George Caulkin

[gdm]

On the times podcast this week. Says spoke to someone at top of club and they said they would never have sacked pardew and various other things like an attitude change on the cup

[Wullie]

On the times podcast this week. Says spoke to someone at top of club and they said they would never have sacked pardew and various other things like an attitude change on the cup

 

Dunno who that bloke was trying to blame the fans but I liked Marcotti's response in the background.

 

"My point was, they had a good manager..."

 

"No they didn't, they had Alan Pardew!"

[gdm]

On the times podcast this week. Says spoke to someone at top of club and they said they would never have sacked pardew and various other things like an attitude change on the cup

 

Dunno who that bloke was trying to blame the fans but I liked Marcotti's response in the background.

 

"My point was, they had a good manager..."

 

"No they didn't, they had Alan Pardew!"

 

Ha yeah, I enjoyed that

[Twinport53]

You can tell he's as sick as a chip. When he had to go "Hang on, there's a bit of history rewriting going on here" when one of them said Pardew would never have had us in this state, and look what he's done at Palace, and should the fans shoulder some blame for the toxic environment they caused, which forced him out.

[Carlito]

You can tell he's as sick as a chip. When he had to go "Hang on, there's a bit of history rewriting going on here" when one of them said Pardew would never have had us in this state, and look what he's done at Palace, and should the fans shoulder some blame for the toxic environment they caused, which forced him out.

 

It just shows how many people in football, from pundits to fans, are gullible as fuck.

[Wullie]

Listened again, Marcotti

 

"What's wrong with Pardew? Crystal Palace are..."

 

Marcotti, almost a whisper: "What's wrong with Pardew? Come on..."

[Hughesy]

Always disliked Marcotti up until that.. new found respect.

[Troll]

CaulkinTheTimes: Don't believe in omens or superstition, which is probably just as well given there's a dead magpie in my kitchen.

 

[Varadi]

 

ffs

[mrmojorisin75]

[sh74]

JEZAZ.

[54]

Well then

[LV]

We need someone to find a dead tiger in their kitchen to counteract this omen.

[Jill]

I had two wasps in my living room. I don't know what that signifies.

[LV]

I had two wasps in my living room. I don't know what that signifies.

 

Hmmmm....they are black and gold right? Hull score twice??

[hakka]

I'm going to see it as a sacrificial magpie.

 

We're staying up.

 

Thank you dead magpie for what you have done for us.

[Tiotes Witch Doctor]

I'm going to see it as a sacrificial magpie.

 

We're staying up.

 

Thank you dead magpie for what you have done for us.

 

Stick the cunt in goal.

[midstoon]

I found some dog$hit on the lawn this morning so i guess that means williamsons playing.

[Robster]

Caulkin

[EthiGeordie]

can someone post what he right about different strategy now?

[newsted]

On Total Sport right now if anyone wants to listen.

[Wallace]

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/sport/football/article4732973.ece?shareToken=a7f67b79fafd36286263209b24a06620

 

0-8, 1-7, 1-6, 0-5, 0-4: Reasons for failure are there in black and white

 

George Caulkin | Northern Sports Correspondent

Last updated at 12:01AM, April 15 2016

 

If you thought Newcastle United were awful, take a look at their under-18s’ woeful results

 

Games and hope are evaporating for Newcastle United, but Rafa Benítez has not given up, plunging himself into the minutiae of the club, encouraging cohesion among his players with double training sessions, asking questions of all other departments. The more he asks, the more dysfunction he finds. “There are so many things to improve,” an associate of the Spaniard said. Another insider described Newcastle in blunter terms. “It’s broken.”

 

Benítez will exhort a fatigued support to make St James’ Park a raucous venue for Saturday’s match against Swansea City — a well the club have repeatedly drawn from in recent seasons — but the potential that drew him to Newcastle, as well as the promise of further investment and a decisive say in transfers, is balanced by unwelcome discoveries. Beneath the first-team, they are floundering.

 

There is a contradiction at the heart of Newcastle, a club stripped back to the bone under Mike Ashley’s ownership, but who last week announced an annual £32.4 million profit after tax and who spent £80 million in the past two transfer windows, a higher net spend than any other English club, barring Manchester City. Self-sufficiency has been the touchstone of their model, but at what cost to the notion of sporting excellence?

