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We are NOT in the Amsterdam Tournament - cancel your flights!


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Why didn't we make the Newcastle-Gateshead Tournament a permanent thing? That was a canny weekend of football I reckon.

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Guest Geordiesned

Sky using the word "confirmed" very loosely there since they've been telling us for nearlt a month that Newcastle were in it!

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Guest smoggeordie

Sam Allardyce has criticised the organisers of the Amsterdam Tournament after Newcastle United's involvement in the prestigious pre-season event was cancelled at the last minute.

 

United had been in an advanced stage of negotiation with hosts Ajax and the tournament's organisers International Event Partnership and were expected to line up alongside the Dutch giants, Italian outfit Lazio and Spanish side Atletico corr Madrid in Amsterdam in August.

 

But the Magpies were shocked to learn last month the organisers had found another team to play in the tournament, with Newcastle's Premiership rivals Arsenal understood to have taken their place.

 

The lateness of the decision has badly disrupted Newcastle's pre-season plans as Allardyce - who will implement a completely new approach to pre-season training at United this summer - looks to get his squad in shape for the start of his first season in charge.

 

"We are trying to move our recruitment of players and staff along as quickly as we can, but we are also looking to tie off our pre-season plans as well," said Allardyce, who has distanced himself from reports suggesting he is interested in Manchester United defender Wes Brown.

 

"We want to make sure we've got the right games at the right time. We're very disappointed to lose the Ajax tournament. We've been dealt a rather severe blow and basically we've been dumped on from a great height, but we can't do anything about that now.

 

"It would have been a great tournament to be in for pre-season, but we have to focus on getting the right fixtures in place so that we deliver strength, conditioning and tactical scenarios throughout that. We want to build the players up right from a fitness point of view so that we don't get any injuries.

 

"We'll keep building up their all-round ability and we will monitor each individual from day one. We won't even be training as a group, it will be individual programmes or small groups. Then we will start focusing on the team shape and how we want them to play."

 

United are yet to finalise their pre-season fixtures with only two games - against Celtic and local neighbours Hartlepool United - confirmed following their failure to secure a place in the Amsterdam Tournament.

 

But, while the pre-season games will be the first chance for supporters to see Allardyce's new-look side, he has already warned them results will not be important to him.

 

He explained: "I'm really happy if we lose every single pre-season friendly. I've done that virtually every year at Bolton, certainly last year we hardly scored a goal and didn't win a game, but we ended up with 20 points from the first ten matches in the Premiership.

 

"The fans have not got to get too worked up if we lose every pre-season game. It won't be a worry for me and it won't be a worry for the players. It's just about us doing the right things and getting ready for the most important thing, which is the whistle blowing on August 11 and winning that first Premiership game, not some meaningless pre-season friendlies."

 

Allardyce has already declared his determination to shake things up behind the scenes at St James's Park and he may have caused a bit of a stir on Tyneside by suggesting the club's training ground, which was only built five years ago, is already out of date.

 

He said: "While it's a massive football club, it's achievement has been minimal over the last few years. I'm here to try to change that and we are going to try to get as many things as we can in place for the start of what will be a very important first season for me. I want to make the training ground better. It isn't a place for professional footballers to work on a day-to-day basis.

 

"This is a squash club converted. My vision in the long term is to create an all-encompassing building that would excite everybody who walks through the door every day.

 

"The players will be in a rush to get here and they won't want to go home as quickly as they do now.

 

"That's the long term and then there is the short term which is the most important at the moment."

 

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Guest Sam04je

Ahh well, Anyone ever seen Hostel? That takes place in Amsterdam i think.

 

As for Sams words  :thup:

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