We’re not going to get carried away with 4 points from 3 games, or even 7 points from 4 games if we can win tomorrow against Blackpool, but we have seen the Newcastle squad get stronger this summer.
Robbie Keane – will he arrive at Newcastle in January?
The new regime at Newcastle is both frugal and thrifty to be sure, but the club has made some of the best deals for a long time in acquiring players like Mike Williamson, Wayne Routledge, Sol Campbell and Dan Gosling.
Those 4 players costs the club around £2.5M, so that’s a good deal in anybody’s book, and you have to think that with the Newcastle scouting operation now further strengthened and in full swing, we could see more good players on good deals arriving at Newcastle this coming January.
We’ve already reported that Newcastle are watching the situation with Wolves central midfielder, David Jones, whose contract runs out next summer, and we’re sure some of the players they couldn’t get this summer could be arriving, including Tottenham’s Robbie Keane, if the Ireland captain doesn’t play much at Tottenham in the first half of the season.
And we are supposed to be keen on Dutch 21 year-old striker Ricky van Wolfswinkel, who is currently at Utrecht, with Liverpool another club said to be interested in the youngster.
Chris Hughton has done a fantastic job for the club since he was appointed caretaker manager 14 months ago, and that cannot and shouldn’t be under-estimated.
And as we’ve said before, if he had been a bigger name and a more colorful personality he would have received a lot more headlines than he has, given the great job he’s done for the club.
Just think if it was Alan Shearer who had achieved what Chris has over these last 14 months – so you see what we mean.
But it also seems the Newcastle fans are starting to realize that this quiet man could take Newcastle a lot further than we all first thought, when he was appointed to thunderous silence in July of last year.
And Chris himself seems happy that the squad has indeed been strengthened – and he now has a number of selection problems with 3 new players, Sol Campbell, Cheick Tiote and Ben Arfa all waiting to make their debuts for the famous Newcastle United club, but all likely to start tomorrow’s game against Blackpool on the bench.
This is what Chris told the Evening Chronicle said about the squad today given the 5 new signings he has made this summer:
“What will happen is the standard of the group will be higher. That’s what you always want.” “If I look at periods last season where there were more young players training in that first-team group, it’s certainly noticeable now that the standard and the quality of the group is better.” “They’re recognised, first-team players.”
As we said earlier, we’re not going to get carried away, at least not too much, but we have to hope that a win tomorrow afternoon, and maybe we can even escape a relegation scrap this season.
If that happens, then it’s another miracle that manager Chris Hughton will have achieved on Tyneside during his fairly short reign in charge of the team.
But first things first, and all that matters right now is that we get all 3 points tomorrow afternoon, and we know that will not be easy.
Comments welcome.
13 comments so far
GeordieDan
Sep 10, 2010 at 7:14 PM
Comment #1Don’t want Keane now tbh.
Yes he’s a cracking player and would strengthen our team but he’d rather choose to sit on a bench for Tottenham and pick up his wages then come up to play for us and we definitely don’t want another player like that.
I think it’s a bollox excuse that he preferred to stay only because we were going to loan him rather than sign him immediately as well.
He will know fine well that if he played well on loan here he would almost certainly be offered a decent contract and be playing regular football. All he would have to do is try to play well for us.
Obviously that is of little or no interest to him so we can definitely do without. There are plenty of other options of players that would jump at the chance to play here in front of our fans and probably want less in wages and probably be in the prime of their careers and not fast approaching the end of it like Keane.
NEXXXXXTTT!
toonster88
Sep 10, 2010 at 7:17 PM
Comment #2if we could do the same as we did with gosling,hba,toite,etc with the money spent then i dont mind gettin new players.keane??NOOOO.of course there is a chance we may need to fill in for s.taylor
CT
Sep 10, 2010 at 7:20 PM
Comment #3B`pool defence is garbage and DJ Cambell and Harewood are their top 2 strikers. Score early and they will remember last season and the Villa result! Could be all over in the first half! and at the strength of our bench if CH plays the same team! want to see a few games before deciding where we need more recruits in JAN. Exciting tho!!!
Rotonda heights
Sep 10, 2010 at 7:32 PM
Comment #4CT
don’t tempt fate and count any chickens yet mate. blackpool are just the sort of team we could have a nasty hiccup against.
JaydanGeordie
Sep 10, 2010 at 7:52 PM
Comment #5We all thought Hull at home was gonna be an easy win 2 years ago , and we ended up going down 2-1.
Newutd
Sep 10, 2010 at 8:08 PM
Comment #6David Jones is certainly not a better player than anyone already at the club. Rather opposite.
And I wouldn’t take Keane either. Only the fact that he “turned us down” in january should say enough. We need people who at least wants to play for us. In addition to that he is old and – i would say over the top. Not to mention having a demanding personality (refering to the statements of Daniel Levy).
We should have a look at Nolan Roux and/or Abraham Gneki Guie, now that would be some scoops.
CT
Sep 10, 2010 at 8:18 PM
Comment #7ROTUNDA, I know but gotta good feeling `bout this one! Confidence and new signings itching to get on, will give us extra 10% at least!
Charlietoon
Sep 10, 2010 at 11:39 PM
Comment #8I don’t think he wanted to come here and play second fiddle. He knows Andy is first choice and that we often play one up front. Our captain occupies the other position he plays well in.
Personally I would have liked to have seen him scoring goals for us but with our stocked midfield it looks like strength in that position is Chris’s focus
baro
Sep 11, 2010 at 1:50 AM
Comment #9I’m 100% confident Chris Hughton knows what he is doing. He will know what type of players we need right before the January transfer market opens. I would like to see that Ricky Van Wolfswinkel and Per Ciljan Skjelbred come in at Newcastle. 2 young guns for the future already full internationals for their respective countries.
44881
Sep 11, 2010 at 6:46 AM
Comment #10if keane can be loaned for the whole season i think thats fine, but personally opposed to get keane on loan for juz half season…we should focus on looking for young talents as we hve lovan for a gd cover
A quality speedy forward is needed when playing 442 n that should be empasized in winter mkt
TOONTOONTOON
Sep 11, 2010 at 10:07 AM
Comment #11GeordieDan agree mate think keane is a bit of a mercanary myself,heard some good rumours comeing out of the training camp about ranger and think keane would slow his development myself
xfer
Sep 11, 2010 at 11:00 AM
Comment #12I’m quietly confident that we’ll have a fine season, we could even sneak up to the top half of the table.
The Shola Show
Sep 11, 2010 at 5:53 PM
Comment #13to early to judge anything, quote bobby robson… ‘look at the table in november to begin to judge anything’