JFK

This weekend the Newcastle United soap opera took another incredible and very disappointing turn as the news that Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley had appointed Joe Kinnear as the club's new Director of Football.

Kinnear has been out of the game since he left NUFC 4 years ago, in fact NUFC are the only football club to hire Joe Kinnear in the last 10 years. Joe is a Dinosaur who had an average managerial career in the dark days of 1990's English football, however Joe is obviously a close friend of Mike Ashley and therefore has landed a top job at a top club.  Kinnear certainly wasn't appointed on merit.

This whole embarrassment was played out before the world live on Sky Sports news as Kinnear took it upon himself reveal his appointment even though he still has been on official word from the club.


Kinnear began in bumbling fashion, the like we all heard during his caretaker stint in charge.
"This has been an ongoing situation for three weeks with David, erm, Dave, erm with Mike . . I will be in charge of finance, erm in charge of transfers and looking at the strengths and weakness of the side."

If Joe is now our transfer manager what does this mean for Graham Carr who has found some aabsolute gems in recent years? Is it believed Kinnear has a better eye for a player than our client scout?
"I will help out Alan Pardew in every possible way that I can."

Yet he also confirmed he was yet to speak Pardew. I am by no means a big Pardew fan yet feel he has been put in a impossible situation. I have the feeling it will not be long until Pardew leaves and Kinnear assumes the managerial role at SJP. Of course we have been in this situation before when Kevin Keegan was asked to work under the rule of Dennis Wise. That situation ended in KK leaving the club and suing Mike Ashley - lets see how this episode plays out.

So why has Ashley made this appointment?

Basically this is a situation of 'Jobs for the boys' - worryingly this is how Mike Ashley chooses to run our beloved club. 

We now have a owner we don't want, a chairman who is clueless, a manager who, at best is average, a captain who does not want to be at the club and now we appoint a Director of football who is regarded as a foul mouthed Dinosaur by 99% of the clubs fans. 

What can possibly be behind this appointment:

-A move designed to force Alan Pardew toward the exit?

-A set of eyes on the day to day running of the training ground?

-A mate who can conduct a postmortem on our disaster season?
-Maybe just a way for Mike Ashley to reassert his control of the club

Joe Kinnear is not qualified to do this job no matter what lines he tries to spin us. As part of Sunday's interview he claimed to have no part in the relegation of Newcastle at the end of the season in which he took charge of 26 games but won only five (19 percent).

"I intend to make Newcastle far better than they are now."

Nice one Joe..

We should be hell Bent on Darren

Darren Bent to Newcastle was certainly not the headline we all expected, yet when you let it sink in and think it through he would be a good signing for our club.

Admittedly Bent would of been no where near the top of supporters wish list for a summer signing especially after his problematic spell at Aston Villa which has been  Bent really fell of the face of the planet. After public falling out with Paul Lambert Bent and really has become the forgotten man of English football. Yet when you look at Bent's premier league record he is player worthy of close consideration.

Our interest come as a surprise as he does not fall within the transfer blueprint used by the current leadership at NUFC, yet they did talk about adding Premiership experience to squad - Bent ticks alot of boxes. He is goal scorer which is exactly what we need. He does not score the spectacular goals like Cisse - yet he will feast on the 'easy' chances Cisse spurns every other week. He is a goal poacher

Picking up a player of Bent's ability and experience for a fee of around 6m is not something that can be ignored and to be honest lets look at where we are as a club right now - we finished 16th and currently have only 2 first team strikers - one of these being Shola. Bent is big improvement on Shola and has a goal record the Cisse would be proud of.

Add to that the fact that Darren has a lot of prove after the battering his ego has taken since joining Villa. If the price tag and wages package fits into our structure then this is a deal we need to persue.

I am not saying Bent would come in and be our leading forward  - for me we need 2 first team forwards to join the club this summer and hopefully the NUFC leadership realise this!
 IF we could deliver Pierre Emerick Aubameyang or Loic Remy plus Darren Bent then i wold be over the moon. This would give us plenty of options and also much needed competition for Cisse.

Yesterday I read an article discussing the prospect of signing Remy and Bent for a total of 13m
 and I believe this would be great business for NUFC and would solve a lot of our problems from this past season.

Now if only Bent had 'eke' at the end of this name...

