Newcastle United Blog.

Poor old Chris Hughton deserves a fair bit of credit for quietly taking over a job he doesn’t want and just getting on with it. Ashley’s dumped him in it a few times now but Hughton simply remains unruffled, appearing to treat his frequent calls to stand-in as manager of one the most media-exposed teams [...]

Newcastle have a home draw against League One’s Huddersfield in the second round of the Carling Cup. Huddersfield are currently managed by Geordie Lee ‘Jigsaw’ Clark who played for us between 1990-1997 and 2005-2007, the latter period including time as first team coach and reserve team manager under Glen Roeder. I don’t think it’s fair [...]

Still nothing on the takeover and some reports have indicated that Ashley has not set a deadline for completion, although I think it’s reasonable to assume that some sort of deadline will eventually be set to allow him time to do some work on the transfer market if he has to keep the club. As [...]

The Daily Mail is reporting that Barry Moat must find another £10m for his offer if he wants to buy Newcastle United after Ashley is said to be ‘insulted’ by his current offer. Let’s have a whip round. The Guardian speculates that Moat is making his bid with backing from local nightclub owner Allan Rankin, [...]

The Guardian (amongst others) is reporting that Ashley will appoint David O’Leary as manager if, as expected, he takes the club off the market. The Guardian is also reporting that Newcastle deny they’ll appoint O’Leary. It’s all looks like sheer press invention to me but let’s have brief look at O’Leary’s management career anyway. O’Leary [...]

We got our Championship campaign under way with a 1-1 draw at West Brom last night. In the first half we looked the more fluent side in possession but, rather like last season, the final ball into the box often lacked quality. Duff probably had the best chance of the half when Carroll set him [...]

It seems there was no breakthrough in the talks between Moat, Llambias and Harris yesterday and a report in The Chronicle claims that the sale saga could drag on for another week before Ashley calls it a day and takes the club off the market. North East MP Nick Brown has now called for Ashley [...]

As reported on this site yesterday Bassong has gone to Spurs and Beye looks likely to be leaving for Hull. Sky Sports is also reporting that 19 year old winger Jonny Godsmark has been loaned to Hereford for 6 months. The club has confirmed that Alan Smith will be captain against West Brom as Nicky [...]

The Guardian reports that the sale of Newcastle United is imminent. Apparently Ashley is being urged to accept a bid from a consortium led by Tyneside businessman Barry Moat. It is thought that Moat, who has financial backing from investors in the United States, is Keith Harris’s preferred bidder. The Guardian speculates that if Moat [...]

According to The Chronicle, Bassong has been fined two weeks wages for his failure to travel to Dundee for last weekend’s friendly. Hughton had previously stated that Bassong wouldn’t have featured in the game anyway because he’s serving a ban for the West Brom trip and Hughton wanted to field a team against Dundee that [...]