Any football forum is going to be full of myths, contradictions and downright daftness, The Mag comments section and Newcastle United fans is no different, believe it or not!
One contradictory stance came out this week with the capitulation of Aston Villa at home to the previously hapless Tottenham mob. Two typical comments that night are repeated below:
“This is disgraceful. West Ham should put in a PL complaint.”
“Villa have stunk the place out. No shots at all either on or off target! Seven changes and boy is it obvious. Check out the BBC stats – shocking!”
There were many such outraged comments about Villa’s blatant attempt to protect first teamers for their UEFA League semi final second leg against Nottingham Forest and the reserve team’s apparent lack of effort. Snr Emery clearly rotating his squad and prioritising competitions.
And what has been one of the major criticisms of Eddie this season? You’ve guessed it. He should have rotated more, protected key players and prioritised certain competitions – “giving up” the others, namely the two domestic cups (one of which we were the holders of!).
Opposition supporters can be just as daft. There I was, feeling a warm glow of affection for the Seagulls fan who wrote a detailed and obviously heartfelt tribute to our city and fan base, commenting on the amount of Geordies who stopped them in the street or joined them in Greggs for a chat, wished them well and generally made them feel welcome.
They then had to spoil everything with this line tagged on the end:
“It is such a shame they sold their soul as a club because the fans are great.”
I thought we’d got beyond this sort of lazy, Oliver Holt-style hypocrisy. Is this poster seriously trying to tell us that he and his fellow Brighton fans wouldn’t have snatched the Saudi hand off if they’d offered the asking price to buy their club rather than ours?
The big news across the media last week was that the Saudi Arabia PIF big wigs were about to descend on Tyneside for a major conflab at Matfen Hall where far reaching plans for the training ground and the stadium were sure to be revealed.
One of the regular pessimists on The Mag comments section was castigated by many – myself included – for predicting that all we would actually get in the end would be vague statements from Eddie Howe and CEO David Hopkinson about how committed the Newcastle United owners are and how the intention to be world number one is still there.
Well, we’re almost one week on now and I’m going to be asking Mr Ballsitter to send me a digital slice of humble pie. I still believe in our owner’s long term commitment to the club but I do wish they would remove their digits from their collective rear orifice and give some concrete proof of it (other than spending hundreds of millions on players and other mundane matters).
Talking of pessimists on The Mag comments section, their numbers have inevitably been on the rise in recent weeks as the excitement of the various cup runs has faded and the harsh reality of Premier League failure has bitten.
It was a bad day for the moaning Minnies on Saturday, though. Pre match gripes that I noted prior to the Brighton match included such gems as:
Dan Burn being selected ahead of Hall (Me – Big Dan was most people’s man of the match, though have to confess that I was slightly surprised at that decision myself).
Murphy picked despite being poor recently – one of Eddie’s “favourites” again (Me – Jacob worked like stink and brilliantly created the first goal).
Osula is a headless chicken cheating Wissa/Woltemade out of a start (Me – Maybe Eddie gives youth a chance, after all? Big Willy was Dan Burn’s man of the match and played brilliantly until fading, unsurprisingly, during the second half).
Willock is generally regarded as another Eddie favourite not reallly worth his place – he’s so far discounted nowadays that he can’t even qualify as a whipping boy! (Me – Alongside Osula and Joey, his pace terrorised the Brighton defence and helped us to take a winning lead).
An increasingly regular accusation is that the set piece coach is stealing a living (Me – BDB’s excellent header from a corner was evidence that something he’s been doing has borne fruit).
Nobody seems to bring out prejudice and general daftness amongst a certain element of our fans, more than Anthony Gordon. The talk of the steamy these days is that he’s heading off to the continent to join one of the European giants. Indeed, in many people’s minds, he thinks he’s already gone!
Gordon is very talented but he’s also super ambitious. He’s in his prime and his biological clock will be ticking away. He doesn’t want to wait around for another three to five years in the hope that our commercial income starts to allow us to compete with the top clubs. He’s ready now.
In a recent article on The Mag (That Anthony Gordon’s at it again!), I likened the way that some fans turn on departing players to the way a 14/15 year old kid turns on his girlfriend if he suspects that she’s ready to move on. It’s immature but in keeping with the angst created by adolescent hormonal surges. But come on! We’re supposed to be adults, for goodness sake.
Thank him for his efforts and contribution to our improvement during his time with us, crucially, get the best possible price from those canny Jorman or Spanish bean counters (that’s not HIS job) and wave him on his way. There’s no need for any recriminations or bitterness. The problem is that I can already hear all those adolescent pensioners in SJP booing the lad if he ever has the temerity to return with another club.
To bring the general daftness to a conclusion, just a couple of thoughts about managers no longer with two of our favourite London basket cases. A leak before Rosenior’s final match, against Brighton, remarkably seemed to come from Cucurella’s barber. I find this a rather scurrilous and, frankly, preposterous suggestion. There’s absolutely no way I’m going to buy into the absurd notion that Marc Cucurella has a barber!
Finally, talking of basket cases, Spurs inevitably parted ways with Igor Tudor. I wonder if he might have fared better if he’d done as I expected when he was appointed and packed his team with Polish players. Surely, he wasn’t called TENPole Tudor for nothing…