Dancing Barefoot

 Just because Newcastle United are in the middle of a 16-day Premier League furlough, it doesn't mean I can take my eyes off them -:

As you’re all no doubt aware, I don’t gamble. However, grown impatient with the delays in goal notifications from the BBC Sport website, I was forced to dip my toe in the cesspool of online betting when I downloaded the Flash Scores app, which is both punctual and accurate, though it does insist on offering odds on an array of possible bets with each update. I’ve set Hibs and Newcastle as my favourites, which means I get reminders that games involving both teams are about to kick off. On Wednesday last, my phone pinged to tell me that Motherwell v Hibs would be starting in 15 minutes and on Friday 28^th, I received notification that a 70-minute kickabout between Al-Ittihad and Newcastle United was about to take place, behind closed doors, at the Prince Abdullah Al Faisal Stadium in Jeddah, as a smidgeon more of the small print of the PIF buyout of NUFC is revealed to a disbelieving readership.

Obviously the fact we’ve turned a corner (I’m still thinking like Algarve-Bruce at this point) following the Cambridge game means the lads deserved a spell of warm weather training, devoid of nourishing noontide pints a la Celtic in Dubai of course. In return for  a week’s free bed and board in the cradle of despotism , not to mention the thick end of £85m in transfer fees, Newcastle United  were required to divest themselves of any remaining vestiges of dignity by adopting the guise of sportswashed catamites for the House of Saud.

Rewind a couple of weeks. In the lead up to the Watford game, I’d been sure the lads would have been raring to go from the off; desperate to flush the toxic Cambridge result out of their system. Watching Percy Main get tanked 4-0 at Rutherford at the foot of Lobley Hill, the sounds from SJP carried across the river,  where an expectant support roared the team on. Not one of the crowd expected a win because Newcastle are good, but because Watford are rancid. Just how rancid was shown the Friday afterwards when Norwich, of all teams, ruthlessly picked the Hornets apart and saw Ranieri made to clear his desk. Unfortunately, Newcastle put in a textbook Algarve-Bruce performance, by failing to build on a single goal lead and retreating further and further back, inviting Watford to attack them, with maddeningly predictable results as 2 points were spaffed against the wall. That’s 4 points Watford have denied Newcastle now in 2021/2022; let’s see how that affects proceedings at the end of the campaign eh?

 

There isn’t enough anger at the current situation and too much of what does exist, is wrongly focused on Ashley and Algarve-Bruce. That ship has sailed. We need to live in the here and now, which means more questions should be asked of the ownership. Louder criticism should be directed at Howe. This is unlikely to happen, despite some opportunistic sulking on social media by some less than trustworthy sources, when NUST can unilaterally decide to abolish the share campaign as they still seem enamoured of the latest boardroom bullshitters on Barrack Road. A whopping 87% of a tiny electorate backed NUST board’s suggestion to pass all money collected to charity. It will be interesting to see the receipts for those transactions…

 Following the late concession against Watford and the lack of any discernible progress in terms of overhauling the squad, it would be fair to say there was an ominous feel to the build-up to Leeds away but, and enormous credit to the team, they gave it their best shot and brought home a much needed three points. Sure we’re still in the bottom 3, but at least it shows there’s some life in us still. All we need now are a few more quality bodies in the door and we might finish top of the 4 (or 6) team league of losers at the foot of the table.

Despite the imminent arrivals of Fumaca II (Bruno Guimaraes) and Kevin Scott Junior (Dan Burn) to partner the New Kenny Sansom and Kiwi Pingel in the modern day revival of Newcastle United’s 1988/1989 season, with Nice Guy Eddie in the role of last choice boss, Jim Smith, Newcastle United have not credibly bolstered an inadequate and emotionally spent playing squad. Instead we have concentrated on coquettishly dancing barefoot in front of the House of Saud’s murderous potentates. Now if this trip to Sharia land had been organised for the express purpose of beheading Nice Guy Eddie or Ciaran Clark for managing to get a red card in the Jeddah jaunt that we actually won 2-1, I could have bought into it. Instead, I marvelled in incredulity how such an outrageous outing could have been scheduled for the last week of the transfer window.

Then again, why think that way? Transfers are no longer hammered out in melamine panelled boardrooms, or even over distasteful steak lunches in roadside Beefeaters; it’s all done via Zoom these days, with a club plenipotentiary and medical assistant ready to step aboard a private jet, Liz Truss style, to close the deal. Of course, the new owners of Newcastle United have brought a fresh, vibrant approach to such negotiations, by binning a Director of Football none of us had heard of or even knew he’d been given the gig, after a week in post on Christmas Eve of all days. To think people questioned Ashley and Charnley’s motives and professionalism.

Whether we manage to pull rabbits out of the hat on January 31^st by striking deals for the Manc Franz Carr (Lingard) or any other has-been, never-was or avaricious mercenary and, whether we stay up or not, it seems a racing certainty that El Fraude Benitez will be the ex-officio DoF next season. Nice Guy Eddie is only Head Coach remember; I doubt whether he’ll have any say so in his future at Newcastle United, no matter how much bowing and scraping he does to the PIF royalty between now and the end of May. The misfiring plan that Staveley concocted had Benitez at the top of the pile and that’s what will happen. Great eh? Certainly, I doubt any of us believed that becoming the richest club in the world would involve seeing Dan Burn and Chris fucking Wood turning out in black and white.

Mind, if we do what we’ve singularly failed to manage this season, and get 6 points from the must-win home games against Everton and Villa, then things may appear considerably better than at any time this season.