Today is Blaydon Races Day, so here's a blog about Newcastle United -:
Indeed, as you’ve probably noticed, the summer transfer window is now open, presumably to speed up the acquisitional needs of Man City and Real Madrid before a tournament called the Club World Championships, or something, which is being played at a location I’m unsure of and a time that doesn’t interest me. My sole football concern, rather than Percy Main’s imminent attempt to win promotion back to the Alliance Premier Division next season, is the fate of Newcastle United. I suppose I should have blogged about the club the moment the Premier League ground to a halt, but like that sagacious philosopher Thumper, I was always taught that "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.” A fortnight on and I find myself in the same situation. Hence, I will now graciously give a full account of the departing Jamaal Lewis’s positive contributions to NUFC over the past five years…
Anyway, the hurried departure of the apparently deeply unpopular (with Eddy Howe supposedly) and singularly unsuccessful (by any unit of measurement) Paul Mitchell from his role of Head of Player Recruitment has now, according to those in the know, made it easier for PIF, freed from the shackles of PSR, to lavish their bountiful reserves of cash on an infinite number of players, who aren’t called Bryan Mbeumo or Liam Delap. Already we’ve been delighted by the news that Mark Gillespie (who can forget his penalty save against Spurs in Australia last summer or his confident display between the sticks at Newport in 2020?) has had another year’s deal offered, taking him 60% of the way to a testimonial. Not only that, but the club are in talks with vital third choice custodian John Ruddy about giving him a few bob to sit on the bench when we’re short. The news that Tim Krul, after a few years away finding himself by travelling to the likes of Brighton, Norwich and Luton, is also about to take a cosy perch pitchside on Euro aways, on account of his status as an academy player who played out of his skin in Palermo under Glenn Roeder two decades ago when even Luque scored, proves you need at least 6 keepers in this day and age. Well we do have a triumvirate of captains at the current time, so you can’t be too careful. Then again, the seeming disappearance of Odysseas Vlachodimos (what a great use of £20m he was; almost as much of a scandal as Juve stumping up the same dosh for the legendary Lloyd Kelly) could suggest he’s either been abducted by aliens or was just a figment of the PIF’s imagination, invented to circumvent last season’s unpleasant brush with PSR.
Forgive my cynicism, as I haven’t even got round to mentioning Callum Wilson, whose appearances last season combined the speed of Mark McGhee and the girth of Micky Quinn at the tail end of the 1990/1991 season. Apparently we’re in talks with him about another year’s deal. Good idea if his role in standing around in an orange, fluorescent coat and letting punters out for a vape from the East Stand at half time. If it involves playing, I’d be incandescent. How on earth this makes Will Osula feel the Lord alone knows. Actually, young Will probably doesn’t realise the season is over and is still having a daft play in the showers after the Everton game, using empty Lynx bottles as water pistols to squirt the rest of the lads.
Being serious, we have signed 18-year old right winger Antonio Cordero from Malaga. I remember back in 2014 when news of Ayoze Perez’s arrival was greeted in some quarters with the same level of grief and anguish that Macduff displayed when learning of his family’s murder in The Scotch Play. They were wrong then, as Ayoze was a fine, fine player who was never appreciated by our support and continues to have a distinguished career in Spain to this day. Perhaps young Antonio will emulate him, but I can’t see him making the first team squad as quickly as Perez did. Times have changed over the last decade and a bit. Not in terms of communication from the club hierarchy to the ordinary punter, but you get what I’m saying.
What has put me in such a bad fettle regarding the club? I know I’m sounding like a True Faith curmudgeon, but I was just so underwhelmed by our limp end to the season that I’m struggling to raise even two cheers about getting into the Champions League, even if we’ll pocket the thick end of £100m quid. Alright, last campaign we did something I never thought I’d see in my life, we won a cup. It changed the club, it changed the support, and I thought it had changed me forever. Remember, I’m the one who insists we’ve won two European trophies (and here’s to Scotty Parker with the Inter Toto Cup in his hands), so I should be so immensely grateful that I’d never complain again and I’m not. Really, I’m not. Incidentally I do accept that Crystal Palace’s victory in the FA Cup final was of greater magnitude than our achievement, as they’d never won anything (ZDS Cup excepted) in their history. The hill I will die on is that our victory in the Carabou Cup was a greater feat than Spurs claiming the Europa League, on account of the difficult route we had to negotiate to do so.
