Coverage for the week of the 9th - 15th January 2006
 

It’s getting increasingly difficult to find something new to say when week after week we’re being served up the same old tripe.  Of course we, as usual, seem to have an ability to find new and interesting ways to make fools of ourselves but it’s a joke that just isn’t funny any more and spirits amongst the faithful that I talk to regularly are low.  Tedium abounds.

The week’s news coverage begins with further questions being asked of NUFC after the FA Cup tie against Mansfield.  Quite rightly the identikit match reports ask as one “just who was the Premiership side?”  (Article) (Article) (Article) (Article) (Article)  I thought George Caulkin in The Times managed to find an appropriate comment from Jackie Milburn to start his report (Article).  Appropriate because it seems to reflect something in our current situation and appropriate as Alan Shearer comes to the rescue (Article) equalling the great man’s scoring record for the club in the process.  (Article)

Cue then the predictable but well deserved praise from all sides.  The chairman hailing his “best ever signing” (Article) (Article) and put rightly into his place by Reade in the Mirror (Article),  the manager still on his case to play on (Article), Nobby Solano (Article), Lee Clark (Article) and even from some areas of the media, and not just his pals at the BBC such as this excellent piece by James Lawton on how Shearer’s achievement has added to the “magic of the cup” (Article) whatever that is like.  Not that everyone was so keen on the FA Cup.  The Observer’s Paul Wilson takes a totally different view of it all together.  (Article). He also has something to say about Michael Owen, which part of me thinks is a valid comment.  But perhaps he should have a read of this from The Evening Chronicle last week before adding to rumours that Owen doesn’t actually have a property in the area.  (Article)  More, however, about this later.

We’ve already been selected for TV in the 4th round of the cup.  (Article) (Article)  Great we’ll have to suffer Ronnie fucking Radford all over again as the BBC hope for lightning to strike twice.  Knowing our lot they may just give them their wish as well.

Interest then turned to the transfer market.  With the window open and the manager crying by the end of the week for 6 more players (Article) there has been plenty of talk and not a lot of action.  The Telegraph’s Mihr Bose explains why in this worrying, if a little one dimensional, piece (Article).  It’s not the size of the debt it’s how it is managed but it seems for sure the coffers are empty rather than the powder being kept dry.  So we’re down to scratching around for frees and swaps.  A bit like trading Panini stickers, except for real.  However you have to wonder just what is going on when we turn down one defender from a French club (Article) (Article) for not having Premiership experience only to take another, currently in contract dispute with his club and out of favour, on trial.  (Article) (Article)  Unless of course his trial at Birmingham counts like.  Thank God we realised he was shite early on and sent him packing.  (Article)  (Article).  Speaking of shite French left backs, is adding Gregory Vignal the answer? (Article)  of course not but it would help his mates up the road if Souness signed him wouldn’t it?  And staying with questionable Frenchmen Nicolas Anelka is just the sort of player we need in our dressing room right now isn’t he? (Article) (Article).

One player not coming back from his loan spell is Nicky Butt happy at Birmingham, who are welcome to him (Article), deftly avoiding even giving NUFC a mention in all his copy this week.  (Article).  Also not coming in is Charlton’s Danny Murphy (Article).  Charlton, aye Charlton such is the level to which we have been reduced, have us over a barrel on this one.  We have a player that wants to leave that we want to exchange for one they don’t necessarily have to let go.  Ridiculous.  Also not on the move, well for now anyway, is Shay Given.  Quoted as saying he’d fancy a stint in Spain at the start of the week (Article) (Article) he then comes out and says he can’t even remember giving the quotes the press used (Article) (Article).  Now either the manager’s selective amnesia is contagious or the journalists in question short of a way to stir up trouble in the NUFC camp dug out some old copies of The Mag to see what they could find to make mischief with.  I’ll let you decide.

Bizarre managerial link of the week goes to the Gus Hiddink story in The Chronicle.  (Article)  No quotes, no approach, no tangible evidence, no real substance.  A nothing story out of the blue.  Where do they get them from I wonder?

And so on towards Fulham at the weekend with John Beresford demanding that we are “more entertaining”.  (Article)  With out lot?  But the manager says he wants to emulate what we did under Keegan.  You have to laugh.  Speaking with his usual dignity Lee Clark spoke of his honour to pull on the black and white shirt again (Article) after being badly let down by Fulham’s manager and “friend” Chris Coleman.  (Article)  They “had words” before the game apparently, which hardly puts Coleman up in my estimation.  He’s the kind of manager Supermac would like to see at the club though (Article) Another moaner and whinger and one who spits the dummy out at every opportunity?  Great.  We were, once again shite at Fulham.  (Article) (Article) (Article)  The prize for the most pro-Fulham article going to The People (Article).  The lad’s obviously a season ticket holder there and/or has a rampant anti Souness tendency. 

The biggest story (if you can call it that) in the Sundays this week is the News of the World “sting” on Sven Goran Ericsson.  Of course we, or more precisely Michael Owen, get a mention.  (Article) (Article) (Article)  He’s here for the money, the car and, Paul Wilson take note, the accommodation.  And the news is exactly?  FFS man we all knew he wasn’t here to win summat.  Money is all we had (note past tense) to tempt him with, and the only way we could blow Liverpool out of the water in trying to sign him.  That said if I were the chairman I’d not only be making a little call to Sven, I’d be dragging little Mickey down the A1 to be in my office first thing in the morning to have a wee chat about discretion and keeping your gob shut.  Obviously he’d have to get a lift like as he can’t drive and his wife can’t for a bit either (Article).  Oh and if you need to Paul Wilson have a little look at her lawyer’s comments about where she lives these days.  At least her husband has made his peace with The Kop.  (Article)  Ahhhh.  All cosy.

Three things to leave you with before I trudge wearily off.  Firstly do you really need a conference to work out that the way to win football matches is to put the ball into the back of the opposition net more times than they can in yours?  (Article)  Talk about making more of what really is in essence a simple game.  Even with the modern offside laws.  By the time you read this, this will probably have been pulled, but I’m surprised at how much Souness is making on e-bay (Article).  I’d only give you 2 buttons and a paper clip mesel’.  Finally here’s the Guardian’s oh so funny galley of Newcastle back lines.  (Article)  Now by my reckoning, as I write, looking at the table we currently have the 7th best defence in the Premiership i.e. 13 teams have conceded more than we have.  OK I know that’s all down to Shay Given really.  But what does this say about the state of top-flight football in England let alone about our current slide?  And on that jolly note I look forward to more of the same in the weeks to come.

NM