I caught the match between Aston Villa and Newcastle on Starhub yesterday night. Well, sort of. What I did was to catch it on the Mosaic, which meant a reduction in screen size to 1/16 of the TV size, and make me more reliant on the audio rather than visual aspect of the game. I watched it till Gareth Barry’s powerful shot took a wicked deflection off Damien Duff’s right foot, and into the bottom right of Steve Harper’s goal, before switching off the telly there and then. I knew that Arse’s luck like that would mean it would be hard to keep Newcastle up… and I was right.
Apparently, where their first half display was solid but yet meek, the second half was toothless. With that, I would think that Newcastle’s leeches would be offloaded in an attempt to bridge the gap of Championship football next season.
I expect an exodus of no less than 8 of the current squad. I would guess that these are the few;
1. Joey Barton. This fellow is definitely top on my list to go. No stranger to trouble. At least when Craig Bellamy was around, he could score goals setting aside his troubles.
2. Jose Enrique. I miss John Beresford. Period.
3. Michael Owen. I think he would be better off playing with his horses.
4. Jonas Gutierrez. To be fair, I thought that Spiderman was something. That being said, he seemed to be affected by the saga with Keegan and Ashley.
5. Colocinni. Likewise with the above.
6. Obefemi Martins. On-off relationship with almost all the managers he’s been working under.
7. Sebastian Bassong. He proclaimed that he would definitely leave NUFC if they were relegated. A fine comment to make, considering that he managed to get himself red carded and all. What a load of help.
8. Damien Duff. Nice chap. But I think, like me, he’s past it.
9. Xisco. Three words. Wtf.
I do hope that up-and-coming stars like Nile Ranger will stay on and help push Newcastle straight up into the Premier league, rather than go down and bite the dust like Leeds United. I hope, too, that Freddy Sheppard or Sir John Hall re-takes St James from Mike Ashley, who has undoubtedly made Newcastle United the laughing stock of the BPL this season.
