Teamwork is the key to Toon successYohan Cabaye states in an interview that he believes teamwork has been responsibly for a lot of Newcastle United’s success this season and that it’s teamwork that can help us compete even with clubs that have better players.
Yohan Cabaye has been assessing the season for French site Sport24.com and this is what he had to say:
Interviewer: “Yohan, what is your assessment of your first season at Newcastle?”
Yohan: “I think the outcome is very positive. Early in the season, if we were told that Newcastle would finish 5th, nobody would have believed it. Our results have been beyond the expectations of the fans.”
Interviewer: “You have near caused a big surprise by getting qualification to the Champions League … ”
Yohan: “As the season progressed, we found ourselves playing in 3rd or 4th place. There is a little disappointment that we didn’t finish there but it is quickly forgotten because we had a good season anyway. And to qualify for Europe and the Europa League was really important for the fans and the club. This has been a very successful season.” (more…)
Fortiter defendit triumphans? As we have reached the season’s end, I’m going to jump in and do a little assessment of the players, culminating in a vote for your Newcastle United “Player of the season”.
There have been quite a few stand out performers and stand out performances this term. Some were almost anticipated, others almost definitely weren’t. A few players have come in when the chips were down and done an excellent job. Others either came back from injury or suffered injury and made way for squad players to shine. Then there was the little matter of the African Cup of Nations riving a few players away to play for the respective countries, whilst depriving us of their services. It all adds up to most players getting games to show their worth and to be fair, I can’t think of anyone that has let either themselves, nor Newcastle down. In fact, this season has showed one of the most ‘United’ fronts we’ve had the pleasure to witness, even after the amazing efforts put in through very recent seasons to get us back into the position we find ourselves. Whilst the team effort has been monumental and it’s an ethic that has permeated throughout this campaign, deserving of all the credit in the world, I’m still going ask you: Who is Newcastle’s individual ‘Player of the Season’?
Here’s a little resume to help you along, starting with case for the defence:(more…)
Cisse's big banana beat Benny's Bolton dribble.Well, it’s been a week for Newcastle United picking up awards with manager, Alan Pardew, recently being awarded the Barclay’s (bloody awful bank by the way – I know!) “Manager of the Season” award.
Well on BBC’s “Match of the Day” on yesterday evening, there were no less than three Newcastle United contenders (out of ten) for the show’s coveted “Goal of the Season” award. The first was Ryan Taylor’s mag-nificent strike against Everton from November of last year, the second, Hatem Ben Arfa’s mag-nificent strike against Bolton in April of this year, and finally, Papiss Cisse’s, er, mag-nificent strike against Chelsea at the beginning of this month. Of those, both Ben Arfa’s and Cisse’s efforts were regarded as being amongst the best three by sofa pundits, the two Alans (Dull and Duller), with Peter Crouch’s amazing volley for Stoke against Manchester City being the other one. (more…)
Everton fans - A very decent lot in my experience.A few days ago, “Jogger” from the excellent Everton website, bluekipper.com asked me two answer 10 questions for the site’s “away team” fixture on the eve of our game with the Toffees.
In return, he very kindly answered some questions of mine about both clubs, and the match today, so here goes!
NUFC Blog: Who do you think has been the best Everton player this season? (more…)
Who's best?Looking back over Newcastle United’s last two seasons since we were promoted from the Championship, one thing it’s hard to argue with is that most of the club’s major signings have been a success.
Much of the credit for this has gone to the club’s current chief scout, Graham Carr, who was brought into the club in February 2010 by previous manager and Carr’s former Tottenham colleague, Chris Hughton. Of the players included below, Carr was involved in all but three of them (James Perch, Demba Ba and Gabriel Obertan).
I have listed eight of the signings made since the club was promoted below. Of course, there have been more but I have left out more peripheral members of the squad such as temporary loanees like Stephen Ireland and Sheffki Kuqi, bairns for the future such as Mehdi Abeid, those who haven’t been able to make much of an impact one way or the other through injury such as Sylvain Marveaux and so on. All of the players listed below have made at least ten first team competitive appearences; here’s a brief résumé of their Toon histories so far. (more…)
