Lets Look At Jonas

Just saw a little article via EPL Index on Jonas.


http://www.eplindex.com/11950/jonas-gutierrez-newcastles-marmite.html


My view on Jonas is he doesn't do enough in the final third, not so much because he isn't capable (some would argue), but because he just doesn't get into the final 3rd enough in the first place. He is, in my view, a wing back. Not quite a full back, but not an all out attacking winger.


So I reckon we need to be playing him in his perfect position, Left Wing Back.


Given the fact we have a another player who isn't quite a full back, nor an all out winger in Santon, we could play him at RWB.


When Saylor is back fit and we sign ourselves a decent centre back comfortable on his left side (hopefully) a formation of 3-5-2 wing backs could be out best formation. Throw in the fact we would have 3 defenders back on all occasions actually strengthens our defence rather than weaken it. Especially at home. Also add to it Cheik and Cabaye sitting in centre midfield, HBA given a free role to work his magic all over the pitch, and still have 2 out and out striker in Ba and Cisse....I like it, I like it a lot. (Obviously this is taking into account no movement out the door)

----------------Krul----------------
                ------Saylor---Colo---Vertonghen (im dreaming)
 Santon-----------------------Jonas
----------Tiote---Cabaye---------
----------------HBA----------------
----------Cisse----Ba--------------


Even as we speak now, slot Willo in at CB and Simmo in for Saylor, it should still work.


The key to this is Santon and Jonas knowing when to get forward and when to get back, but if they play their natural instinct to do both, it shouldn't be a problem. The stats for Jonas in the above link show he is basically the best defensive winger in the league, so why fight it?

Let's Be Honest - NUFC In 2012 Have Been Awful

Since we absolutely hammered Man Utd 3-0 at St James' on 4th January, we haven't had a full decent 90 mins to speak of. How we are still 6th in the league at this stage is purely down to how impressive our results were in the first half of the season. Mixed with some battling qualities.


Since the Manure hammering we lumbered to a 1-0 win v QPR, got hammered for 5 in 45 mins at Fulham, got dumped out the FA Cup by Brighton, got dominated at Blackburn but somehow won 2-0, got outplayed for 45 mins by Villa but hung on to a 2-1 win, got totally demolished at Spurs 5-0, threw away a 2-0 half time lead against the worst team in the league in Wolves, had to rely on the Mackem Slayer to salvage a draw against the enemy, gave away a ridiculous last minute goal to lose at Arsenal after doing so well and then on Sunday afternoon laboured to a un-impressive 1-0 win over Norwich.


What we have seen since the turn of the year is the team most of us and the footballing world expected to see at the start of the season. It's hardly been top 6 football.


Some of our players look knackered at times recently and yet again yesterday. Demba Ba looks a different man since he came back from the ACoN, whats up with him? Has he ran out of Strawberry Syrup? Danny Guthrie's race was ran after 70 mins. Ben Arfa looked like he couldn't get out of 3rd gear. Cabaye doesn't look fresh at all. Jonas always seems to look knackered so I can't judge him properly. Tiote, Raylor and Obertan weren't in the squad due to injury. Are we running out of steam?

If we are, then it must be down to the monumental effort our relatively small squad put into the first half of the season and that Man Utd massacre. We had realistic ambitions of Champions League football next season due to the heriocs of the lads, which have now just fell short with out seeming lack of energy.


Looking at the table, we look to be totally reliant on which 2 teams will contest the FA Cup final to see whether we will be on Channel 5 and ITV4 next season on Thursday nights. Top 7 seems a certainty. So with Liverpool already in Europe because of the Carling Cup win, we don't need to finish above them. As it happens, due to the FA Cup draw, we are relying on the 'bin dippers' once again as they will have to beat either Everton or the mackems to give us the opportunity of qualifying for the Europa League....unless we finish 5th. However, judging by our form this calendar year and Chelsea turn in fortune, it's not gonna happen.


We go to the Hawthorns next on Sunday for another 4pm Live to the nation kick off. Hopefully we will have some players back and energy injected into the squad for the 9 game run-in everyone seems to be talking about.


Let's not end the season in a wimper, you've got all summer to rest up.


Howay The Lads!

The Words Of Mr Derek Llambias

Dirty Del has been all over the web today with interview quotes stretching from 'Why he sacked Hughton', to 'Cheik Tiote is very much up for sale' to 'Him and Mike don't even call it Sports Direct Arena'

If you haven't caught some of 'em, here they are:

http://www.nufcblog.com/2012/03/09/derek-llambias-hughton-a-great-guy-but-he-had-to-go/?

http://nothingbutnewcastle.com/2012/03/blogs/gallowgate-gossip/llambias-reveals-ashley-still-calls-stadium-st-james-park?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2112587/Newcastle-sell-Cheick-Tiote.html?

http://www.nufcblog.com/2012/03/09/llambias-explains-how-transfers-done-at-newcastle/?

