Moussa Sissoko arriving for Euro 2016 Following a disastrous season to forget at Newcastle United, thoughts among some might be turning to the European Championships starting tomorrow. Moussa Sissoko (France) and Rob Elliot (Republic of Ireland) will be Newcastle United’s only representatives there, though bearing in mind that this will be the biggest shop window for footballers short of the World Cup, this might be a good thing.
Some might wonder how Sissoko managed to book his place with one of the more fancied teams after some of last season’s performnances, some might praise Elliot for some good performances standing in for the injured Tim Krul despite everything. However, players like that will not be the focus of this piece. I’m sure that pretty much all of you will know what they have been up to, along with high profile ex-players taking part such as James Milner (England) and Yohan Cabaye (France). Instead, I will look mostly at the “where are they now” players who will be there who used to ply their trade on Tyneside. Of these, the majority of the players (three out of four) will be playing for the two Irish sides in the competition, and another will be managing the Northern Ireland team.
NUFC Blog on metro.co.ukMy latest story on metro.co.uk is now up!
Entitled “Is Kinnear scouting Ferguson a Sunderland spoof?” or alternatively “Did the Joe Kinnear scouting Shane Ferguson story come from a mischievous Sunderland fan?” (they seem to think that two titles are better than one over there), it originally had the same title as this piece but never mind, at least I’m getting paid!
Anyway, in it I take a look for the origins of Alan Oliver’s laughable story about Joe Kinnear allegedly going to watch Birmingham City’s League Cup victory over Swansea and asking about signing Shane Ferguson. Of course, as Kinnear and all Toon fans know perfectly well already, he is already a Newcastle United player who is currently on loan at the Midlands club. (more…)
Full match video and highlights of yesterday evening’s Newcastle United v Club Brugge Europa League game at St James’ Park.
Highlights of the game include an excellent, Cruyff like flick over the shoulder from Sammy Ameobi before a good assist to Gabriel Obertan for a well finished goal in the 48th minute. Another was another excellent cross by little Shane Ferguson to Papiss Cisse, who’s resulting effort was saved by Bojan Jorgacevic in the Brugge goal.
Our first meeting with the Belgians of Brugge.Venue: St James’ Park, Newcastle. Date: Thursday, 25th Oct. Kick off: 8:05pm Referee: Martin Hansson. UK TV: ESPN.
Hello, good evening and welcome to our “match banter” feature for this evening’s Europa League game at St James’ Park with Belgian table toppers, Club Brugge.
For some in depth information on the visitors, as well as all the usual team news and words from Alan Pardew about the kind of team he’ll be putting out and so on, you can consult our extensive match preview. As well as that, I will also be posting the teamsheets for the game when they become available. Though thanks to Alan Pardew, we can say that Cheick Tiote, Sammy Ameobi and Shane Ferguson will definitely be playing a role, with the Silver Supremo also saying that he will be fielding a “younger” team this evening. Here’s what he said:
“The team will be younger. I’m looking forward to seeing it. It’ll have a lot of energy, and we hope that’ll cause problems. It will be very similar to the one selected to play Bordeaux. That’s the best clue I can give you.”
The Belgians are coming!Venue: St James’ Park, Newcastle. Date: Thursday, 25th Oct. Kick off: 8:05pm Referee: Martin Hansson. UK TV: ESPN.
Brugge come to St James’ Park this evening as leaders of the Belgian Pro League, though on the back of a fairly heavy 4-1 defeat against Oud-Heverlee Leuven (the home of “Stella Artois” beer).
However, this was their first league defeat of the season, with their record before that being D,D,W,D,W,W,W,D,W,W. Their only other defeat this season was their 4-0 Europa League hammering by Bordeaux. Of course, we beat Bordeaux convincingly in our last Europa game, 3-0 at our place, though if you think that makes the Belgians a pushover it’s not as simple as that. Brugge went on to do better than us in their next Europa League game, a 2-0 defeat of Maritimo where we could only manage a 0-0 draw.
This will be our first game against Brugge in European competition. Their last matches against English opposition in this competition were two legs at the same group stage last season against Chris Hughton’s Birmingham City. In those games they were beaten 1-2 at home by Birmingham, drawing 2-2 in their away leg at St Andrew’s.
