Wayne Routledge off to Swansea.It seems Newcastle United have decided that Wayne Routledge simply does not fit into the Newcastle squad and have sold the lad to Swansea for a reported £2m.
Wayne hasn’t had much luck in the Premier League and received criticism when he left Crystal Palace for Tottenham Hotspur from the then owner, Simon Jordan. Last January the powers that be decided that Routledge was fit to be loaned to his former club Queens Park Rangers where he helped the club to automatic promotion with 19 appearances and 5 goals.
Loaning the lad out was a surprise to us all has he was our only designated RW – an area we have sorely lacked bodies in for a long time now. Perhaps it was the bicep in his jaw that prompted the decision – who knows?
Talking to the Swansea City FC website, he had this to say:
“I’m looking forward to the challenge. It’s taken a couple of days to get everything agreed, but I’m excited about getting started.
“I’ve had a good chat with the manager and he really impressed me. I had heard a lot of good things about him and the chat only reinforced my belief that moving to Swansea was the right thing to do.” (more…)
Two goals and two fingers!Seems like everybody was expecting a tight if tidy affair at St James’ today and with two of the meanest defences in the division, a high-soring game wasn’t on the cards. But with barely a third of the game gone, Newcastle were three goals to the good and showboating as some of the travelling contingent headed for early beers.
Expectations were high that Swansea would prove to be a well-organised and competent football team, particularly stingy at the back but a new-look forward line of Peter Lovenkrands and Marlon Harewood put paid to that theory within half an hour of the kick-off, and Swansea looked like just another fairly average Championship side. Eeh that Marlon Harewood, eh? I always knew he just needed time to settle in…
Harewood’s first came from a bouncing ball in the box and with the defence hesitant he headed the ball in the net to make it 1-0. After some good build up play on the left, Gutierrez finally managed to do what we have been crying out for him to do and delivered perfectly with his left, so that Lovenkrands had the simplest of headers to make it 2-0 with 21 minutes gone. And before we’d reached the thirty minute mark, more good work on the left and and an almost identical cross from Lovenkrands and a similar finish from Harewood and the game looked to be beyond the Welsh side at 3-0. (more…)
Jus' chillin'?Chris Hughton has admitted that he is pretty laidback as the hour approaches and the ‘temporary loan signing’ window shuts at 5pm tomorrow night until February.
It has long been reported that Leon Cort has been on Hughton’s radar but Hughton has been telling the Chronicle that he’s not in any rush to sign players just for the sake of it:
“You never know, but realistically looking at the squad I don’t really expect to bring anybody in during the next month or so.
“Of course, all sorts of things can happen in the next 24 hours, and phone calls will be made on Thursday with players potentially becoming available.
“Some clubs might make a decision that some of the players who weren’t available earlier in the season are now there for loans. But we’ll see.”(more…)
