"It's time we woke up now"Following Newcastle United’s defeat at the hands of Forest on the weekend, Jose Enrique has been hitting out at the team’s lack of form.
Enrique said:
“It’s time that we woke up now.
“We have been top of the table, which is good, but we need to wake up because we haven’t been playing very well.
“We can’t think we’re in the Premier League – it’s not true.
“We’ve played only 12 games, and there are 34 games left.
“The team haven’t played very well in the last three games – we have two points from nine.”
True enough. We’ve got a game away at Scunthorpe tonight and then home to Doncaster on the weekend. We really should be winning these games against lower table opposition if we’re going to sustain our promotion push. (more…)
"It's my money so I'll have the final say on transfers"Mike Ashley is now prepared to take £80m for Newcastle United but will there be any takers?
Amidst another petulant stab at the fans in yesterday’s Times, Mike Ashley announced:
“Barry Moat has been driving me mad for two years. If he wants to buy the club, he’s got a one-off opportunity to come up with the cash – £80m upfront.”
So one question is: can he or anyone else find the money? Another might be: is Newcastle United worth £80m?
The Times speculates that Barry Moat has agreed to pay the £80m that Ashley’s asking, but not ‘upfront’. Apparently Moat wants to pay £40m now and £40m at the end of the season. It’s anyone’s guess as to why Barry Moat wants to do things like this. Perhaps he has only been guaranteed the second £40m from his backers if Newcastle gets promoted, although that would be a huge risk for Barry Moat to take because if we didn’t manage promotion and the funds didn’t materialise then Moat is stuck with an outstanding £40m debt that, it seems, he won’t be able to pay. (more…)
No Toon job this seasonAlan Shearer reveals that whilst he’d take the Newcastle United manager’s job today if it was offered, he’s prepared to get on with life in the interim.
With Barry Moat’s bid – or indeed anyone else’s bid – looking less likely to succeed as time goes on, Shearer’s chances of becoming Newcastle manager this season are fading. It looks like we’re stuck with the current regime for the moment and Shearer has been reflecting on this, saying:
“I can’t revolve my life around that any more because I have other things going on.”
The future Toon manager then touches on the philosophy of determinism, saying:
“If it happens, it happens, and if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. Whatever has happened has happened. If anything else happens then it does – I will just get on with it.”
Which seems to me to be a clever rewording of Laplace’s Demon* – deep stuff indeed from the former number 9. After that philosophical interlude, Shearer goes on to praise Hughton, saying: (more…)
Kadar - on standbySteven Taylor and Fabricio Coloccini face late tests to prove their fitness for Newcastle United’s game against Forest this weekend.
Both players have been hit by hamstring injuries – Colocinni’s a few weeks ago and Taylor’s just recently – and Hughton has this to say about their chances of playing on the weekend:
“Steven has a hamstring problem, but we’re refusing to rule him out. We’ll see if we can get him involved with the main group first, and get him up and running before we rule him out of Saturday.
“Coloccini is probably up to about 90 per cent in the work he has been doing and is another one we are not prepared to rule out. Hopefully we will get him on the training pitch on Friday.”
Tamas Kadar is on standby in case he’s needed, with Hughton commenting thusly on the lad:
“Tamas has done very well for us,” Hughton told the Gazette. “He hasn’t had the opportunities he’d have liked, but he’s developing with each training session with the first team, and he’s very much part of that group now. He gives us valuable cover at centre-half and left-back.” (more…)
Hughton nonchalent about jobAs speculation mounts about Chris Hughton’s appointment as permanent Newcastle United manager, the man himself is chilled about the whole thing.
The caretaker manager said:
“I am very happy to do this job for as long as I am asked to do it.
“Speculation about my future is something that I have very much got used to. But that is not the important thing. The important thing is being able to focus on football matches and up until this stage we have been very much able to do just that.
“Any publicity like that is nice and always flattering but the only things we can really deal with are facts. We are where we are and until we are told anything different we just crack on as per normal.
“We are just getting into the campaign. We are a quarter of the way through it and we are enjoying the experience so far and we are learning more and more about this division with each and every game.
“It is very much about the team and that team is growing with each game. We have to maintain that. We will have to play three games in eight days and we know that the league position could change by the end of the week. There are nine points to play for and we have to very much stay focused on the job we are doing and make sure that we remain at the top end of the table.” (more…)
