One Gutierrez, there's only....At one point during this game, I thought my match write-up might be best illustrated by a big daft grinning smiley. Because at one point, that seemed to sum up the sort of mood around the ground today among Newcastle fans despite all of the ill-feeling toward the current incumbent. This also despite the fact that we should really have finished off Peterborough in the first half and that we allowed them a fleeting glimpse of hope in the second when we took our foot off the pedal.
The truth is though, that this was nothing short of a walk in the park, give or take a few nifty saves from Steve Harper. In fact a viewer might have been forgiven for mistaking this as being a football lesson to the minnows by the professionals in the FA Cup First Round today. If you ignored the 40,000 people in the ground, of course……
Perhaps we shouldn’t get too carried away though, because Peterborough are now rock-bottom and should the remainder of the season follow current form, there will be a full division between these two sides come next season. However, let’s focus on the plus points because there were quite a few. (more…)
Have we been nicking Premiership balls?Just how much can you discuss the same thing, day after day? Well to be fair, we’ve given it a good go but rather than rant on about the off-field stuff, I thought it might be time to reflect on the on-field matters at Newcastle United.
We’re almost a third of the way through our new season in The Championship and surely the players at our disposal must be half-decent seeing as we’re sitting pretty at the top of the table?
Clearly, some of us have different ideas about the quality in our squad and argue that our position is as much to do with luck and the lack of opposition. I’d probably agree with some of that but you can only beat what’s in front of you (to coin a well-worn cliche). Mind you, we could be here all night talking about the entire squad, so I’ll split it out a little.
For what it’s worth here’s my own term review of the the keepers and defenders. I’ve only included the lads who have played at least a couple of games so far – (more…)
Not leaving, says HughtonThe takeover farce is, as usual, suffering from conflicting press opinions.
First we hear from newspapers like The Guardian, The Telegraph and The Journal that Ashley arrived at the training ground in his gunship to join Llambias and Moat in takeover talks. Then The Chronicle comes along and says Ashley isn’t there for takeover talks at all but is merely dealing with some ‘routine paperwork’. The Chronicle’s ‘United source’ said:
“It is nothing to get excited about, it was a routine visit, Mike was here to sign some paperwork relating to Damien Duff’s transfer and the launch of the third kit.
“It is not the first time he has been at the training ground recently, and it won’t be the last.”
And Chris Hughton said of the visit:
“He came in, wished everyone the best for the Sheffield Wednesday game, and just wanted to tell people he wouldn’t be at the match.”
So make of that what you will. I am however going to speculate. I think the reports about the takeover being sorted out by the end of this week are probably true. I would imagine that Ashley, if he stays, or any new owner would want at least a week to deal on the transfer market and I think if Ashley feels the bids are going nowhere by the end of this week he’ll pull the plug on the sale. So I’m thinking we’ll hear one way or the other by Monday at the latest. (more…)
Oooh you devil!Nicely timed to contradict my previous article, comes news of our first signing. Take a bow Manchester United’s Danny Simpson, who we have taken on loan until January. The 22 year old has joined us in time to make the sqaud for our game against Reading and could and takes shirt No 12.
Simpson follows the recent path of Guiseppe Rossi who had a relatively unsuccessful spell on loan up here, mainly due to lack of opportunities. Having had a number of loans spells, notably at the new home of our old pal Big Sam at Blackburn Rovers, unfortunately he also sullied his reputation by turning out for the unwashed in 2007.
Having played over 50 first team games so far, he seems like a reasonable talent although as ever with Fergie’s fringe players, if he was good enough he’d have probably made it by now. Perhaps he’ll find his level in The Championship and do a job for us. (more…)
