Newcastle United – News Roundup – 19 July 2009
Posted on July 19th, 2009 | 16 Comments |
Sky Sports is carrying a report about how Michael Owen is hurt by the crticism he’s received about his time at Newcastle United. Owen said:
“You learn to understand the reaction but if you do step back, you think it is strange or unfair.
“When you are being relegated, nobody is interested in listening to you. But I knew it was all to do with me not scoring.
“If you don’t score and you don’t win, you are wrong to have a helicopter and fly home each week to see your kids. You are wrong to have a business outside of football. You are wrong to plan for the future.
“If the goals had been going in I would have been a great lad, popping home to see my three kids and be a family man on a Tuesday after training. I would have been thoughtful and innocent little things would not be misrepresented.”
Well as far as I’m concerned Owen’s missing the point. His lack of scoring might have been due to the fact that he wasn’t getting the service from a poor midfield but what about his disinterested attitude? Or the fact that as Captain he said little about any responsibility he felt for us being relegated and just cleared off as fast he could to play Champions League football while leaving us to rot in the Championship.
Hull City are now denying any interest in Barton according to Sky Sports. When asked if there was any truth in the rumours of Hull’s interest in Barton, assistant manager Brian Horton said:
“No. Joey Barton is a very good footballer. I know him, I have done things with him in Manchester.
“He has obviously had issues and that is a shame because he can be a very good footballer but at this present time I don’t think it’s an area that really needs to be looked at.”
The BBC claim to have reporters in every city of every country. One of their catch phrases is “when the news happens we’re there” but they didn’t seem to have a reporter in Darlington for yesterday’s match. In a major news story coup, proving that NUFCBlog.org is in fact better than the mighty BBC, we did have a (roving, or possibly raving) reporter there and there’s no better review of the game than BowBurnMag’s own.
There’s a small piece stuffed in the middle of a non-sport article in The Times where Arsene Wenger gives us a little boost. It’s only a short piece entitled ‘Geordies’ French Toast’, so I’ll include the whole bit here:
If the bankers at Seymour Pierce needed a little je ne sais quoi to smooth the planned sale of Newcastle United, they might have found an unlikely helper in Arsène Wenger, the Arsenal manager.
Speaking last week at a dinner hosted by Pi Capital, the investor network, in aid of the Willow Foundation charity, Wenger was asked whether he would ever consider managing another English club. Certainly not, he replied emphatically, insisting he would be staying in north London. Wenger then began to appraise the rash of investment in English football, pointing out that Newcastle is a club with enormous potential and one that “demands success” for its loyal fans. With an endorsement like that, a sale can’t be far off.
The Star – somewhere between Bikini Babes and Video Vixens – claims that 5 of our players broke a boot camp curfew to visit a bar but were not punished by Hughton for doing so.
There isn’t much about the takover in the papers but that’s probably because everything that can be said has been said and it’s now just a matter of waiting, so that’s about it for now.
Generally Arsene Wenger has always been more than fair to us.