Is Joe to return?The Daily Mail is reporting that Joe Kinnear is to return as Newcastle manager and that a takeover is not imminent.
The Mail claims this ‘exclusive’ but doesn’t reveal any source of their information and has no direct quotes from anyone about this, so it’s probably worth treating this report extremely cautiously.
The Mail suggests that an announcement will be made today, so we should know soon enough if there’s any truth in this or if it’s the usual garbage from bored reporters.
There are many rumours circulating about potential announcements today and for all I know some of them may be true. But beware rumour-mongers. They are much more often wrong than right and bear in mind that Ashley’s abysmal communication skills probably means he’s good at keeping a secret and ‘leaks’ to junior members of the SJP hierarchy – which is often where the rumour is said to originate – are unlikely.
The Chronicle reports that another Newcastle player – Jose Enrique this time – has decided to vent his spleen at the current disharmony at the club. It’s the standard sort of stuff, so I’ll just pick one quote from Jose: (more…)
Here 'til January?We’ll start today with a piece from the Guardian by Louise Taylor who suggests that the club might not be sold this summer. The reason for this, she claims, is that the due diligence process has revealed troubling facts about the club’s financial liabilities. The club’s ever busy ‘source’ has been pontificating about matters again, saying:
“The process is moving extremely slowly, there is still genuine hope of a sale but it’s not looking imminent. Newcastle comes with a lot of baggage.”
The article goes on to suggest that if the club isn’t sold before the August transfer window closes then it would not be sold until the January transfer window opens and Ashley would have to continue as owner in the interim.
Michael Owen finally admits he didn’t ‘do his bit’ for us in an article in The Express. He says: (more…)
Tony Talks ToonThere simply isn’t any significant news that hasn’t already been posted on this site, so I’m afraid this will be a short report.
Scratching around, I did manage to find out that Tony Blair is concerned about Newcastle. According to The Express, His Tonyness told BBC Radio:
“I would not get into criticising anyone who has the onerous responsibility of running a football club.
“It is a tragedy what has happened. We have to regroup, reassert ourselves and move back up again. Newcastle had the third biggest gate in the Premier League and we are in the Championship now. There is no doubt they are a massive club. They will have to come back, but they will have to do a lot of sorting out in the meantime.”
Insightful stuff from the former PM and no mistake. (more…)
Beckford - will we get him?Good morning. We begin today with a story from The Guardian about how Shearer’s tearing his hair out about the lack of activity at Newcastle United. The Guardian only quotes ‘a source’ who supposedly witnessed Shearer’s follicular assaults but I can believe it anyway because us fans feel the same way.
The same story claims a group of Austrians shown round the ground recently are from Bwim, an online gaming company, but they suggest that these might just be potential sponsers to replace Northern Rock rather than potential buyers of the club.
The Chronicle seems more convinced that Bwim wish to buy the club. Although a Bwim official told them that
“As a rule we do not comment on rumour or speculation“,
The Chronicle have of course found a ‘source close to the company’ who said:
“It’s no surprise that Manfred or Norbert have been linked with this.
“If they were spotted in Newcastle it’s not a big deal, because they could be there one day and on the other side of the world the next.
“Their links to global sport are there for all to see.” (more…)
Bassong to Arsenal?Crikey it’s a dire morning for news about Newcastle United. I’ve had to scratch around desperately to find anything that hasn’t been regurgitated half a dozen times already. The press even seem to be taking a day off from making things up, possibly in embarrassment at the Ananda Krishnan non-story.
I suppose we ought to be glad the press are keeping quiet for once but it shows a huge lack of consideration for people trying to do news roundups like this.
We get a brief mention in The Times’ transfer roundup regarding our interest in Fraizer Campbell. Apparently Hull are also interested in him but the report claims that their interest could be scuppered by the Mackems.