Summer business

Much has been made about the end of season review which will take place between Pardew, Ashley and Llambias in the coming weeks. Frankly I cannot see how Pardew can keep his job after our terrible performance this season. He has given no indication that he can return us to the business end of the league. For me he needs to be sacked immediately and replaced by either Rafa Benitez or Roberto Martinez. That is the key to our future sucess. I believe we have a good squad who under the right leadership could be back amongst the top 6.

Below I want to give my assessment of what we need to do to get our club out of the mess we currently are sitting in.

Out

Harper

Simpson

Williamson

Gosling

Jonas - or stay as a squad player

Shola

Loaned out

Sammy

Ferguson

Campbell

Dummett

Innman

Newton

In - Any of the following

Andy Carroll        Starter

Romeu Lukaku     Starter

Edin Dzeko          Worth a bid

Shane Long         Upgrade on Gouffran

James McCarthy   Starter

Scott Sinclair       Upgrade on Gouffran

Loic Remy           Starter

Adam Le Fondre   Impact Sub

Andreas Weimann Impact Sub

Steven Caulker     Compete with Taylor

Demba Ba...        IF surplus at Chelsea
Micheal Dawson

I only want us to buy British based player / players with Premiership experience as i feel this is exactly what we are missed this season.

These additions would allow us to have plently of squad coverage and also would allow us to adapt our tactics and formations for each game.

IF we could line up with the following Squad options next year:

(4-3-3)

Krul / Elliot

Santon / M'biwa
M'biwa / Taylor
Colo / Dawson
Debuchy / Haidara

Cabaye / McCarthy
Tiote / Perch
Sissoko / Anita

Ben Arfa / Weimann
Carroll / Cisse / Remy
Sinclair / Long

Benitez, Jol or Martinez?

In the aftermath of Newcastle's stunning defeat to Sunderland in the Tyne Wear derby the spotlight is well and truly on Alan Pardew. The derby defeat coupled with our overall poor season means the heat is really going to be turned up on Pardew who now must get a reaction out of his squad starting this weekend. Only a strong end to the season and more points on the board will give Pardew a chance of surviving in his job this summer.

If Pardew is to lose his job this summer who are the likely candidates to take over the reins at St James?  We all know Newcastle are ran a little differently in that Mike Ashley has his set structure at the club - we have a vision of how we want out club to be ran and any new manager would have to agree to work under these strict rules. As we saw Kevin Keegan was not willing to work this way and for the second time he left the club.

Like most Newcastle fans I am very realistic and understand the limitations of our club in terms of attracting players and coaches. When looking at potential replacements for Pardew we can obviously rule out any of the top established managers and also the likes of Jurgen Klopp at Borussia Dortmund, Frank De Boer, or Manuel Pellegrini.

For me we can look closer to home as I believe there is quality in our own Premier League. Let me look at three possible candidates.

Roberto Martinez does a good job at Wigan and has recently been linked with the Liverpool and Aston Villa. Credit to Martinez as he does continue to keep Wigan in the Premier league where they are punching well above their weight. Wigan play some nice football, yet always seem to be involved in a relegation battle every year. I worry about him dealing with top players, bigger budgets and the expectation which comes with managing a club like Newcastle United.

Martin Jol is a experienced Premier league manager who has also worked on the continent with Hamburg SV and the Mighty Ajax. Currently working with Fulham, Jol has done a great job with a small club settled mid-table in the Premier league. I am a big fan of Jol and think he ticks a lot of boxes in term of what I want in a team manager. Fulham are known as a side who play football the right way with players who have quality on the ball - Berbatov and Dembele for example, yet Jol also wants his teams to remain solid and hard to beat.

 I feel Jol has ambitions to compete at a higher level than what is possible with a club like Fulham. Just a few years back Martin led Spurs to two top 5 finishes before Gareth Bale arrived and took Spurs to another level. His side played great football, full of young quality players and actually reminded me a lot of the young guns side assembled at NUFC by Sir Bobby Robson.

Newcastle could be a club who offer Jol the chance to get back amongst the top 6 and I would very much welcome him to the St James hot seat and believe he would handle the job and take NUFC to the next level.

The next candidate and ectually my preferred choice for the job is a little controversial. If Mike Ashley is to fire Alan Pardew this summer I would love to see him bring in Rafa Benitez. The currently Chelsea "interim' manager is being given a rough time by the Stamford bridge faithful yet is still doing a solid job in difficult circumstances and looks on course to finish in the top 4 and win the Europa League.

