One Game To Save A Season...

I must be getting old because I feel like saying, "In my day the manager would be given more time"

Big Sam was under pressure, from the fans and media. The Newcastle fans never wanted him in the first place and the media love a good kicking. The rumours of his demise probably contain fact but I can't help feeling the matter was exacerbated. Newcastle are 11th in the table, level on points with West Ham, a team who have spent an awful lot of money on crap players since last January. Newcastle have been underperforming, and Allardyce is to blame for most of it - strange team selection (Alan Smith seems to be the new John O'Shea or Phil Jagielka, I expect a centre back berth soon), changing formations, leaving your top scorer (Martins) out and frantic defensive rotations.

Naturally the players aren't happy. But when are Newcastle players happy? The day they sign their £60,000 a week contract. After that, they look around and see more mercenaries like themselves, which I will now list.

Shay Given - a man who could have walked into any Premiership team a few years ago keeps signing contract extensions, even when Arsenal and Man Utd were looking for keepers.

Stephen Carr - not a bad bloke, a great right back for Spurs but has been rubbish since 2002

Emre (Not a Racist) - left Inter, a team that challenges for honours, for a big fat contract

Martins - see Emre, add in a release clause

Duff - one of the best wingers in the league, got the hump at Chelsea for no reason, will never win a medal again

Alan Smith - once described as having the best skills at Leeds, he's a hard worker, but no team has much need for a non-goalscoring striker or poor midfielder.

Mark Viduka - the man who inspired today's piece, plays well for 6 games a year to get the fans off his back and 'earn' a new contract.

Geremi - one of the best midfielders while at Boro, happy to sit on the bench for years at Chelsea, the rich man's Bogarte

Nicky Butt - has a large collection of medals despite his performances. In semi retirement

Celestine Babayaro - the only good thing he's done at Newcastle is slap Dirk Kuyt in the face. Was shipped out of Chelsea with Wayne Bridge keeping him out of the team - a deep insult.

What a collection of losers - a collection of never will be's and has beens that Big Sam (or his replacement) needs to ship out of St James Park before we can judge with accuracy the manager's effect.

Now, Alan Curbishley, my bet for the next media witch hunt, but in this case it will be 100% deserved. He's the big money flashing, mediocre transferrer, over payer who has done an average job so far. Check out his West Ham League record P 27, W 11, L 12 D 4.
He genius idea of saving them from relegation was to drop Mascherano.

Thrilling.

Mark,

The Okey Doke Football Podcast is available every Friday morning, subscribe here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/OkeyDokeFootball

Newcastle, Beckham & Ireland

Howdy,
Mark here.

Things are looking interesting at Newcastle - Shepard has agreed to sell his stake in the club to Mike Ashley, leaving the billionaire with close to 70% of the shares, following his previous purchase from the Hall family. We mentioned a few weeks ago on the podcast, could we see the Geordie Chelsea? It's certainly an intriguing prospect of an underachieving 'big' club armed an owner who has £1.9bn in the bank.

Big Sam, though, seems to be carrying on as normal, so we can assume that a) he hasn't spoken with Ashley or b) Ashley has said he won't be giving him much money.

Viduka has signed today to join Michael Owen, Obafemi Martins and Shola Ameobi in the forward line, leaving the club with plenty of firepower up front. (Surely Ameobi can be whipped into shape by Sam?). The departure of Parker will result in Barton arriving for £5.5m, and the decent Ben Haim joining Taylor at the back. Steven Carr falls into the Ameobi bracket, and I'd be surprised if he didn't recapture his Tottenham form. A left back (Shorey, possibly) and the squad is looking great. Players of the calibre of a fit Duff, Emre ("some of my best friends are black") and a fit Dyer, added to the potential of Milner and N'Zogbia point to a promising future for the Toon.

Sam has an interesting first season ahead of him, challenging for a UEFA cup place will be his goal, and he is likely to achieve it.

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I am sick to my teeth of the Beckham story, sure he can put in a cross or 2, that's all he ever did for God's sake. The whole point last summer was - take Beckham out of the team because he makes the team play slow, throw in someone else and they'll be able to play differently.

This, plainly, did not happen, which is the fault of the players and management. So, Beckham is back, they need the points and McClaren is desperate, fair enough, him and Crouch should scutter England into second in the group to qualify. The same old problems remain however - slow, long ball football and set pieces. Why wasn't Big Sam hired again?

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The Euro qualifiers were good for Ireland with Germany winning both their games and the Czech Republic drawing at Wales. Ireland have a chance of 2nd, albeit one in a million. The away games to the Slovaks and Czechs will illuminate to show whether Stan learns from his mistakes.

3rd place in the group will keep Stan's job, barring a demolition job by the Germans or Czechs, Stan will feel vindicated and subject us to another 2 years of droning cliched quotes. Still, it could be worse, we could have McClaren....

Mark,
http://www.okeydokefootball.com/