Not that I really take anything he says to heart given the fact he is a proven liar who would say anything to cover himself and his employer with glory. But taking into account what he has to say, it's always nice to have a little bit more of an incite as to how Laurel and Hardy operate and think.

To sum up some of his waffle; Chris Hughton was sacked because he was too nice and didn't tell Derek to go f*ck himself now and again...ok then fair enough. Apparently Pardew can, which is nice to know.
Cheik Tiote is definitely for sale this summer and Derek is practically asking for offers with some of his quotes which I find distasteful and disappointing. Every NUFC fan would love Cheik to stay as he is the biggest cult hero we have. The only thing we can cling to is it will only take a huge fee to prize him away, which hopefully won't come or will be on the Andy Carroll scale. He also mentions how NUFC conduct transfers, also that Pardew himself gets involved in the financial side as well, which is also good. He also mentions that he rings the NUFC accountant and asks him how much money their is...little strange, but their we are. But most strange of all is his defiant, seemingly misplaced comments about the stadium name change. He says, '...do you think me and Mike call it Sports Direct Arena? We call is St James' Park, because it is St James' Park.' So the first thing that springs to mind to every NUFC fan is, Why the f*ck did you take the disgusting decision to actually physically remove the St James' sign outside the ground? What was the point. You call it St James', we call it St James'...so leave the f*cker alone!

Speaking of the Sports Direct Arena, part-time teenage fans (wearing Sports Direct gear by the way) were ripping down signs last night in the ground at the reserve derby game. which finished 3-3. It halted the game for a short while as the stewards cleared up a sign that was thrown onto the pitch. Now I am not one to be on the side of obvious imbeciles, but I have to smirk at the gesture. Nobody wants them dogsh*t eyesores in the ground, so do us all a favour and take 'em down. DL and MA are lucky we are doing well this season, otherwise 50,000 Geordies may have ripped down all of 'em by now in disgust.

The puppet has spoken...until next time.

NUFC Finances Set To Break Even - Lets All Praise Mike Ashley?!

NUFC are set to release their annual financial report which will show the club is about to break even for the season 2010/11. So to people who have a small interest in NUFC's finances over the past few years, coupled together with a brain, this is totally unexpected. 


However, this wont stop the journalists, football media and idiotic fans saying the following phrases, 'Fair play to Mike Ashley', 'Say what you want about Ashley, but he knows his finances' and 'Good job, well done Mike Ashley!'


Which of course, on the whole, is utter horseshit.


The financial details released year by year are what a football club does over the course of a season. It's worked out very simply of Income - Expenditure = Profit/Loss. So let's look at it shall we in very general terms.


Since NUFC were disgracefully relegated two major things happened: 1) We missed out on around £30-£40 million in Premier League revenue and 2) Some of our top earners contracts ran out (Owen £100k, Viduka £60k), jumped ship (Duff £60k, Beye £40k, Given £40k, Nzogbia £30k) or were sold to make some money (Martins £8mil plus £80k wages, Bassong £8million plus £20k wages, Geremi £2mil  plus £60k wages).


What this resulted in was that NUFC were no longer spending around £80mil on wages every season, but it was reduced to around £50mil. We have made some signings and sold more players since then so the wages stands at around £60mil-ish as we speak.


Now seeing as NUFC as a Premier League club makes around £80 - £90 million it goes without saying that our wage bill was far too big at around 100% of income at £80mil that was being spent on it. No football club can sustain this. Also putting everything else into account such as transfer fees paid, running costs, tax etc...NUFC were making a shocking loss under this 'Freddie Shephard' like approach.


So as NUFC bounced straight back into the Premier League with a wage bill of around £60mil plus other running costs of around £20mil and were set to make around £85mil in income from the Premier League...than i'll let you do the simple maths to work out what our financial results would be. It isn't rocket science!


In case you failed to work it out it comes to about break even.


So what exactly has Mike Ashley done?


Well as I have explained players left the club due to specific reasons of either contract ran out, or jumped the sinking ship or were sold to the highest bidder to make money. So you could say Mike Ashley was responsible for this, at is was his ridiculous decisions to a) bring in Dennis Wise b) Sack Keegan and c) Bring in Joe Kinnear that majorly contributed to our relegation season. So well done there Mike...!!


