Another season?Newcastle United striker Leon Best shows a good attitude towards fighting for his place in the squad and this humble author feels he deserves another season at the club.
Leon Best’s career has been a mixed affair in terms of his goals to games ratios. Between 2004 and 2007 – up until he was 20 years old – he didn’t really do much to attract attention at all with just 5 goals in 43 games, but his loan move from Southampton to Yeovil produced 10 goals in 15 games. He then had a poor spell at Southampton and Coventry, netting just 17 times in 86 games.
After that he managed a fair 10 in 29 during his last season at Coventry before he moved to Newcastle where he didn’t score in 13 games for us during his first season at the club. However, last season he scored 6 goals in 12 games, which is a pretty good return for any striker. (more…)
C'mon Mike - what's the deal?What is Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley up to and is it time for him to let us in on his plans?
Mike Ashley still divides opinion at Newcastle. Some people like him and think he’s good for the club and others hate him and would have him hogtied, marched to the Bigg Market and placed in the stocks to be pelted with projectiles of choice. Then there are plenty of shades of grey in the middle of that – people who either think some of his ideas are bad and some are okay, or folk that are deferring opinion for now.
One thing Ashley rarely is, though, is predictable. Who, at the beginning of Ashley’s term of office, would have predicted he’d usher in the return of Keegan, precipitate Keegan’s unfair dismissal, put the club up for sale twice, receive accusations of being both cockney and Mafioso, appoint Chris Hughton as manager, sack Chris Hughton for no obvious reason, appoint Alan Shearer as manager, dig up Alan Pardew and make him manager, replace Chris Mort with a man of the owlish persuasion, oversee the team’s relegation, oversee the team’s subsequent promotion, rename St James’ Park to an email address and the plethora of other things he does that keep us guessing?
He’s certainly caused a fair bit of unrest in his time and I understand the sales of bedsheets in Tyneside shops have never been better. (more…)
Man kicks football - whatever next?Newcastle United latest: Liverpool allegedly closing in on Enrique, Swansea City make improved bit for Wayne Routledge, the US tour gets underway tomorrow at Sporting Kansas City and the FA are awaiting reports about the pitch invasion at Darlington.
The whole Jose Enrique situation is beginning to grind on me at the moment, so I’ll be brief.
According to press reports, Liverpool are ‘closing in’ with an £11.5m deal for the player, which – if true – must be a very recent move by Dalglish’s mob because just a few days ago Alan Pardew said this in relation to the Enrique situation:
“We have had no concrete offers.”
I’ll be disappointed if he does go to Liverpool after all his crowing about wanting Champions League football although, if he’s clearly not going to sign a contract for us, I’ll be glad to see the back of him so that we can recruit a replacement left-back well before the new season gets under way. (more…)
Back to Spain? Not likely!The new Newcastle United captain receives interest from Spain about a possible transfer.
According to the Spanish press, Seville are interested in trying to take Fabricio Coloccini from Newcastle but please see my footnote regarding this story.
Seville face a few problems in this respect, the first being that Newcastle don’t seem to want to sell him, which is particularly obvious by the fact that he’s just been appointed as captain for next season.
The second problem is that Seville are apparently not exactly flush with money at the moment and – according to the hacks in Spain – Newcastle are unlikely to consider any offer less than the £10.3m (€13m-ish) that they paid for him, if indeed they would even consider that. On top of that they would also have to be able to afford his wages and they’re estimated to be £80k/week+.
So it would seem like a non-starter.
However, while Coloccini’s agent – Marcelo Lombilla – admits it would be a difficult transfer to engineer, he has not completely written off the idea, saying:
“It is not to say that the player cannot end up playing for Sevilla, for he is proud that a club of this calibre are interested in signing him. But to be realistic about the situation – although the player spent some great years in Spain and I could try, it would not be a simple operation.” (more…)
Should we loan him?Rumours abound that Newcastle United might be looking to take Daniel Sturridge on loan for the season to plug the gaps in the forward line.
After having shunned the prospect of a permanent move for Daniel Sturridge when confronted with a possible £20m price tag, Newcastle are allegedly looking to take the player on a season long from Chelsea.
It’s a very tenuous ‘allegedly’ in this case as the story comes from the Sunday Sun. Furthermore, their headline uses the word ‘swoop’ and that immediately raises my hackles and puts me in a negative frame of mind for any story that follows.
The Sun alleges – presumably plucked out of thin air as there are no quotes and Deep Throat seems to be on holiday – that we have money in the kitty for a striker but that Pardew will need to sell to fund further purchases, which has limited our ability to land one of three Continental targets being considered. I don’t really know what to make of that – does it mean the Continental strikers we’re pursuing are outside the budget? I dunno. (more…)
