31st January 2005
By
Jody Jamieson
So I'm back from Leicester and in my time away the turbulent existence
of Newcastle United has taken quite an amazing spin with a quite ridiculous
bust up that could easily have been avoided. Everyone is blaming everyone
for it which is starting to resemble the school playground blame games
on who kicked the ball on the roof. It's all very childish and just
says everything we needed to know about the current state of Newcastle
United Football Club. It seems as if whenever the transfer window
is about to shut something goes laughably wrong. August 2004 went
down as one of the most incompetent months in the history of the club,
but January 2005 seems to be trying (but admittedly failing) to emulate
it.
No matter who is to blame for what happened some factions of our club
- be they those staying or those about to leave - need to have a look
in the mirror and evaluate a shameful week.
Overall we'll maybe never know what has happened here and who is to
blame. Ultimately it's Craig Bellamy's word against Graeme Souness'
word, and can we really trust either mans word as gospel? I'd struggle
to trust what either man says to be honest, but Bellamy's latest press
release would not surprise me if it came to be true. Bellamy has come
out today and said that Souness wanted him out from day one. Something
that would not surprise me one bit. Souness has a habit of forcing
out any player who dares have an opinion, and the thought that a bust
up between those two being around the corner had to have crossed all
of our minds ever since Souness was appointed.
To be honest the only surprise for me was that it took longer than
I expected.
I speculated in a previous article that I'd be looking with interest
at the players going out than the players coming in, and unfortunately
that has proved to have been speculation proved right. We've brought
in 3 very good players, but we're facing the prospect of losing what
many (including me) see as our best player. Regardless of whether
he has to leave or not, we have to look at what impact that will have
on the pitch. A lot of people after all forget that when you get past
the bickering and the transfers and the ludicrous money and whatever
else, there's still football matches to be played and can anyone realistically
say that Bellamy won't be missed on the football pitch?
There is no-one this side of the Tyne Bridge who can fill Craig Bellamy's
boots, and in the last 12 months we've seen our little Welshman improve
the two things we said were crucial parts of his game that had to
improve. His fitness and his finishing. While he was making an impact
when he played, he spent far too long in the treatment room. But his
hamstring injury towards the end of last season aside, he's been pretty
much injury free, and the team has reaped the rewards. And if we're
all honest his finishing in previous seasons did leave a lot to be
desired, but he's obviously been working on it and if he'd got a run
up front then we could have been looking at a 20 goal season from
him. But Souness prefers to leave him out on the wing, which raises
an interesting point on the whole debate that a lot of people seem
to forget.
Some people are saying that Bellamy was wrong to do what he did. Are
these the same people who were having kittens everytime Bellamy was
left out wide? Bellamy spoke out against something stupid that Souness
was doing, can we criticise him for that? The only criticism we can
have was his incompetent use of tact in getting his point across.
To take that debate further though we have to know the full facts
and as I've speculated at before, we'll probably never know the whole
truth as to what has happened.
The question I want to ask is why Souness decided to play Bellamy
out wide? It was clear pretty early that Bellamy is not a winger and
we miss his pace up front. Neither Shearer, Ameobi nor Kluivert gives
us what Bellamy does and when he's not up front we miss that explosive
pace and his ability to drag defenders out of position, and it concerns
me as to where we'll get that edge when Bellamy is gone.
But the case for Souness' defence is simple. If you were a boss, would
you stand for Bellamy's outburst? I certainly wouldn't. Bellamy has
shown a complete lack of respect towards his manager and should pay
the price. My problem here - and I'm speculating - is that if Bellamy
was to come out and apologise for his comments and offer a truce I
don't think Souness would accept it. His previous history with Dwight
Yorke, Damien Duff (who would have probably left anyway though with
the big clubs sniffing around) David Dunn, Brad Friedel (apparently)
and a few more shows that his man management skills are crap and he
has a habit of falling out with his players on a scarily regular basis.
I am by no means sticking up for Bellamy but I feel that he's getting
a bit too much of the blame for this. Clearly he's stuck the final
nail in the coffin, but is it all his fault? I'd speculate that our
boss has played his part in forcing our best player out of the club
and thus damaging our chances of climbing the table in the next few
months. I'll come back to this debate in a bit with Shepherd's latest
comments, but I'm going to look at our potential replacement.
Yakubu is a very good player, and I hope to God that if he comes in
he helps us forget all about Craig Bellamy, but I worry that it's
going to mirror the Nolberto Solano saga. We've played Milner, Ambrose,
Bowyer, Dyer, hell even Bellamy on the right wing, and yet we still
complain about the sale of Solano, which proves that we've never properly
replaced him. We've got Shearer, Ameobi, Kluivert and Guy on the books,
with Yakubu likely to join aswell. Can any of them do what Bellamy
does? Only one. The Nigerian lad. He's got pace, but he's also very
robust. Bellamy is robust in his own way, but doesn't have the strength
that Yakubu does. I'd be fairly happy if we bring him in from Portsmouth,
but if it doesn't work out we'll have forked out a lot of money to
replace Bellamy with a player who isn't up to the job and then we'll
be sitting here in 12 months time still complaining about the sale
of Bellamy.
I'm aware that Souness and others have claimed that Yakubu is more
of a Shearer replacement that a Bellamy replacement, but right here
and right now replacing Shearer isn't the issue. That's an issue for
the summer. But I do feel that Yakubu with a bit of luck can give
us that edge that we're about to sell onto Birmingham. He's quick,
skillful, and strong. I for one will be glad to see Yakubu sign for
us if the deal is concluded, but if it all goes wrong then we'll look
back to the last week's shenanigans and wonder what the hell is wrong
with our club.
And the childish blame society took another twist today with Freddie
Shepherd claiming that Sir Bobby Robson is partly to blame for this
whole event. Someone should tell our chairman to stop gibbering nonsense
to the media. If Bellamy is such a disruptive influence, then how
come Sir Bobby Robson not only managed to stay on the right side of
the player for the 3 years they shared employment at the club, but
also Robson got the absolute best from the player for most of that
time. So if Robson could control him and make him the player we've
all grown to love, how can Shepherd come out now and slate Sir Bobby
Robson for playing a part in a fallout that has happened due to two
people with huge egos and destructive tempers? It's not Bobby Robson's
fault that he commanded respect from Craig Bellamy, and it's certainly
not his fault that Graeme Souness can't command said respect.
So yes, it's probably justified that Graeme Souness is letting Craig
Bellamy go, but this could have been so easily avoided and as always
the people to suffer will be us, the fans. We've lost a player who
gave us so much in 3 ½ years at our club, and we wait and see if he'll
actually be replaced. Something we can't count on after the Solano
debacle of exactly 12 months ago.
There may indeed be trouble ahead... |
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