1. What A Week At Newcastle United!
The NUFC Takeover Has (Hopefully) Positively Changed The Club Forever
Newcastle United Have New Owners
Just over one week ago Newcastle United were a mess. A shell of a club with no hope, no ambition, a poor squad, a useless manager and a neglectful owner.
It’s hard to comprehend the series of events that have happened since the news broke on Thursday 7th October. Finally, after more than a year of legal battles and issues around piracy, the consortium fronted by Amanda Staveley and backed by the Saudi Public Investment Fund have got their hands on Newcastle United.
In the blink of an eye Newcastle United became the world richest sports team!
An impromptu party outside the stadium ensued with an estimated 5000 - 7000 fans drinking cans, singing songs and celebrating the removal of Mike Ashley after 14 and half long years. Scenes!
Interviews with Staveley were peppered across mainstream and social media channels where she preached patience and reinforced that the new owners were ‘long term investors’ in this for the long haul. Music to our ears.
On Monday, Staveley and her husband visited the training ground, (which, embarrassingly, looks like a community centre) to meet staff and players. Everything was very positive and I’m sure that behind the scenes, the audit of the entire club will be well underway. Expect a revolution to happen both on and off the pitch.
Despite the fact Steve Bruce remains the manager for now, it was so refreshing to have a club statement on Friday explaining that Bruce would be in place for the visit of Spurs. After 14 years of nothing from Ashley, just knowing we have owners who remember the supporters are there and want to be updated from time to time, is a gigantic stride forward.
The future is so bright now for this football club now it’s almost impossible not to be giddy with excitement. The possibilities are endless. And nobody knows which way it’ll go, but not knowing is actually exciting!
It may take 5 years or 10 years or longer, but one thing is for certain. I am going to enjoy this ride and savour every moment of finally supporting a club that has hope and ambition again.
Howay The Lads!
Newcastle’s Next Match…
In this section of my newsletter I will be discussing Newcastle United’s next match (funny that!) and giving my personal thoughts and predictions.
As if you didn't already know, the next match for The Magpies is Sunday’s home game against Tottenham Hotspur. The match is live on Sky Sports, in the UK, with a 4:30pm kick off.
Steve Bruce remains in charge and will, rather incredibly, rack up his 1000th match as a manager. An impressive feat, made even more impressive when you look at how poor his managerial record actually is.
Bruce’s presence in the dugout was already unwelcome for most supporters. Bruce could have been the bigger man during his Friday press conference and say the right things regarding the exciting new era. Instead he sat there looking like miserable before making it all about him and even goaded journalists for being incorrect about his expected sacking. We can only hope this one really was his final pre-match presser as Newcastle manager.
As for the game itself, star striker Callum Wilson is back as is Jonjo Shelvey who impressed during the u23s match earlier in the week. Whether either will start the match is unknown at this point though I suspect Wilson probably will. Willock and Lascelles are also available for selection which definitely helps us as we look for our first win of the season.
Spurs, also desperate for points, travel with almost a full squad. And worth noting here that Harry Kane hasn’t scored this season yet. Newcastle are always a kind opponent to anyone looking to break a bad run of form!
The match is really going to be all about the occasion. The atmosphere on Tyneside is going to be one for the ages. Wor Flags have been working hard on new designs and it’ll be incredible to see what they’ve come up with especially for this match.
I can’t tell you just how devastated I am that, despite having my season ticket, I tested positive for Covid this week and so will have to settle for watching the match on TV.
Hopefully, the new era kicks off with a Toon win and I do feel that the players are excited and will be up for this too.
Score Prediction - Newcastle United 2-1 Spurs
Stat Of The Week
Despite being already relegated at the end of the 2015-16 season Newcastle hammered Spurs 5-1 on the final day of the season. The St James’ Park faithful declared their love for Rafa Benitez that day and begged for him to stay on as manager despite relegation. It worked of course. However since then Newcastle haven’t won any of their past four home league games against Tottenham, drawing one and losing three.
Trivia
The answer will be posted in next weeks newsletter.
Today’s question is courtesy of @sonofp00n on Twitter.
We’re all very excited to see who Newcastle’s first ever signing under the new owners will be in January. But who was the very first signing of the Mike Ashley era?
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Great post, hopefully a win on Sunday will cheer you up even more
Get well soon