In the exit seat?Right-back Danny Simpson will refuse to sign a new contract at Newcastle United according to rumours in the Sunday Sun.
The Sunday Sun (bless its heart) is reporting that contract negotiations have broken down between Danny Simpson and the club. The Sun alleges that the club have offered Simpson a 5-year contract and aren’t prepared to budge from their offer, but the offer is too low to interest Simpson and he will therefore not be signing it.
The Sun does not quote any sources of their information, it merely ‘understands’ that the situation is thus and they further suggest that Simpson will just run down his contract and leave at the end of it unless he is sold in the interim.
It’s all news to Pardew, though, and he insists it’s completely untrue. Pardew said:
“He’s got a future here but he’s got a fight on his hands because Ryan Taylor has done terrific at left-back and now we’ve got Santon who can play both positions. So he needs to play well now.
“I don’t know where the stuff about Danny Simpson came from. It’s totally untrue as far as I’m concerned, anyway.”
Don't call me fattyNewcastle United owner Mike Ashley appears to be fed up with the abuse he gets from some of the fans. So fed up in fact that he implies the abuse must stop or he will not do the right thing by the club.
No doubt you’ve all seen the questions The Chronicle put to the NUFC board and the answers they received from them? If not, you can see them here.
Most of the answers are along the lines we would have expected, so there aren’t really any surprises. An interesting point though was the suggestion that we have to stop abusing Mike Ashley if we want him to continue funding the club. It came as part of the answer to the question: Is Mike Ashley considering putting the club up for sale?
Apparently he’s not unless an incredible offer comes along, although quite what classes as ‘incredible’ is anybody’s guess. But the answer is followed by this:
“I’d like to make a further point here. This club can’t support itself without the financial backing of Mike Ashley; we still rely heavily on the owner. To date Mike has invested over £280m into the club, including £140m in interest-free loans. For him to continue to support the club, he has to be interested and enthused to do so.(more…)
Up to the task?Newcastle United manager Alan Pardew says we have to find new ways of scoring goals now that we’ve sold all the people that scored them for us last season.
It already seems like a geological time era has passed since the last Newcastle match and we still have to wait until Monday. There seems to be a general feeling of post-transfer window depression amongst Toon fans and we need a match to – preferably a winning one – to help lift the gloom.
Whilst Alan Pardew has allegedly ‘got over’ the disappointment of not signing the striker he was after in the transfer window, he does still seem a little unsure where our goals are going to come from. Pardew said:
“We are going into the unknown to a certain degree because a lot of the goals we created and scored last year are not in this team.
“But we have got a lot of new talent and that new talent is exciting and they have shown that in games. We are going to be leaning on them to make us look a little bit different and to create a different type of goal.” (more…)
Upset on the dayNewcastle United manager Alan Pardew finally breaks his silence about the club’s failures in the 2012 summer transfer window.
Well, it had to happen. Pardew’s silence had to break at some point about the club’s inability to recruit a striker in seven months. He begins by stating the obvious:
“With the time scale we had, we should have got a striker.”
Geddaway! Pardew continues:
“But there are difficulties in today’s market, especially with young strikers who have got potential. That’s what we were targeting and that’s the hardest type of player to get.
“The board found it very difficult and went up some paths that were dead ends. I’m disappointed because it would have made the jigsaw complete.
“I’ll be the first to admit I was upset on the day, and the day after and the day after that. But that’s me done now.” (more…)
Hopeful of a startNewcastle United midfielder Danny Guthrie hopes for a start on Monday while Joey Barton has nothing but good things to say about Toon fans.
Danny Guthrie apparently had a good run in the reserves’ 4-3 defeat to the mackems this week and hopes he might be in Alan Pardew’s plans for Monday.
Guthrie said: “The main thing was to come through with no injuries or recurrences.
“It’s been about two months now and I really want to start kicking on.
“It’s been really tough just watching and doing my own mini pre-season next to the lads training.
“Hopefully I can now get involved on Monday.”
Personally, I think he’ll be lucky to make the bench on Monday but good luck to him anyway.
Meanwhile Joey Barton has nothing but praise for Newcastle fans and said:(more…)
