Dummy

Wrote a thing for Mudhutter, about Paul Dummett signing for Wigan -:

I must admit that when I saw ex Newcastle defender Paul Dummett had signed for the Latics, I was quietly pleased for both him and for you, although I had hoped he’d one day sign for Bristol City, so Portishead could have Dummy living there (sorry). Seriously, I think he’s a good player who can help you out with his experienced head, astute positional sense and calm demeanour. I thought it was a crying shame he’d been without a club since leaving SJP at the end of last season, so let’s hope following in the footsteps of another limited but honest player, James Perch, this is a mutually beneficial union, however brief. Please don’t think Dummett’s with you just to pick up a wage; he’s a proper professional and will do the job that is asked of him and more. One of the good things that Nice Guy Eddie Howe has done since he’s been in charge, is to allow former players who become free agents to continue training with the club, to help them keep sharp during their search for a fresh start.

Anyway, what are you getting for the next couple of months? A vastly experienced 33-year-old defender, who has mainly played as a left back, but prefers (and is arguably better as a) centre half. He isn’t a commanding, snarling presence or a no-holds-barred marauding stopper, but rather a calm and assured ball player who is decent in the air. Over 12 seasons on Tyneside, he made 196 appearances, the overwhelming majority in the Premier League, and scored 4 goals, the most celebrated of which was a diving header from about 18 inches above the turf in a bonkers 3-2 League Cup win away to Palace in September 2014.

You may be surprised to learn that, despite being born on North Tyneside, Dummy is a Welsh international. His international career wasn’t a stellar one, making only 5 appearances and being left out of the 2016 European Championships squad, but it’s a decent thing to have on your CV. Similarly, his greatest achievement at club level was in black and white stripes, but not with Newcastle. He spent two loan spells with St Mirren in 2012/2013, sandwiching a return to SJP to make his Magpies debut in an FA Cup game against Brighton (we lost). With The Buddies he not only made 30 appearances and scored his first senior goal against St Johnstone but played the full game in St Mirren’s unexpected triumph in the Scottish League Cup final, being instrumental in setting up the second goal in a 3-2 win over Hearts. Whatever he achieves in the game, he will always have a winner’s medal to cherish, and he was never going to get one of those with NUFC was he? 

Generally, he played about 50% of games, often filling in across the back line for injuries and suspensions, with notable highlights including goals at home to Liverpool in November 2013 and Manchester United in January 2016, both rescuing draws right at the death. His other goal was in a thoroughly enjoyable 4-2 win away to Leicester on a Friday night in an empty ground at the tail end of the COVID-blighted 20/21 campaign. Looking at the stats for his time on Tyneside, his season totals veered between 45 appearances in the 16/17 Championship winning side, to zero minutes on the pitch in 22/23, though he did get a runner-up medal when we lost the League Cup final to Manchester United. In fact, his last 3 seasons saw him hardly play at all, as injury and the appearance of better players post takeover relegated him to minor walk-on roles. 

Sadly, his final campaign will probably be remembered for a wholly unnecessary wrestling move on Calvert-Lewin that gave Everton their injury time equalising penalty in a dogshit draw on a Wednesday night in early April 2024, though he did make other appearances after that. He rang the curtain down on his Newcastle career with an injury-time appearance off the bench in the season ending 4-2 win away at Brentford. The potential offer of a further 1-year contract extension for both him and Mitt Ritchie (who seemed to get 1 year deals every year, despite hardly ever playing) was withdrawn after European football failed to materialise for Newcastle in 24/25. Hence, this is where we are. Good luck to him and good luck to Wigan.

Fraud Squad

Newcastle United; quite good, most of the time...

When I last turned my thoughts to the fortunes of Newcastle United during the previous international break (https://payaso-de-mierda.blogspot.com/2024/10/bad-blood.html), the team lay 8th in the league and I had this to say about the month in store: We need 6 points minimum and a cup victory to be achieving anything close to a reasonable set of results. And so it came to pass that as we enter the November international break, Newcastle stand in 8th place in the table, having accrued 6 points and a League Cup victory since we were last here. The end of this blog? Not quite.

As ever, the devil was in the detail of the events I’m about to discuss. With 4 of the 5 games being shown live on television, it was par for the course that I only got to see one of them. However, by reading social media (hashtag #NUFC on Twitter) and absorbing the sagacious opinions of True Faith, I know exactly what I should think which, you’ll not be surprised to know, is often the diametrical opposite of what those with the loudest voices, biggest egos and stupidest opinions have to say. All in all, it remains a solid, indisputable fact that Eddie Howe is the best English coach around, even if Graham Potter’s reputation grows with every minute he spends away from the training pitch, and there is no doubt in my mind that to dispense with Howe, regardless of circumstance (I’m not holding out much hope for the January window now the PIF have lost interest in Newcastle) before the end of the season, would be an act of crass folly. Mind, a loss at home to Bournemouth in the League Cup will result in the cyber pitchfork and on-line flaming cross brigade virtually creating havoc at the bottom of Barrack Road.

