24th January 2005
By
Jody Jamieson
This Toon fan is concerned.
This Toon fan has a bone to pick with many members of our club.
This Toon fan is sick fed up of moaning in every article.
This Toon fan wants to smile about football for a change.
At the start of the month I was trying to be optimistic about Graeme
Souness. I made my feelings perfectly clear about him when he was
appointed, and while things were as grim as they'd been since the
turn of the millennium in his first 4 months in the job, I tried to
focus on the few positives he'd shown. However as the last month has
gone on I find myself more and more alienated with his crazy tenure
at this club.
When Souness was appointed I said it was a terrible choice. I said
that I'd rather have kept Sir Bobby Robson if I knew this was his
replacement. And I said that we'd be looking at the mass exodus of
some top players. Robert was lucky to survive, but Bellamy and Bernard
(even if I wasn't overly impressed with him this season) didn't. So
let's look objectively at what has happened in January. We knew we
needed to strengthen. We knew that there were positions on the pitch
that we were lacking in quality, and a lot of people advocated that
we should give Souness time to bring in his own players. So what has
happened?
We've strengthened our defence, albeit with one addition (not including
the Babayaro in, Bernard out deal, even though I'm fairly pleased
with it) by adding Jean-Alain Boumsong. We've strengthened, and hopefully
the defence can start to gel and do the business with Titus keeping
up his good recent form and it's all decent there. Fair play to Souness,
I'm happy with what he's done there.
Midfield I'm pretty happy with Faye, but we needed creativity, and
it seems to me that Faye won't add that. So we addressed a minor problem
and completely ignored the bigger, more important addition that had
to be made. Happy with Faye but annoyed that Souness hasn't seen fit
to add a wide player.
But in the attack I'm absolutely furious. It remains to be seen if
Souness brings in a replacement for Bellamy, but with just over 3
hours at this precise moment as I type before the transfer deadline
passes then I'm not exactly holding my breath. Half expecting Chopra
to be called back from Barnsley. A big fat F for our boss here. You've
failed.
I've moaned and moaned and moaned for the past week about the Bellamy
fiasco and I'm going to try and not get started again, but surely
Souness has just proved today that showing he's in charge is more
important than giving his team the best chance to win on the pitch.
Forcing out our best player (rightly or wrongly) and replacing him
with............... *drum roll please* ................ nobody. So
all this just to prove a bloody point.
We all know that when Souness has a lip on he's a stubborn bastard
who looks like a chimpanzee doing Martin Keown impressions. Begrudgingly
I can see his point for getting rid of Bellamy, but to not replacing
him with anyone is unforgivable. No football club has morals, much
less Newcastle United, so why all of a sudden do we feel the need
to take the moral high ground? Bollocks. No-one at the club took the
moral high ground when the men at the top were slagging Geordie women,
or when the Save Our Seats stuff was going on, or when Dyer refused
to play on the right wing, so why now? Bellamy should have kept his
mouth shut, but in a world where everyone complains about how people
just keep schtum and don't say what's going on and keep the truth
a secret, we suddenly get all outraged when someone comes out and
says what's on his mind and how he realty feels.
The next time Arsene Wenger comes on the TV and says there's no problem
with Jens Lehmann, or the next time Stephen Gerrard comes out and
says he's not interested in leaving Anfield, or the next time Sir
Alex Ferguson comes out and says he has full confidence in his goalkeepers
abilities, don't sit there and mutter "lying bastards" to yourself.
As if they came out and told the truth, people would only complain
about the moral outrage. Just like the person looking for new double
glazing at a good quality and a good price, you can't have both.
So really we decided that we'd wait till at least January to see who
Souness brought in before we judged him. How many people are happy
with how January has went. It'll take an 11 o'clock miracle before
I raise a smile to our transfer dealings. I'm fed up of Graeme Souness
already, and I've given him a chance. I've tried to defend him and
look at the positives, but the main thing we were looking for was
signs that it could get better. Maybe not right away, but all I'm
looking for is a sign that things may get better in the future. With
our best player on loan and frozen out, our captain on the verge of
retiring, and the probability the door labelled "OUT" may be used
by quite a bit by our more high profile players in the summer if things
don't dramatically improve between now and May, it's not a great time
to be a Newcastle United supporter.
To be honest I'm a bit fed up of the "We are Newcastle UNITED and
we'll unite and make things better!" as it has been proved many times
in the past that a token show of defiance from the fans has done bugger
all to make things better. The only people who can make this better
are the people who have the power. It's clear the Shepherd doesn't
give a shit about the fans, and it's also clear that Souness isn't
the man to bring success to our fans. Something has to give.
Yes we are UNITED, and I along with pretty much everyone who reads
this article will support and love the Toon forever and a day, but
I'm a bit fucking sick of sitting here hoping against all hope that
things will get better, only to be disappointed yet again. I wouldn't
sack Souness yet as we've not got anyone better to take over right
now, but if things don't improve between now and the end of the season,
then we might aswell let Souness go and spend the summer looking for
a replacement, getting him in with enough time to make signings and
make an impact.
Freddie Shepherd has to hold his hands up here and admit that appointing
Souness was as big a mistake as we thought it would be, to show that
he isn't as pig headed as many people think he is. Shepherd has a
chance to show that he wants what's best for the club, and with a
bit of hindsight it's easy to berate his appointment of Souness (despite
some of our reservations) as when you look at what Souness does and
you look at the way our team was, it sort of made sense. We needed
discipline and Souness looked like the man to bring it. Unfortunately
what Shepherd didn't bargain for was the fact that Souness' discipline
was no better than anyone else's already at the club.
I'm appealing for a little more time for Souness, but I'm saying that
the way things look, letting him start the 2005/2006 season may be
terrible decision.
I hope the next time I start gibbering shite for this website I've
got something to smile about.
Keep The faith. Even if Keeping The Faith brings you out in a rage
and makes you drink more than you used to, it's good for character
building. |
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