Benitez is a vastly experienced tactician who's reading of the game cannot be questioned. During him time with Valencia he won the Championship twice and won the UEFA cup which is a massive achievement in a league which contains Barcelona and Real Madrid and it will be a long time before we see this happen again in Spain. Following this sucess he joined Liverpool where again he delivered sucess at the highest level with a Champions league victory on a night no football fan will ever forget. Consistent finished in the top 4 and victories in the domestic cup competition's were a key fixture during Rafa's time with Liverpool.

If Newcastle could bring in Benitez it would be a major coup for the club. This could be the perfect situation for both Rafa and our club as we both crave a return to the top table of English and European football.

I have heard people band around names like Gus Poyet, Roberto Di Matteo and Michael Laudrup but i just do not see any of these managers being a step in the right direction or really having the quality to be an upgrade from Alan Pardew.

As we know however football is a funny old game and a few years back we would have loved Martin O'Neill to lead club yet now he is sitting on the managerial scrap heap having been replaced by some young Italian upstart!

i have the feeling we will see big changes at the club in the summer. Players are certain to leave yet the biggest decision the board have to make it whether Alan Pardew is the man to take our club forward or if he has taken us as far as he can.

Sunderland defeat - Pardew's future

I have intentionally waited for the dust to settle on the Derby defeat as I did not to get caught up in the emotion of it all and write a article full of knee-jerked reactions.

Now that four long days have passed since the bitter blow of defeat at the hands of Sunderland I wanted to take a long hard look at this result and where we are heading with this current set up of players and staff.

Sunday hurt. For me any defeat hurts but for obvious reasons this one always stings. I tend not to be one that gets wrapped up in all the Geordie / Mackem hatred. I have friends who are Sunderland fans, I went to University in Sunderland and in general Mackems are not so bad. For me the two derby days are the only time I really care about Sunderland Football club. On any other days they are just another Premier league rival. I have a bigger vision for my club than simply just beating Sunderland. I want our big rivals to be Man Utd, Chelsea, and Arsenal because that will mean we are competing at the top of the table once again.

Sunday hurt not only due to the result, but more to the manner of defeat. The lack of passion, energy and desire was worrying. Yes Sunderland scored 3 top quality individual goal - the likes that have not been seen by those particular players, yet they beat us all over the park and showed are greater desire to take all 3 points and local bragging rights. Di Canio certainly won the managerial battle in terms of tactics, formation, team shape, and a game plan. He obviously had his troops fired up for the battle, and for us to not be able to match that fight is very disappointing.

In the immediate aftermath of a defeat like this the fickle side of Newcastle United fans comes out. Calls for Pardew to leave, and suggestions that our French players have no 'Fight' in them were heard loud and clear  across the World.

Twitter, Facebook and fanzines were buzzing with demands for a change of manager less than a year after Pardew led us to 5th in the Premier league and was awarded the Manager of the year award. Yes Newcastle over achieved last year, but Pardew does deserves credit - you cannot finish 5th in the strongest league in the world on the back pure luck. Likewise a team and manager who achieved so much do not become a bad team 12 months later.

You have to look at the major incidents which have effected our season and how much control Pardew has. We can all agree the Europa League has stretched out squad to the limit. Yes we enjoyed those European nights but we just do not have enough quality in the squad to maintain a challenge both at home or abroad. Is this Pardews fault? for me no. We know transfers and player recruitment is dealt with at a higher level than Pardew. I imagine he has input, yet it is down to the business men to do the deals and provide him with a squad capable of competing. If the 5 players recruited in January had been recruited before the season started i am certain we would not be in this position.

The Fabricio Coloccini issue is completely out of the hand of the manager. For our skipper to be suffering from personal problems and wanting to leave the club is a massive blow. Colo has been our leader and outstanding player for the past few years and losing him has had a big impact on our season. I cannot see how Pardew could have acted any differently. Likewise with the key injuries to the likes of Ben Arfa and the sale of Demba Ba who is yet to be replaced.

Don't get me wrong I am not a big Pardew fan, however I just feel if he is to be criticized then I feel he need to be fairly judged.

Judging him fairly is looking at his management of the team of the field. His selections, tactics and substitutions. Unfortunately for Alan this season he has disappointed a lot of fans with his match day management. Questions can still be asked about his tactical skills and his ability to adapt and change a game with his decisions from the sideline. Where is Alan's plan B? does he have it in him to react, change a game, or win games from a losing position? The jury is still out on him this season.