What he has also done is basically, 'not done a Freddie Shephard' by making overly expensive signings with huge wages the football club couldn't afford. So if we are saying a human being deserves to be praised for NOT acting like a totally irresponsible mad-man...then yes, well done there Mike...!!


What he also has done on the whole in transfers is before the Cisse signing in January, since he took over out club as a Billionaire sugar daddy is make a PROFIT of £40million in transfers fees...thats a NET PROFIT Ladies and Gentleman in transfer fees. No other club apart from Portsmouth can come even close to us on that scale over the past 5 years. So again, if we are praising people for being a greedy, tight bastard? Then well done there Mike...!!


So to conclude NUFC are a football club that have there wages under control at a level that fits into their Income Revenue stream; they dont have a transfer policy of spending shit loads of money on players they cant afford and have a unshakable sell first/buy second system to player recruitment; they only buy players of 26 years and under so that they can actively look to sell on in the future for a nice profit; and are looking to sell the naming rights to their historic stadium even though no fucker seems to want to, so instead cover it in shockingly ugly Sports Direct logos.


Excellent.


Mike Ashley does deserve some praise for where we are right now, but not what the morons will come out with after our financial records come out for the world to scrutinise over.


Mike Ashley isn't Freddy 'mad-man' Shephard, he got us relegated due to ridiculous decisions, the high profile players have all left and have been replaced with cheaper options and he isn't interested in spending any money whatsoever unless we make it first, he discards the name St James' Park in order to try and make money from naming rights but nobody wants to do it, he rapes our stadium inside and out with his dog ugly Sports Direct logos that make you wanna throw up - so let's praise him for it?!


Forgive me if I don't join in the Mike Ashley love-fest that will come out of this, due to the facts I have an intelligent brain and more importantly basic common sense.


Once again - honestly well done Mike, we've kind of got there in the end of 5 years of trying...but it could have been so much better with a little bit of nouse, little bit of common sense and whole lot more dignity, honour and respect...!!!!

Nobody Won From The Derby Game - In More Ways Than One

Watching that game I went through so many emotions it was unbearable at times. I was expecting a roller-coaster of ups and downs, goals, hard tackles, sending off's and drama...but that demolition derby was a cut above the rest.

After all is said and done though, nobody won from that game. The result obviously was shared and looking at key incidents and the people involved, nobody came out smelling of roses:

NUFC - we were a shambles first half and were more interested in kicking the sh*t out of Sunderland players and the just launching the ball long, rather than actually playing football. We came back strong in the second half but that only highlighted that if they were interested in playing from the off, we would have won that game convincingly.

Mackems - They had the game in their hands but threw it away. The best chance they will have for a while to win on Geordie soil and they blew it. Which does make me smile.

Pardew - Acted like a totally smug, petulant, arrogant tw*t who disgustingly got in Martin O'Neills face TWICE after his side got a pen (which we embarrassingly missed for him) then equalised in injury time. Disgraceful behaviour. I'm all for getting one over the enemy but I don't want to see my manager who represents my team act in that way. Would Sir Bobby or Keegan act like that?
You won't win me over by fist pumping in the oppositions face, you will win me over by picking the best team and winning the game. Sort yourself out...you face Wenger next. Remember that exchange Pard's?

O'Neill - Resorted to accusing Newcastle staff of going into the referee's room at half time and that's reason why they a) didn't win & b) Cattermole got sent off. What? Shut the f*ck up you awkward clown.

Cattermole - Speaking of Cattermole. You're a horrible, dirty little c*nt. Retire and go be a bouncer in Mackem City Centre or something. Just f*ck off.

Sessegnon - Punches a player in the face in front of the referee? Why? Your an idiot.

Demba Ba - Should have let Shola score that penalty. He doesnt miss against Sun'lund, all geordies know this. Big mistake. He never looked confident either.

Shola - Like I say. He knows he never misses, so put your foot down and take the pen. You won it after all. Nice goal though and I wont criticise the mackem slayer.

So basically my point is nobody won from this game. I am just relieved we didn't lose. I'm glad it's over for another season (2-1 on aggregate and 4 points took) and we can look towards getting as many points as possible to try and finish 5th or higher. Our season looks like coming down to who gets in the FA Cup Final to determine where the european spots get dished out to but seeing as this is totally out of our hands, we must try and finish in front of managerless Chelsea who will hope have made a huge mistake in sacking AVB for basically RDM...since when is Roberto DiMatteo a better manager than Villa-Boas. Stupid decision.

Howay the lads!


All Hail The Mackem Slayer!