| Harry's Rants |
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May 2007
Half Full or Half Empty The Toon finished in 13th place in the Premiership, 13 points behind the teams that will play in Europe next season, but only 5 points above the teams that were relegated. Is the glass half full or half empty? Last season the Toon had a strong finish after Glenn Roeder was appointed as interim manager. There was no such finish this year – it was almost a whimper. In fact the team limped toward the end with many casualties and eventually a manager who fell on his sword before the last game. The most puzzling thing about this season was Newcastle’s stalwart performances against the Big Four teams, while constantly playing downright poor football against teams lower than us in the table. Was this a feature of ineffective leadership from the manager or was it plain apathy on the part of some of the players? The days of sheer gutsy determination from the likes of Shearer and Speed are surely gone. Toon Player of the Year. You can see elsewhere on the site our ratings for the squad’s performance throughout the year. There’s really one candidate for player of the year and that’s the redoubtable Shay Given. Incredible reflexes and some Superman saves. It’s almost as if we have forced him into this brilliance because of the poor defenders put in front of him. (Sam: Are you listening?). Like Shearer, it’s a shame that we cannot get him any silverware for his efforts. We’re fortunate that so far he hasn’t agitated to move on. Of course, Steve Harper must be one of the best subs in the Premiership and we might expect great things out of Tim Krul in the future. In passing we might also hand out Mars bars to Milner, Butt, and Nobby for their stout contributions this season. Play it again for us, Sam Sam Allardyce left Bolton after eight years and was appointed the new manager. Allegedly this was the second time he’d been offered the job. Immediately there were groans of long-ball defensive football. No question that Bolton hasn’t scored that many goals, but then they did end up 7th in the league. Most Toon fans would gladly accept such an achievement without question. Already five players whose contract was up have been let go and we expect more clear-outs as Sam hires his own squad. He is well known for the large group of back-up staff, so we will not expect to see the last-minute scrambling in the summer transfer hustings that we had last year. His reputation (and his antics on the sidelines) suggests that he won’t put up with player tantrums, so we may yet see a few more name-brand players go. After Shepherd’s U-Tube fatuity about Michael Owen it will require some serious negotiating skills to keep him in the B & W, especially when the cat is out of the bag about Owen’s kick-out clause. The Geordie Abramovich There was yet another surprise for the St James’s Park faithful at the end of May. Mike Ashley, a self-made billionaire, bought out Sir John Hall’s 42% of shares in the Club and made an overall tender of 133 million pounds for the Club. The question is what will Shepherd do now. There seem to be differing opinions on what percentage of shares is required to take complete control, and also what options Shepherd may have about either blocking the deal entirely, or going along with some of it, or quietly fade into the western sunset along Scotswood Road. The remaining shareholders have 60 days to respond to Ashley’s offer. Frankly I think we all hope the changeover will come about. After so many years of sheer frustration, the opportunity to clear the decks of managers, players, and Directors in one fell swoop is almost too good to be true. What’s been happening during the past 50 years obviously ain’t working, and we need some means of getting ourselves up there into the Big Five. Just do it! |
