Manager Alan Pardew is a busy man these days at Newcastle.
Alan Pardew – difficult January for the Newcastle manager
First of all, Newcastle would like to bring in a couple of new players in January, but there are also some contracts that need to be completed at the club.
And they include new contracts for captain Fabricio Coloccini, Danny Simpson and Danny Guthrie.
This is what manager Alan Pardew said about the January window:
“It’s a horrible time for managers,” “Everybody’s being speculated to be with us.”
“The players we have at Newcastle get speculated about. The players who are doing great then pitch in about new contracts.”
“It is a lot to cover. You can’t cover it all, but we’re doing our best.”
As usual Newcastle have been linked with multiple players in January, and even yesterday, although both Aly Cissokho and his club Lyon said that Newcastle were negotiating for the French International left-back, that news is apparently not true.
As well as trying to bring in new players and sign existing players to new contracts on Tyneside, there is also the African Cup of Nations going on this January and into February.
The tournament takes place every two years rather than every four years for the European equivalent of the African tournament, and we’re really not sure why that is the case.
It’s certainly disruptive to the football season now that so many African players are now in the European leagues.
And Newcastle fans will be hoping that two of our very best players, Demba Ba and Cheick Tiote, who are taking part in the tournament come through okay and uninjured in February.
Alan was asked if Newcastle would be following the tournament:
““Yes, we’re going to monitor it and I think we are always going to worry,”
“We have two guys out there, but it’s a bit more professional and well run organisation than it used to be.”
“The federations look after the players better.”
Tiote was shown a red card in the Ivory Coast warm-up game against Tunisia in Abu Dhabi last week, which the Ivory Coast won 2-0, but Cheick will not be suspended for the tournament.
Two players Newcastle may be interested in include Lille’s Moussa Sow and SC Freiburg’s Papiss Demba Cisse, who were two strikers that Newcastle were said to be interested in during last summer.
But it’s certainly true that the January transfer window is a worrying time for managers being right in the middle of the European football season.
And having the African Cup of Nations taking place at the same time, when we have two of our very best players participating, could even give Alan Pardew some gray hair.
Well, maybe we shouldn’t worry too much about that, since Alan was already gray before he arrived on Tyneside, or is that hair color white?
Comments welcome.
562 comments so far
Mark
Jan 17, 2012 at 5:58 PM
Comment #561Looking at this XI ToonBoy just posted
——————Krul————–
–Simo—–Willo–Collo—Santono
-HBA—–Tiote—Cabaye–Spiderman
————Papiss–Ba—————
the only weak link is simmo, although he is still a good player. maybe willo too. So some defensive ammendments and we could well be back to the force we once were!
bambams
Jan 17, 2012 at 6:11 PM
Comment #562bloody hell it took me five minutes just to scroll down to the end so i could comment…………
I believe he plays alongside Ba at international level, this is good ! Hopefully this will help keep Ba and others stay with Toon . Fantastic signing just hope it comes off