Pardew has done a steady job since joinging the club in 2011 - me won me over with the way he guided the team last year, however I am unsure of how long he can live off last years success. This season I feel we are back to where we were under Chirs Hughton's leadership. Pardew was brought in to replace Hughton and to take us to the next level. Can we honestly say we are now at the next level? In terms of playing personnel I would say yes, I feel we have one of our strongest squad we have had for a long time with real quality. I therefore look at the manager and the question facing Mike Ashley is whether Alan Pardew is the right man to take this squad forward and reach its full potential.

As we know MIke does not suffer fools and will make the move he feels the club needs to get back amongst the top 6. I have a strong feeling the will be changes in the summer. Ashley is a ruthless businessman who will not hesitate to replace Alan Pardew. The big question for us fans is who would be the right man to replace him?

England picked on current form..

After yet another England disappointment this week I really find myself frustrated as time and time again the England squad and team is picked on reputation rather than current form.

For Hodgson to pick Joleon Lescott and Chris Smalling as the starting centre half partnership is nothing short of a disgrace. I know we have injuries however Lescott does not even play regular first team football, and Smalling is a promising player, yet is still 4th choice at his club.

We keep hearing that an England squad will be picked on current form and will not be a 'closed shop' available to only the so-called elite. Yet time and time again this happens.

For me based on this seasons form I would pick the 11 players below to represent England:This might not be the best 11 individuals but the certainly deserve a call up.

 

Ben Foster

Leighton Baines

Steven Taylor

Rio Ferdinand

Carl Jenkinson

Jack Wilshere

Michael Carrick

Joey Barton

Theo Walcott

Rickie Lambert

Wayne Rooney

Wigan + FA - Disgrace

In one of my recent blog entries I said that our defeat against Swansea left me as frustrated as I had been all season due to us losing a game I felt we dominated, however this changed after our visit to Wigan this past Sunday.

Everything that could have went wrong for us on the day did - from the injuries to the hand ball goal and of course that foul. Actually I do not want to call it a foul - let's call it was it was - an assault.

NUFC went into this game buoyed after our Europa league success against Anzhi yet left the North West with a sour taste in our mouths feeling a great sense of injustice.

Lets get the facts out of the way first - Callum McManaman made a terrible, career ending foul on Massadio Haidara that was not even deemed bad enough for a free kick. This was clearly a red card offence yet 4 officials who are supposed to be at the top of their profession decided this incident did not even merit a free kick. There is the big problem - why did none of the officials make the call we all know this incident deserved? Why did the FA cowardly hide behind their "policies' when everyone, except Dave Whelan knows this was a clear red card.

This shows everything that is wrong with our game. We are ran by a bunch of face-less politicians who never answer a question with a straight answer. I am a big listener of Talksport and yesterday Darren Bailey, the FA's director of football governance and regulation spoke to the presenters and tried to explain the FA's policies are procedures to deal with incidents like we saw on Sunday. As a fan the frustration comes from his continued stance that the FA cannot re-referee games yet we all know that by rescinding red cards they are already re-refereeing games - his whole argument was a contradiction. To make matters worse the linesman who claims to have seen a "Coming together" does not have to have seen the full incident, simple a coming together. Surely this is wrong and is exactly what led managing director Derek Llambias to label the FA's rules as "Not fit for purpose".

If one of the FA's darling's such as Rooney or Gerrard was on the end of such a foul they would have acted differently, likewise if it was Joey Barton, Shawcross, or Tiote who made this tackle the FA would have thrown the book at them.

Roberto Martinez and Whelan have done no favours for their club by defending their player - they are a disgrace. Coming out with lines such as "He is a lovely lad, he does not have a bad bone in his body" etc.. infuriate me - this does not excuse that he committed a terrible foul and needs to be punished. Haidara might be a lovely lad - does he deserve to be I the hospital?

I also hear today that as of yet their has been no personal or official apology made to the young lad. Shocking.

Any creditably the FA had has now gone - fans around the country will all understand the frustration Newcastle United now carry. I imagine Callum McManaman will face the brunt of fans frustrations as they see the injustice and will know that instead of Haidara lying in a hospital bed it could have been a player from any club.

McManaman will be known and targeted for this incident and his reputation in the game is now set. For me McManaman will have to deal with the consequences as a result of his actions.

And don't even get me started on the handball winning goal...