Guillem Balague has reissued his Poch book with an additional chapter to include last season that doesn't have a single word from Poch, but it has plenty from Balague - those words mainly involving the words "another" and "club" in close proximity Funny how, just last week, Balague was mouthing off about how other managers apparently ask Poch why he hasn't moved to another club yet...
Keegan has a book out and has written about how (when he rejoined the toon in 2008) the club signed 2 players as a favour to an agent...he says he was told he did not have to play them after they were signed... it was being discussed on Talk sport tonight and Danny Kelly and the sports journalist Shaun Cuspus (excuse spelling) who is also a toon fan were laying into Ashley. Up popped Simon Jordan who took on the role of Mr Kettle by claiming Keegan was simply interested in self publicity and claimed it was no big deal that Ashley signed players not wanted by the manager as a favour to the agent as it was his money...
Jordan and Custis don't like each other... https://talksport.com/football/4167...palace-chairman-rant-british-press-talksport/ Jordan can be a twat but Custis is in a whole different league.
Did they mention the players or the agent? Two windows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007–08_Newcastle_United_F.C._season#In https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008–09_Newcastle_United_F.C._season#Transfers The first list looks dodgier, to me.
Pretty certain Collicini and Guttierez (not sure of the spellings) were the two mentioned ... From 2008.
My bad ... Xisco and Gonzalez...nearly right...one began with a G and the other had letters in the name My dumbassery impresses me sometimes
There's a quick way to find out a pattern... Viduka - Pasqualin D'Amico Partners Barton - Willie McKay Rozehnal - Lars Baumgarten Geremi - Joel Essomba Smith - Alex Black Cacapa - Marketing Services Monaco Enrique - Football Management Sanchez Faye - Alister Veerasamy Baye - Willie McKay Tozer - ? Baheng - Blanc Meslin Sport Football Kadar - Base Soccer Agency Zamblera - ? Soderberg - Jonas Svensson Management Diatta - not sure about his agent, but the amount of club-hopping he did and the fact he faced prosecution in Senegal says a lot... Jonas - Pedro Bravo Guthrie - Fortitude Player Management Bassong - Christophe Henrotay Coloccini - Marcelo Lombilla Xisco - Pedro Bravo Lovenkrands - ? Nolan - Sports Player Management Taylor - ? It's probably worth mentioning that Willie McKay's name featured several times in the Stevens report, namely for the following deals... Aliou Cisse (Birmingham to Portsmouth, 2004) Jean-Alain Boumsong (Rangers to Newcastle, 2005) Amdy Faye (Portsmouth to Newcastle, 2005) Benjani (Auxerre to Portsmouth, 2006) On the other hand Mark Curtis is another likely candidate as Nolan was one of his clients while Andy Carroll was represented by Direct Sports Management, which lists Curtis as its sole director (and it's worth pointing out that Sam Allardyce is a Curtis client, as were several players he signed for West Scam including Nolan, Carroll, Matt Jarvis and Jussi Jaaskelainen)
Xisco and Jonas do happen to have the same agent, although the most likely culprits are Barton, Nolan and Baye
From this article...https://www.footballtransfertavern....witter-still-hold-ryan-mason-in-their-hearts/ "Mason was always one of football’s good guys and anyone who knew him will remember him for being a classy professional both on and off the pitch. The midfielder was lucky enough to represent his childhood club, wear the famous number 8 shirt, previously donned by the likes of Jimmy Greaves, Steve Perryman and Tim Sherwood, and play on the biggest stage as he received one England cap during his career." Tim Sherwood.........Tim '****ing' Sherwood? Gazza?...................Nah, not him. Archibald?..............Nah, not good enough. Tim Sherwood...........
Our number 8 sure is a mixed bag The Good Paul Gascoigne Steve Archibald Steve Perryman Scott Parker Allan Nielsen David Howells Pedro Mendes The Bad Paulinho Tim Sherwood The Ridiculous Helder Postiga Danny Murphy
Where does Jenas fit into this? or does he start a category of his own for the almost good but generally underwhelming?
I remember him getting an equaliser against the goons in the last few minutes, probably 2005/06/07. That puts him into the good to fekking excellent department whatever else that he did or didn't do in his career. Nothing worse than losing to the goons.
"The bottom line of everything when it comes to being a football player is you look at yourself and somewhere along the line, I didn't do enough." - JJ.