But I honestly believe we could, and perhaps should, have finished second in the Premier League. Those final pair of lacklustre defeats to Arsenal and then Everton cost us big time, even if 5th is no disgrace. In the former fixture, we missed a load of chances in the opening half then saw the game run away from us and we simply failed to show up against Everton. The fact we still qualified for the Champions League at the expense of Villa, who were robbed blind at Old Trafford, will never fail to make me smirk. When their big wage earners are sold cut price now they no longer have CL cash to bathe in and Emery bails out for a Saudi sinecure, claiming his hands are tied by financial restrictions, I will laugh uproariously. May 24th, 2009 is a long time ago, but I’ll never forget their fans’ conduct that day. I’ll consequently never have a good word to say about them. Childish? Vindictive? Yes, but I don’t care.
So, how did we get here? I last blogged after we’d taken Palace to pieces back in mid-April. That was a fun night, and also the last of the 3 games I managed at SJP in the season just ended; Bromley and Brentford were the others. I made no effort to get an Ipswich ticket as I was up in Aberdeen that day, watching Cove Rangers 2 Kelty Hearts 2, which I’ve written about elsewhere. I knew Ipswich would sell their full allocation, on account of making the most of their season in the big time. I rate their manager; there’s the Bobby Robson connection and I truly hope they bounce back. What this game showed me was the NUFC membership scheme was not fit for purpose. For £45 you get the chance to apply for a ticket, and if you’re successful in the ballot, everything in the garden is rosy. However, there’s no guarantee you’ll get one. In fact, my Ben only managed to get one all season at that was for Bromley. Not a single league game. John in Ireland, and his son Ciaran, only managed to get tickets for midweek games (Brentford and Palace; cheers lads), managing to get to the games they flew over for via helpful fellow Irish mags who religiously applied for every game, whether they intended going, or not. Then again, so did Ben, John and Ciaran, without success. What are the odds on this terrible lack of luck? Is the process completely transparent and honest? I have my doubts. Also, what happens next season if the same scheme operates, but another 15,000 sign up for it on the back of our achievements. The tiny odds on winning the raffle for a spot in Level 7 next to some moaning bastard who fucks off with 15 minutes to go are now astronomically small. This is the sort of thing I’d like to see the club address, as I’m not the only one who thinks the scheme stinks.
As for the actual Ipswich game, the best news was seeing Howe back on the bench after his illness, but it was sad to see Joelinton miss out, with his season effectively over. Personally I’d have started Miley ahead of Willock, who hasn’t been in great form at all this season. Certain others like Isak and Murphy simply ran out of steam, exhausted by their Herculean efforts, their spent bodies unable to overcome niggling strains and injuries that need a bloody good rest, but Willock never really got started all year. Disallowing Bruno’s goal was probably the worst VAR decision that didn’t happen at Old Trafford on the final day, but it was great to see Osula (I like the lad tremendously) score such a bullet of a header. It was good, and vital as it turned out, that we won the last easy fixture of the season.
For the most part, I’ve been able to watch stress-free illegal streams on my Fire Stick, but the Brighton game was the start of the quality heading south. I tried 4 different channels to see this one, but each one endlessly froze then buffered, until I gave up, sticking with Sky Sports News until half time. From what I saw later on via brief highlights, we started well, but once they took the lead, we turned to shit. By the time the feed settled down around the hour mark, we’d pulled our socks up and thoroughly deserved the penalty we got to level things up. The 2 others that were given and then rescinded after VAR checks were correct decisions I must admit. Possibly the most shocking incident was Wilson almost stealing victory at the death, when their keeper made an excellent save. It was a tough game, and a point gained the hard way, which is how it should be if you’re looking to get in the Champions League. Unless you’re Spurs of course.
