Ah, the middle of May!  Heading towards summer, the time when a young man’s thoughts turn to the approaching sounds of leather on willow, the popping of champagne corks at Wimbledon and the gentle “thwack” of the letterbox as your season ticket renewal form lands gently on your doormat.  (Or possibly the old lady’s in the next street with the same house number if you have our postman.  To be fair though, I don’t think she appreciates the curry deliveries either.)  You can tell it’s that time of year again by the “incessant talking” coming from the St James’ boardroom.  “Why don’t you give it a rest?” as Chan’n’Dave so eloquently put it.

The week began with the now customary picking over the bones of the latest weekend disaster, the 2-0 reverse at Everton.  Shearer again left on the bench with “no problem” with the decision apparently, (Article) and Shola Ameobi the latest and hopefully the last in an irregular series of players to come out and say, “Sorry, I cost us the game.”  (Article)  I’m amazed the headline “Sho sorry!” didn’t appear anywhere mesel’ like.  Perhaps it did and I missed it, you never know.  Everton may have gotten away with “Blue Murder” (Article) and indeed rubbed our noses in it with their league position (Article) but were we really good enough, whilst shooting ourselves in the foot yet again to deserve the points?  Mind you that ref is a tosser but we can’t lay ALL the blame at his door. (Article)  And for me the league table, especially at this stage of the season, does not lie.  Despite their faults, lack of charm and negative goal difference (courtesy of the midweek thrashing by Arsenal which caused certain mumblings within the tf tifosi along the lines of “thank feck we didn’t get to the cup final against that lot after all”) they are there on merit because they can hold onto a lead.  We can’t and I can find 31 reasons to back that up.  31 points that is.

Tuesday brought the first murmurings from within the “wide” seat of power at St James’.  A get-tough stance on Viana and Bellamy claiming that they were to attend for first team training on June 22.  (Article) and (Article)  Obviously a totally unnecessary threat to hasten any transfer deals for the pair.  Seriously, and not withstanding your personal wishes or feelings on the two, can any of us realistically see either of them in a black and white shirt again?  Talk remains cheap and yes I’m sure no-one envies the task over the summer (Article) but no one at St James’ seems to help themselves when they open their mouths.  Perhaps that’s why the manager cancelled his planned Radio Newcastle appearance.  And no one here within the tf bunker would argue that next week he will answer questions in the Evening Chronicle and it’s so much easier to hand pick your questions and have three days to reply than do it live on the radio.  No one at all.  Not one of us.

Speaking of questions and answers in the ronny gill, Wednesday brought us part one of Freddy Shepherd’s question and answer session.  (Article) Funnily enough, closely followed on Thursday by part two. (Article) Hand picked questions, with time to answer and very little depth, substance or reflection of the varied scope and passionate feelings within our ranks.  Hard hitting journalism of the Shola Ameobi kind (as opposed to the egg-chasing Neil Back variety.  Note: there’ll be no Sue Mott led outcry at that one.)  Disappointing doesn’t even begin to explain it.  All it actually did was give sound bites to the national press for them to fill copy and air time with it really (Article), (Article) and (Article) for example.

They didn’t have long to wait for more for the loose tongued one though did they?  On Thursday he had moved to telling us to prepared to be” astounded”. (Article) and (Article)  Is that better than being “pleasantly surprised”?  I bloody hope it is.  Then by the weekend he was making noises warning off Malcolm Glazier not to try and break up the Premiership TV deal to get more of a share for Man U.  (Article) and (Article)  Now to me these comments don’t tally with his ramblings in Dubai at the start of the season.  You know the ones that got Yeading and their friends at The Sun all riled.  Is it a “dog-eat-dog” world and “every man for himself” or not?  I just wish he’d keep it shut and get on with it.  How can any player take criticism about running to the media and being “mis-quoted” when the chairman seems to have a direct line to Sky Sports News every time he wants to chip in his twopennorth?

Of course the end of season pre-renewal hype wouldn’t be complete without transfer speculation.  The ones to catch my eye this week have been Michael Owen (Article) (nice idea but…), Lyon’s Sidney Gouvu (Article) (Sidney ffs?  Remember Guivarch…) and pie eating goalkeeper Paddy Kenny (Article) who is in the shape of his life, apparently.  Well I know I’m not one to criticise but I’d hate to see him when he’s “overweight” then.

Naturally we also feature heavily in the various round-ups of the season by the papers, and not very favourably of course.  Gordon Strachan (Article) and Steve Tongue (Article) amongst the best at reminding us how much shite we’ve had to put up with this year.  Another reminder came from a small apology printed in The Sun to one K Dyer, dragging up more muck from the past.  At least some good came out of this, and credit where it is due to Dyer for passing the damages on to charity.  Perhaps he has learned his lesson.  I just wish this lesson hadn’t had to be learned in the first place.  Finally I’ll leave you with this web site, which came to my attention this week.  (Article)  Makes interesting reading, especially in current climes.  Whatever would the chairman say?  Don’t ask him, you may not be able to shut him up.

NM