The Newcastle United Blog

Lee Ryder of the Evening Chronicle reports today that Celestine Babayaro suffered yet another injury setback ahead of the season’s opener at Bolton on August 11th.
Sam Allardyce admitted today he is unlikely to be ready for the season opener. It seems to us such a pity that Babayaro is always injured – especially when [...]

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News today that we may be signing Alan Smith from Manchester United - reported via the Manchester Evening news. Not exactly what we need but Alan is a good player and it looks like Dyer is being moved on.
The problem Kieron may have is whether any club will be willing to pay him ₤80K/week in [...]

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The news on Sunday that the new Newcastle Board were only going to give Sam Allardyce ₤10M for transfers, after Sam had acquired four good players Geremi, Viduka, Barton and Rozehnal for a net ₤1.5M, was not believable and we said so.
However, the news since then seems to confirm this may well be the case, and [...]

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Sam has already said he may have to look outside of England to bring in new defenders for Newcastle.
Following our article yesterday on four foreign full backs we’ll take a look at five foreign-based center backs who are still available.
We’ll attempt to see if any could fit the bill at Newcastle.

Sam Allardcye - frantically searching for center-backs 

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It is unfortunately looking increasingly true that Sam Allardyce will be restricted to just ₤10M in transfer funds plus anything additional he can get from letting players go.
When you look at the current Newcastle squad one thing becomes very clear – we are overladen with good strikers.
So if Sam sells one of them he could fund transfers for [...]

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Newcastle fans probably woke up feeling good this morning after a good win against Juventus yesterday afternoon.
But then after that first cup of coffee remembered that however well the lads played yesterday Sam Allardcye is still desperately short of defenders by his own admission.
We’ll take a look at what’s happenieng today with Newcastle and it’s [...]

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The Evening Chronicle is reporting that Newcastle are after 22-year-old Paris St Germain left back Boukary Drame – who is regarded as one of the best young defenders in France.
However, both Sochaux and Nice are also in for the Senegalese international so there is competition for the youngster.
Let’s take a look at both the story [...]

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Olympique Lyon defender and former club captain Claudio Cacapa was being offered to Newcastle United according to the Sunday Sun yesterday.
It was also a free transfer to boot since his contract expired at Lyon in the summer.
Let’s take a look at this and see why we weren’t after him like hot cakes.

Brazilian Claudio Cacapa

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Sam has already said he may have to look outside of England to bring in new defenders to Newcastle.
As far as England is concerned Luke Young has now signed for Middlesbrough and Nicky Shorey and Leighton Baines must not be available for whatever reason since Sam says there are no suitable and available English full-backs.
Sam doesn’t [...]

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It will not surprise anybody when we say in the last two games we have not missed Michael Owen, Shola Ameobi and Mark Viduka in attack.
The starting combination of Martins and Luque scored 4 goals between them and young Carroll’s appearance as substitute heralded him a great goal against the world’s best goalkeeper yesterday.
Yet our [...]

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Sam Allardyce was visibly delighted with the performance of the Newcastle team yesterday and while we don’t want to overdo the praise he can take an awful lot of good out of the game.
However, Sam is not getting carried away. If anything the opposite is true as he still feels the squad is not big [...]

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Here are the two Newcastle Goals against Juventus today
Result: Newcastle 2 - Juventus 0 (Pre-season friendly, July 29, 2007)
Luque (penalty)
Carroll.

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After the excellent win against Juventus this afternoon Sam was asked the situation regarding Kieron Dyer.
Sam said no club has yet put in a realistic bid for Kieron Dyer. In fact no club has yet come anywhere near to Newcastle’s valuation of Dyer.
Dyer had been expected to leave Newcastle even this weekend with three clubs, [...]

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Not surprisingly Sam Allardyce was delighted with Newcastle’s professional performance against Italian powerhouse Juventus.
Newcastle ran out easy winners 2-0 and with about 20 minutes to go had seven of their Academy youngsters on the field yet were able to hold Juventus with apparent ease.
Not only was it a great experience for the youngsters but they [...]

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Newcastle continued their good pre-season form with a fairly easy win against Juventus 2-0 with both goals in the first half. Luque scored with a penalty after 9 minutes and then Andrew Carroll scored a great first goal for the club after 30 minutes. Andrew easily beat Buffon from 12 yards with a well hit [...]

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Freddy Shepherd, ousted last week as chairman of Newcastle United, has claimed his former close friends and boardroom colleagues Sir John Hall and his son Douglas Hall maliciously sold their shares to new owner Mike Ashley without telling him of their intentions.
We take a different view on this.
Let’s go through what Freddy has been saying [...]

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The People and to a lesser extent the Sunday Mirror newspapers today are reporting that Sam Allardyce has a maximum of £10M to spend on transfers this summer – plus anything he can get from the sale of players.
First of all we have no idea if this story is true and we find it rather hard [...]

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Newcastle are looking for good left backs and one who is available but being actively pursued by Manchester City and maybe Liverpool is the Italian Under-21 captain Giorgio Chiellini.  
Giorgio has 6 caps for Italy despite still being eligible for the Italian U-21 national team.
He captained Italy in this summer’s European Under-21 Championships in Holland and was named to the [...]

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One player who we think is going to benefit greatly from being extra fit and will likely blossom under Big Sam’s guidance will be an unlikely one to many fans – but we think Peter Ramage could well be the surprise of the season for Newcastle.
He had an excellent first half partnering Rozehnal last Thursday [...]

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Here are the major news stories associated with the Newcastle club for today in no particular order of priority.
The big news this morning is that we really have no big news unfortunately on any imminent Newcastle transfers. We do a piece on Norwegian Hangeland and Bosingwa, who is a right back currently playing for Porto.
Of [...]

