Cisse's big banana beat Benny's Bolton dribble.Well, it’s been a week for Newcastle United picking up awards with manager, Alan Pardew, recently being awarded the Barclay’s (bloody awful bank by the way – I know!) “Manager of the Season” award.
Well on BBC’s “Match of the Day” on yesterday evening, there were no less than three Newcastle United contenders (out of ten) for the show’s coveted “Goal of the Season” award. The first was Ryan Taylor’s mag-nificent strike against Everton from November of last year, the second, Hatem Ben Arfa’s mag-nificent strike against Bolton in April of this year, and finally, Papiss Cisse’s, er, mag-nificent strike against Chelsea at the beginning of this month. Of those, both Ben Arfa’s and Cisse’s efforts were regarded as being amongst the best three by sofa pundits, the two Alans (Dull and Duller), with Peter Crouch’s amazing volley for Stoke against Manchester City being the other one. (more…)
Italian starlet gives his first interview in ToonWe learned today that Davide Santon was officially a Newcastle player and that, begrudgingly the Daily Mail was correct. Again.
Personal bias aside, the 20 year old utility man gave his very first interview to nufcTV and discussed a few things. An interesting note is that, like many of the new lads through the door, he barely speaks a word of English so perhaps communication could be a problem on our back line?
As always, Rob Scanlon conducted the interview with the new lad and as always, I’m here to give you a taste of what was said.
RS: Davide, welcome to Newcastle United what made you decide to move to England, and why this club in particular?
DS: I came here because it’s always been my dream to play in the Premier League. And to play for Newcastle is even better – to play for such a historical club and such a great club.
RS: Was it a difficult decision leaving the country of your birth?
DS: It’s never easy to leave any country, never mind Italy. It was a difficult decision, but I’ve only been here a short while and I feel comfortable. (more…)
Ankle injury requires surgery.At the holy ground of St. James Park it’s always been a case of “it never rains but it pours”, which is of course the shortened version. The full idiom is “it never rains but it pours toxic waste with the occasional sharp object thrown in to further increase damage.” Not even joking.
Our long standing goalkeeper Steve Harper has already decided to stay on the bench in favour of giving young Tim Krul a chance to impress between the sticks and so far the young Dutchman has done exactly that, and long may it continue! Newcastle United may lack depth in other areas, we have a wealth of gold in our goalkeepers and have done for many years but now it seems it’s time for that young gold to start shining as Ole Soderberg will be on the bench for the important game against Chelsea this coming Sunday. (more…)
Has been Fab-ulous this season!Here I continue with the second of four installments of my player reviews for the title winning season just gone.
Last time out we had at look at how our goalkeepers had been getting on throughout the season, which was pretty easy by all accounts as there isn’t that many of them. Now we step up the difficulty and broaden our review to feature our whole defence and look at how they have performed this season. The back four has been a very strong area for us this season, a strange thing for a Newcastle fan to say following year after year of shabby backlines that nobody really seemed to be able to sort out. Granted we may have been playing against weaker opposition, but we have come out on top of them, miles on top in fact and we head to the Premier League with best defensive record in The Championship safely in the bag. I know we have had loan players in the shape of Patrick van Aanholt, Fitz Hall and Zhurab Khizanishvilli but I am going to discount them for this as they aren’t technically our players and only really played a handful of games for us. (more…)
Thou shalt not pass!Two months (and a bit) on from the last review, with the transfer window looming, I thought it might be worth having another look at how the players are doing. With off-field sagas taking a backseat for now, the focus is thankfully on the pitch and given our recent blip, does it add significance to the opportunity to invest this month?
We’re just about halfway through our first season in The Championship since our untimely relegation, and as we sit proudly at the top of the table, it goes some way to proving the quality and endeavour that we have available in the squad.
There is still that underlying fear that our position owes much to the lack of quality elsewhere in the league, an argument which holds some water. Much of our good start to the season is undoubtedly owed to a tremendous defensive record, which was something surely none of us expected.
For what it’s worth here’s my own term review of the keepers and defenders. I’ve only included the lads who have played at least a couple of games so far and I’ve just added to my initial review from back in October. (more…)