Things got a little bit feisty in cyberland after the month began with a profligate loss to Brighton, where our inability to put the ball in the net was seen as evidence of Isak’s lack of interest, Gordon’s refusal to commit to the club, Howe’s substandard tactics and Osula being worse than Rob MacDonald in Bobby Shinton’s shorts. That’s what I gleaned from on-line comments anyway, as I didn’t see a second of the game, mainly because Ben and I were quality testing Cantillon beer in Brussels and enjoying RUSC 0 KAA Gent 0 straight afterwards. Despite our Airbnb having a clear stream of BBC1, we chose not to watch Match of the Day and so it was a week later, with the first part of our double header against Chelsea when reality hit. I mean, it should have done but having been to Montrose 0 Cove Rangers 2 the day before, I owed Shelley some quality time. Instead of seething on a comfortable sofa, I allowed myself to be dragged around Byker Retail Park, as she looked for Christmas presents. I think I made the right choice and for the right reasons, which is a bit of a first for me.

Obviously, I saw the goals on my phone within 30 seconds of them being scored and could read, with mounting disbelief, the apparently undeniable truth that Isak has been a disgrace all season. Indeed, blame for the defeat was to be shared equally between Isak, for his lack of commitment and Howe, who has apparently lost all his powers of motivation, not to mention any sense of tactical acumen. Well, that take looks good on the back of the Arsenal and Forest results, but no matter. Sadly, and I hate agreeing with Jamie Carragher about anything, NUFC’s support is so volatile that nothing less than a 180 degree turnaround in performances and fortunes would have been enough to silence, albeit temporarily, the hot-headed jumpy jacks whose phone is a kind of 4G enabled therapy toy, where their vacuous words gain unmerited traction when amplified by the thoughts of similar twisty faced manchildren who can’t accept that your football team sometimes has to lose.

Sometimes you have to give your team a miss; sometimes, this is because you’ve got tickets to the ballet. That’s exactly what happened for the Chelsea League Cup game. Shelley and I were watching Swan Lake by the English National Ballet at the Odeon Silverlink. I’d never seen a ballet before, and it was beautiful and beguiling. I was so totally engaged in it that I didn’t even check my phone until the interval. We were 2-0 to the good, so I stuck the trusty Blackberry (seriously) back in my skyrocket until the curtain fell to tumultuous applause. So caught up in discussing and dissecting the fate of Prince Siegfried and his amour fou with Odille / Odette were we that I didn’t even look for highlights on the telly. Good win though and special thanks to Enzo Maresca for putting out a side that almost guaranteed our passage to the last 8. Being fair, you can only beat what is in front of you and, from the brief highlights I saw, it could have been a hatful. 

That was never going to be the case against Arsenal. In fact, once we’d got ahead, one goal was comfortable enough, until Rice missed that chance in injury time, and we all exhaled in collective relief. I think what really stuck in Paellardyce’s craw was the fact he actually had nothing to complain about. Newcastle played better, especially the previously derided Gordon and Isak, as tactically, courtesy of the efforts of the supposedly incompetent Howe, we wiped the floor with them. The Gunners didn’t lay a glove on us all afternoon and that’s why they won’t be Champions, because their tendency to twist and whine when things won’t go their way is as much of an Achilles Heel as their contemptible cowardice under pressure of the latter Wenger years. Mind it was unfortunate that results elsewhere saw us tumble from 8th at full time to 11th at the end of the weekend’s fixtures. No doubt some on-line nutters were seeing mathematical realities as indication of Howe’s incompetence.

I wouldn’t like to speculate what their thoughts were at half time at the City Ground. I tell you what I thought about; our trip to Boundary Park almost exactly 31 years ago to the day. That Monday night fixture was supposedly the start of Sky referring to Keegan’s team as The Entertainers, and rightly so. What is often overlooked is that we went in at the break trailing, before absolutely blowing Oldham out the water in the second period, way back when. The same thing happened here. Truly, we should not have been losing at the interval, but no matter, I wasn’t worried in the slightest. Let’s be honest, if Bruno’s effort had gone in, Christmas would have come early. As it was, Joelinton’s winner was a pretty decent substitute highlight. I thought the full backs were excellent, BDB put a proper shift in, and we suffocated them in the middle of the park. Barnes showed exactly why Sels was a textbook Benitez signing, with an embarrassing concession at his near post. Worse of all was, as my mate Tom calls him, James Fraud Prowse. The footballing equivalent of The Scotch Play, his is a morality tale of the dangers of venal ambition. Rather like the Titanic, he ought never have left Southampton.

So, and there’s no point in whining about this because everyone thinks the same, just as we’re running into a bit of form, there’s another bloody pointless international break to ruin the momentum. In fact, our next game isn’t until November 25th when West Ham visit. In a packed schedule, we’ve got Palace (A), Liverpool (H), Brentford (A), Leicester (H), Brentford League Cup (H) and Ipswich (A) before Christmas. I’ll be looking for 10 points and a cup win, before some tough tests against Villa (H), Man Utd (A) and Spurs (A) over the Festive Period.