ‘goal!’” (more…)
"I Want Curly Hair Too"One question which will hang around for United fans this summer – until it’s resolved – is the one about the future of Demba Ba.
Tottenham manager “Droopy” announced to the world before the last January transfer window that he had discovered Ba had a £7M release clause in his contract. Since then, United have pretty much confirmed it exists, although we are informed that it’s not quite in the form that Droopy thinks it is.
Ba has not said much, and there were rumours that United were trying to re-negotiate his contract with the club to take the offending clause out – but given the stance of the club on wages, I doubt if they have much room for manoeuvre, as they apparently have an upper limit on what they are prepared to pay individual players – any individual! From Ba’s perspective of course, his game is about goals – and he had scored 16 before he went off to the African Cup Of Nations, but didn’t score a single one when he came back, after his role was changed to accommodate the arrival of his mate Papiss Demba Cisse.
United manager “The Twice Chosen One” Alan Pardew has gone on record imploring the Geordie faithful to tell Demba they love him, as with Ba it’s not about money, he just needs to feel wanted – Howay Man Pards that’s a load of syruppy bow locks!! (more…)
As I reported back in March and April, Reims midfielder, Romain Amalfitano, had signed a pre contract agreement to join Newcastle United on a free transfer when his Reims contract expired.
Well, as you may know already, he’s been in Toon in the last couple of days to make things official, wave a shirt around in front of a camera and such. However, he still not quite a Magpie yet, as his Reims contract doesn’t expire until the 30th June, from which point he will become a Newcastle United player. Going on previous information, it seems that the player has signed a three year contract to play with the Toon.
Pardew: Will "educate" fans in realism.In yesterday’s London Evening Standard, Newcastle United’s Silver Supremo gave a fairly lengthy and candid interview to the Standard’s Mihir Bose.
In it, he spoke of his ambition to replace Roy Hodgson as the next England manager, and also how he intends to “educate” Newcastle United fans that we cannot expect to compete in Europe AND finish fifth again next season with our current finances. He also commented on several other things, both Newcastle and non Newcastle related, including raking over the circumstances leading to the departure of Joey Barton once again, and how he convinced Mike Ashley that Papiss Cisse would be good value for the club.
Firstly though, he gave his thoughts on recently winning the League Manager’s Association “Manager of the Year” award, saying:
“To be recognised by people who do the job and understand football is fantastic”
Then, revealing his England ambitions, he felt that his CV was not quite complete enough yet, remarking: (more…)
Congratulations to the Newcastle United youth team players on winning the Hong Kong “Soccer Sevens” seven a side Championship in er, Hong Kong.
It was the first time Magpies had participted in the competition, and after beating Celtic and Blunderland on their path of glory, they triumphed 2-1 over a team of young Aston Villans in the final. Midfielder, Brad Inman, in particular seemed to have a very good game, assisting Adam Campbell’s opening goal for the Mags before banging one in himself.
If you want to see the Toon stars of the future, look no further!(more…)