 

At moments such as this — Newcastle are second-bottom of the Barclays Premier League, six points adrift of safety — there is often a call to give the next generation a chance, but defeat is endemic on Tyneside. Benítez’s side have won two games in 2016; the club’s under-21 and under-18 teams have mustered a single victory each.

 

Peter Beardsley’s under-21 side concluded their league campaign with a 4-1 home defeat by Brighton & Hove Albion, the only team below them in the table, on Monday night. Beneath the headline “No Future”, NUFC.com, the independent Newcastle website, reported that a season that “veered between average and pathetic came to a suitably rotten conclusion”. After the game, Beardsley said that his players needed to “get in the real world”.

 

The under-18 side have not fared any better, conceding 78 goals in competitive matches, and losing 7-1 to Manchester United last weekend. They have also been beaten 8-0 by Everton, 5-0 by Blackburn Rovers and 4-0 by Derby County. There is a wide disconnect at Newcastle, except in one area, with NUFC.com highlighting the “losing culture that has come to characterise this football club”.

 

Benítez has always favoured a “holistic approach” and has spoken to Beardsley, Joe Joyce, the academy manager, and Dave Watson, the youth coach. The under-21s have moved out of the Longbenton training centre into an adjacent complex, reducing clutter. “Recruitment — at all levels — is the underlying problem,” Benítez’s confidant said. “Even the greatest coach in the world won’t win with the worst players.”

 

For two years, Newcastle have put plans to redevelop their training ground on hold because their league position has been precarious and their piecemeal facilities are badly outdated. “In terms of both infrastructure and people, investment has been the minimum required,” a former player said.

 

As with other areas of the club, Newcastle employ some good people — “Joe Joyce is the best coach at the academy,” the insider said — but they are either over-worked, under-financed or have little football expertise above them. With Ashley taking a hands-off role, decision-making is left to Lee Charnley, the managing director; he, like everybody else, will be subjected to the owner’s annual audit of the club at the end of the season. Part of Newcastle’s failure is due to circumstances. There can be poor years in terms of talent, while the former player insists that the under-21 league is “false. It’s either kids who are not good enough to go on loan or seniors who don’t want to be there.”

 

If there is a cohesive plan, it is barely discernible. “We wanted to get a particular style that was a Newcastle style,” Joyce said last year, but one long-time watcher cannot see anything “unless conceding goals early and often is a designated style.”

 

While Middlesbrough’s academy continues to excel — they reached the last 16 of the Uefa Youth League, where they lost to Paris Saint-Germain — Newcastle have been left behind. Paul Dummett and Adam Armstrong, who is on-loan at Coventry City, have emerged in recent seasons, but otherwise the pickings are slender. “I know how much talent is out there,” a coach at another northeast club said. “It’s just not being seen or signed by Newcastle.”

 

“We used to provide the backbone of Hartlepool and Darlington teams, now we don’t even do it with Gateshead,” the observer said. “Why would young players want to come here?” Newcastle have a policy of recruiting from a 30-mile radius, but deny this is due to cost.

 

Benítez continues to behave as if he will be implementing change, but written into his three-year contract is a relegation get-out clause . Would he really agree to work in the Sky Bet Championship? “If they stay up, he’ll be asking the board how they can get into the Champions League,” his friend said. “That’s the level he wants to work at.”

 

For a while, Newcastle’s recruitment model — young players of value, usually from abroad — brought praise, but Benítez’s arrival as manager rather than head coach is recognition that the experiment has failed. Team-building is abysmal. “We’re non-functional at all levels,” the observer said. “Rotten from bottom to top. The statistics don’t lie.”

 

Whipping boys

 

Among Newcastle Under 18s results this season have been some humiliating losses.

Middlesbrough 4-1 Newcastle

Liverpool 4-1 Newcastle

Man City 6-1 Newcastle

Blackburn 5-0 Newcastle

Newcastle 0-8 Everton

Newcastle 0-4 Derby

Man Utd 7-1 Newcastle

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Spot on and depressing, failure is a culture at NUFC now. Only Mike Ashley can change it, if he even cares.

[Big Geordie]

George

[DJ_NUFC]

Can we, as a forum, just get it over with and marry Caulkin?