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Geremi was an excellent signing for us in the summer – and a great price since he came from Chelsea on a free transfer.
We believe Geremi has the capability and spirit to become one of the all-time greats at Newcastle.
While we don’t want to overstate the case we nevertheless think Geremi can be a star [...]

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Cicinho, the 27 year-old Brazilian full-back at Real Madrid is reported to want to leave the club as he has only played 16 times for them since signing in 2005 from Brazilian club Sao Paulo.
Roma have been pursuing Cicinho for a while now and are reported to be ready to make a fresh bid for [...]

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Even though Sam Allardyce recently denied he is after Brede Hangeland from Copenhagen we’re not sure Sam would ever verify who’s he’s after because it would potentially draw in other clubs.
Hangeland’s price is now being quoted at around ₤4M but we think that is too high for a player who has no premiership experience – and [...]

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Shay Given, who is probably now the favorite to take over as captain at Newcastle has talked about the lack of squad depth – particularly in defense and midfield.
While Shay knows that Sam Allardyce is scouring the market for talent it’s not at all easy to pinpoint who he may be after as he has [...]

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We wanted to ensure all Newcastle fans (and Celtic fans too) can see the goals from last night’s entertaining game against the Scottish Champions.
This is courtesy of the Scottish press who also provide a good commentary on the goals - if from the Scottish Champions viewpoint.
But anyway - enjoy the goals - they’re all good [...]

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Sam Allardyce today distanced himself from 22 year-old Curtis Davies of West Bromwich Albion – who had been rumored to be an Allardyce transfer target over the last several weeks.
Sam explained in stone cold logic why it wouldn’t make too much sense to bring in Curtis, however good a player he is.
David Rozehnal has also been [...]

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Here are the major news stories associated with the Newcastle club for today in no particular order of priority.
The big news this morning is on the excellent victory and good display against Scottish Champions Celtic. Newcastle ran out worthy 4-1 winners with 2 goals from Luque and one each from Martins and Milner.
Here are all [...]

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Oba Martins has finally come out and said he has no intention of leaving Newcastle and that he is extremely happy at the club.
Certainly after scoring an opportunist goal after 11 minutes last night the fans were very appreciative of Martins’ contribution and he is a fan favorite.
All summer of course there has been speculation [...]

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Surprising how a single game can turn the mood of the Newcastle faithful.
With over three weeks without a signing the Newcastle fans were becoming a little discouraged because it looked like Big Sam had been knocked back more than once in his transfer dealings.
Last night has raised the excitement levels once more as the Newcastle [...]

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Everybody knows that Albert Luque has had a nightmare two years at Newcastle – and quite humiliating at times for the Spaniard.
Glenn Roeder last year basically gave up on Albert and he was hardly ever on the bench – hardly good use of a player that cost ₤9.5M from Deportivo two years ago. But nobody could [...]

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It looks like Kieron Dyer will be leaving Newcastle United in the next few days as the Sun reports that Sven Erikkson, the new Manchester City manager - has launched a ₤4.5M bid for Dyer.
Sam Allardyce withdrew Dyer from the team that easily beat Celtic 4-1 last night - so that any deal would not [...]

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A good performance from Newcastle tonight when we easily beat Celtic 4-1 at St. James’ Park in Sam Allardcye’s first home game as manager.
The game was won in the first half when two opportunist goals from Spaniard Albert Luque and one from Oba Martins had Newcastle 3-0 up at the break - and it was [...]

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Newcastle enjoyed an excellent first half of their game against Celtic at St. James Park tonight going 3-0 up with goals from Oba Martins and two from the star of the first half - Albert Luque - who was given a starting berth up front with Oba Martins.

Albert Luque - scores 2 goals in first [...]

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New Newcastle Chairman Chris Mort had his very first chance to include his own thoughts in tonight’s match program for the Newcastle-Celtic pre-season friendly at St. James’ Park.
It is the first time Chris has written notes for the match program and he took the opportunity to express his confidence in manager Sam Allardyce - which [...]

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Here are the major news stories associated with the Newcastle club for today in no particular order of priority.
New updated information on the position of Kieron Dyer at Newcastle - although it still looks more than likely that he will be on his way out of the club.
The big news today is probably Sam Allardyce’s frustration [...]

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Sam Allardyce – taking a rest from his frustrations in the transfer market - talked to the Evening Chronicle about tonight’s game against Glasgow Celtic and discussed who was likely to make appearances in the game.
Nobby Solano has also been talking of his enhanced fitness and is looking forward to the game tonight - [...]

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Sam Allardyce has talked at length with Luke Edwards of the Journal about the transfer situation at Newcastle.
Sam seems frustrated on a number of issues from the new board not moving fast enough, to having already missed out on a number of his targets.
Another issue concerning Sam is the reduction in talent available on the [...]

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Sam Allardyce talked again about the Kieron Dyer situation yesterday and clarified what his family problem specifically is.
His two children live with his long term partner in Ipswich - and he would like to be closer to them.
The situation is difficult for Big Sam and he reiterated that while he would try to sort the [...]

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In an interview with the Evening Chronicle today new Newcastle Chairman Christopher Mort looked ahead to what he sees as a new beginning on Tyneside.
At the same time Sam Allardcye talked about his frustrations on the transfer front and indicated he was as frustrated as the Newcastle fans at the lack of progress with transfers [...]

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Sam Allardyce has met with Kieron Dyer to discuss his future and Sam has conceded the midfielder may have to leave Tyneside.
Sam indicated that if a family problem could not be resolved - then Kieron will probably have to leave the club - after being at Newcastle for the last eight years.

Kieron Dyer

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