I had a good feeling about Chelsea at home, which was vindicated both by Murphy’s early goal and the fact they were dogshit. Jackson’s deserved red card made no real difference, other than making us, perhaps unconsciously, step off the gas a little. After the break, Palmer got involved and they looked menacing. Pope made three quality saves, but Bruno, who I made our man of the match, wrapped things up with a far more difficult finish than the one he’d earlier blazed high and wide with only the keeper to beat. The dream of overtaking the Arse was still alive.
Of course, probably because things were going rather well, there was still time for the on-line fanbase to get at each other’s cyber throats when discussing a potential new club badge. It’s not as if the one we have is rooted in pre-history and there have been several other designs, some in my life time. Still, it was enough to get death threats slung around Musk’s internet cesspit whenever someone pointed out we’ve had a different away shirt every season for about 30 years.
Then came Arsenal. No Isak, Joelinton or Trippier meant the doom-mongers were predicting a 4-0 before we got off the coach, but I was pleasantly surprised by how we initially took the game to a timid home side. Then, as was becoming more of a pattern in the latter days of the season, we ran out of legs and imagination around the interval and once Rice had scored his admittedly fine goal, it was time at the bar. You can obviously point to the paper-thin squad and lack of real quality on the bench, but Gordon was a particular disappointment as he has been since he came back into the side. He has far more natural ability than Barnes, who displays willingness every game, but I’ve seen little from him in the last couple of months to justify the sent his way. By contrast, Bruno and Tonali, especially, have just got better, though they missed Joelinton’s physical presence alongside them. Second place had slipped from our grasp and third seemingly so as well when City roused themselves to win their game in hand during midweek.
Coming into the final day, every spot between third and seventh was still up for grabs, but we never looked remotely like moving upwards. City won and Chelsea beat Forest, who will have a whale of a time in the Europa Conference league and the very best of luck to them, meaning that once a sprightly and organised Everton, vastly improved since Moyes returned (West Ham, were you watching?), took the lead and our attempts to fightback were all so weak and clueless, we needed Man United to do us a favour. Having coughed up 6 points without a whimper, that seemed a fond ask, thus it looked as if the Europa League was our destination. Thankfully, some refereeing insanity saw Amorim’s rabble take the points, and we ended up in 5th spot. Perhaps you needed to be in the ground to appreciate the enormity of the achievement, but in Ben’s living room, we shrugged, said a collective Meh and switched off. What did sink in later on was just how important qualification will be in keeping hold of Bruno, Isak and Tonali, who want and need to be on the biggest club stage possible.
In
town, the celebrations were loud, raucous and heartfelt. In Heaton, I toasted
Union Saint Gilloise’s first Belgian title in 90 years with a marvellous saison
in House bar then went home to pack for Ross County v Livingston the next day. The
chance of away trips to Brussels and Bilbao could offer the finest European
city breaks imaginable. When I and the rest of the NUFC support awoke that Bank
Holiday Monday, the hope was for quick, decisive action in the transfer market.
Two weeks on, giving Mark Gillespie another year’s pin money isn’t quite that.
Today is the 9th of June. Blaydon Races Day. Now, or very soon, is the perfect time to bring the feelgood factor back to the club, though Sean’s 2/43 for Tynemouth on Saturday is something I treasure, even if not many others do. Let’s get some new bodies through that door ASAP, and maybe an old one in the shape of Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny Ruddy on the bench. On the bench.
P.S. Congratulations to Sunderland on achieving promotion. After an awful end to the season, they showed great tenacity and resilience in the play-offs. The hard work starts now of course, but privately I don’t think there’s a single red and white doesn’t realise the enormity of the task that lies ahead of them. Best of luck.
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