Coverage for the week of the 21st  - 27th November

Thank God for that lot down the road. Something I never thought I’d hear myself saying but no matter how disappointing a week we have had, their plight keeps us all amused. It’s like rubber necking after a car crash; you know you shouldn’t watch but you just can’t help it, just in case you see blood or body parts. And talk about one extreme to the other. Not for them the “sack the board” protest, oh no. Nor the infamous “sit-in” protest, principally because only one was prepared to wait around that long. Last week it was running on the pitch to pronounce their goalkeeper “no good”. Such cutting remarks! This week the other extreme. Glassing their chairman. (Article) In a Newcastle restaurant, of all places. (Article) (Note to the Sunday Mirror: it may have happened in Newcastle but it was one of their own that did it) All of them coming up here to act out the latest piece of the melodrama. Chairman, Manager, Fan. Put his hand in his pocket? There’s nowt left man! Surely a strongly worded letter would have been a better first course of action. Happening in the same week as they were proclaimed the worst ever Premiership side (Article) 19 points suddenly seems a hell of a long way away.

Anyway, enough about them, what about us? The week started with Scott Parker picking up more accolades for his performance against Chelsea. (Article) A game we threw away and as you’ll see the press did their usual trick of producing almost exactly the same reports over and over again. (Article) (Article) (Article) (Article) I wonder who drew the short straw in the Chelsea press box last weekend? It comes to something though when we are desperate for the return of a 19 year old to tighten our defence. (Article) 8 to 10 weeks still it would appear. (Article) And how many more times are we going to talk about Shitus Bungle having to “concentrate” more? (Article) To say the errors will cost us is as condescending as it is obvious. (Article) Centre back remains an area where we need to strengthen and I for one am sick of trying to be patient with Bramble. Get him delivering now, regularly, or get rid.

One defender to come out with some credit of late has been Peter Ramage. Enquired about by Sven at Chelsea apparently. (Article) (Article) I think he was just wondering who he was personally and not “who is he? He would look good in my World Cup squad” which is the angle the press are running. Never mind, he’s done ok and has the right kind of attitude for me. Whether or not he has what it takes to make himself a permanent fixture is another thing but when Carr is fit why not try him in the centre? I don’t think we could do much worse!

Lee Clark gave a cracking interview to the Evening Chronicle over 2 days this week. (Article) (Article) All angles covered, no questions ducked. Typical of the lad really! One Love. And once again if this is what he was brought in to do, to pass on that understanding and love of the shirt, he’s doing it well. That love of the club and commitment is something Nolberto Solano knows all about as he too was again well quoted this week, happy to see Shearer back so quickly (Article) and keen to get us moving up the table again. (Article) Commitment was also the question on John Gibson’s lips regarding Michael Owen and his injury record so far. (Article) As news broke that he was missing in training again and a major doubt for the Everton game. (Article) Hmmm.

Concern that we will be missing Babayaro for most of January and February if he is selected to go to the African Nations’ Cup with Nigeria started a whole raft of transfer speculation. (Article) Of course with the turn of the year rapidly approaching and the reopening of the transfer window we’ll see more and more of this as the weeks go by. Wayne Bridge was the first to be linked, on the back of the Babayaro story. (Article) (Article) Loan or permanent move it is another area we could do with adding to and he wouldn’t be a bad start. Another name that has been linked with us in the recent past came up again. Nicolas Anelka. (Article) We’re just staring to get things sorted off the pitch; do we really need this knacka here? Next to be linked were Spanish pair Joaquin and Ruben Baraja. (Article) possibly because they have spoken to Albert Luque it would seem. (Article) Joaquin seems keen enough. Though what he means by “mythical” I’ll leave you to decide. (Article) (Article) The speculation was topped off this week with some random bloke from Auxerre (Article) (tell you what why don’t we let him go for free at the end of the season and buy him for £8m next January instead like we did with another ex-Auxerre player…) and the now obligatory Turkish connection (Article).

SJP has seen a lot of love floating around it this week as well. It appears we’re on the charm offensive, presenting a united front from within and it seems to be working. Well for some anyway. Firstly we’ve all been asked to be patient with Luque. (Article) Then to be understanding with Boumsong (Article) and remember his hard upbringing. (Article) An effort to get the sympathy vote going on here I reckon. Luque himself meanwhile thinks Owen is the bee knees (Article), when he can be bothered to play that is, and Emre wants Champions League football to save his Manager’s job. (Article) Well lads you know what to do and I would suggest better performances than the one I have just witnessed against Everton, but more of that next week I suppose. The week culminated with Patrick Barclay coming out with what almost seems like a glowing story about the club when compared to Sunday’s opponents. (Article) Wonders never cease. Sucker for a little bit of love I reckon. Meanwhile Simon Jordan has plenty of praise for NUFC in yet another excellent article in The Observer. (Article) I like the bit about the Fulham players in that myself. No wonder Chris Coleman talks like he is away with the fairies most of the time.

And so what to wind up with this week? The Beasts continued to bore us all in Europe with the claim that their erratic league form is down to the fact they haven’t had many 3pm Saturday kick offs and it’s disruptive. (Article) That’s odd how come it didn’t seem to affect us that much and nor were we allowed so much as to utter that as an excuse. If I recall correctly it is not that long ago that we had a season where we had something like only six 3pm Saturday kick offs the entire campaign. League and Cup games included! Pathetic. A word though to condemn the violence that saw one of their fans fatally stabbed in Holland. (Article) That’s not what football is about and I find it amazing so little seems to have been made of it. I wonder had that happened in England how heavily UEFA would be wading in with threats of bans and the “English disease”?

Laurent Robert hammered home the final nail in his coffin at Portsmouth this week with yet another outburst (Article). The more I hear from him I think we did well to keep him as quiet as we did when he was up here. Talk about pissing your career up the wall. Likewise Patrick Kluivert reckons Shearer is to blame for his poor record on Tyneside. (Article) Was it him that introduced you to the pie shop then Pat? And who is to blame for your bench warming at Valencia? Even Viana is getting the odd game there. Still nice work if you can get it. Bench warmer, only £80,000 a week, tax paid. I’ll have to look out for it in the Chronicle classifieds next week. It will probably be next to the one that reads “For sale: football club. Red &White stripes. Soiled. Best offers accepted, will consider part-ex for a skateboard and a game of ker-plunk.”

NM