The Newcastle Journal is reporting this morning that Alan Pardew enjoyed a successful day yesterday with the Newcastle playing staff.

Alan Pardew – taking training yesterday

They are reporting the player meeting yesterday morning went well, and was even positive, with the Newcastle players said to be impressed with what Alan had to say.

We have no idea what Alan said of course, but we have to say he’s a good communicator and probably said something like he didn’t want to change too much, and certainly didn’t want to damage the team spirit of the squad.

Alan will be well aware that it’s best we’ve had on Tyneside since Bobby Robson was at the club, and maybe even better than that, since the likes of Kieron Dyer and Titus Bramble are not at the club now.

And Alan is obviously  a football man, and it all seems to have gone over well in the player meeting, and then the training session later accomplished what Alan wanted to get done.

Presumably he will have his team selection already decided, and there’s not much of a bigger stage for his debut than playing Liverpool in a game that’s been televised live around the world.

And it seems that the story that there was a senior player argument was just not true, so we’re sorry we put that story out – because it just added to the negativity – but it’s really hard to know what’s true and what’s not true in the papers. It’s good news it didn’t happen.

But we have to say that Alan seems to have found his feet fast, and as we said yesterday,  players like Kevin Nolan, Joey Barton, Alan Smith and Steve Harper are going to be very important players for Newcastle, and for Alan Pardew in this transition.

We were proud of Kevin Nolan yesterday, that’s  for sure, with his statement showing just what a great leader he is – and this lad could become a very good manager once he hangs up his boots.

The players this season have shown tremendous grit and fight, and that will hardly disappear overnight, and a rousing display this afternoon could be music to the ears for distressed Newcastle fans everywhere.

When Chris took over a lot of Newcastle fans said they would support Chris as the manager and the players – but that was it – they couldn’t support Mike Ashley.

The only way forward seems to be to do the same thing – but there’s also no way most Newcastle fans can ever support Mike Ashley, after what he has done last week.

He basically dropped a bomb on the Newcastle club, which was going so well in this tough season, and making Newcastle fans proud again – even if it was only every other game.

We hope Mike just keeps in the background and out of the way from now on – because he seems a menace to the good workings of the football club – and that’s the truth.

It will be interesting to see if Ashley and LLambias are at the game today.

Comments welcome.