Pass the Dutchie on the left hand side!Where will it all end? Newcastle United are making doubtful fans well and truly eat their words as yet another recruit signs on the dotted line. Chelsea’s young Dutch full back Patrick van Aanholt, is the newest loanee joining us initially on a one-month loan deal.
It would seem like this signals that Enrique could be knackered for at least a few weeks, after suffering what we hope is only a strain to his hamstring and nothing worse. van Aanholt was part of the Coventry side when we beat them at the Ricoh Arena in December and has spent the season on loan there so far.
According to reports, he’s been a regular for the Sky Blues and is also an international team-mate of Tim Krul, having played in the same Dutch U21 side. The highly-rated full back could well make his debut in our televised game with Leicester City tomorrow.
Another masked crusader?There was an official announcement today that Newcastle United have signed Queens Park Rangers defender Fitz Hall on loan until the end of the season. Having been courted by a handful of clubs, he’s decided to join the promotion race and will help plug the gaps left by our defenders who have started to fall like flies to various injuries.
Creatively nicknamed “One Size”, Hall nearly didn’t make the grade after being told he wasn’t good enough by West Ham. Having been given a chance at Barnet and then moving to Chesham, a ‘Dowie connection’ meant that Bob of Barnet allowed Hall to go to Oldham to join brother Iain. He impressed enough there, so that when Dowie took over at Crystal Palace, the former Toon assistant forked out £1.5m for him after Hall had failed to break into the Saints team following a move to Southampton.
A further move to Wigan Athletic saw him back in the Premiership but he was soon on the move again to QPR, where he has stayed since. Hall can play at full back and centre half and will provide Championship experience that may prove vital with current absences. (more…)
Cool as the come.Hot, spicy and more than worth the money, is a pretty good way to describe my pre-match scran. Unfortunately not words to describe Newcastle’s 2-0 win over Crystal Palace. Nor disappointingly the debuts of Mike Williamson or Wayne Routledge, albeit the latter had little time to show what he can do, even considering his part in the last goal.
The best words to describe that display tonight might be “meh” or “ppffftt”, as it rendered me largely speechless. Which is no mean feat. But not for the first time, and probably not for the last this season, while feeling bitterly short-changed by the entertainment (sic) on show, we yet again managed to grind out the win and take all three points.
Some inevitable changes from the weekend game saw Harper replacing Krul in goal, Kadar moved out to fill in for the injured Danny Simpson and the suspended Ryan Taylor at right back. While Mike Williamson partnered Coloccini in the centre. Guthrire moved back out to the right and with Nolan dropping back into midfield with Smith, Pancrate made way for Lovenkrands to play upfront with Andy Carroll. Fellow ‘new boy’, Wayne Routledge had to make do with a place on the bench.
Crystal Palace were forced into a number of changes, partly through injury and partly due to their current administration process. As a result, Victor Moses and potentially some others may not be allowed to play while the transfer window remains open, as they are saleable assets. Palace could only name three substitutes as a consequence. (more…)
Take a bow lads?Newcastle United ‘new boys’ Wayne Routledge and Mike Williamson having been saying all the right things, as you’d expect, ahead of tonight’s game against Crystal Palace. Despite the fact that Williamson is yet to be officially unveiled as the board apparently deal with the complications of payments to Portsmouth and knock-on payment Watford, the player himself is sounding confident of the transfer going through. Workyticket sounds canny confident too, so I’m going with it.
The club are allegedly hopeful of the transfer being finalised in time for him to play a part in tonight’s game, though he’s not played a first team game in five months. The rumours are that should the paperwork come through in time and he is able to play, then Tamas Kadar will fill in at right back, with Williamson joining Coloccini in the middle of defence.
On speaking about his future at the club Willamson said:
“This is a dream move for me, and I can’t wait to make my debut at St James’s Park,”
“The fans here are incredible, and now I just want to go out and do my best for them.”
“It’s a great move for me, and I just want to get on with the challenge of promotion.”(more…)
I suppose it depends on whether you asked one mind…
Peter Williams, a Blog Liaison for the trust, kindly offered to answer some questions that many Newcastle United fans were asking and some of you lot on the blog wanted answers to. Having gathered a number of questions via the blog, I passed these on to Peter.
However, I must confess that Peter provided the answers in 2009. The tardiness of the response is entirely my doing, and owes probably to some intoxication on the day I read it and filed it away, then promptly forgot about it. As a result, some of the information is now outdated, but I’d like to point out that shouldn’t be taken as any indication of my views of NUST or the people who asked the question. So I say again, sorry for being p*ssed at Christmas.
Anyway, rather than me prattling on, here’s the response in it’s entirety – (more…)
I suppose it depends on whether you asked one mind…