If we’re honest, it’s been another stressful summer. Put it this way, I’m a teacher and on the back of this one and the ‘Isak summer’ I think I might just get some temporary work for the six weeks between the middle of July and the start of September next year. Players leaving, transfer snubs, barely even a friendly won, SCR woes and then the manager of the last five years leaving. Not a great deal to get excited about. And of course this summer we lost possibly the most important person in the club’s history; Kevin Keegan.
So, I decided to go looking for positives. It’s the eve of a new season and of course we’re probably all feeling nervous to say the least. But going into this with a sense of doom, won’t help anyone.
If you believe certain sections of the media you’d think it’s been a nightmare transfer window for Newcastle. But while it hasn’t been great in terms of outgoings, when you look more closely, it’s not quite the disaster that it’s been painted as. In Tonali and Gordon we lost two players that wanted out and hardly set the world alight for us last season, so getting good money for both was actually smart business. For me, Trippier was a bigger loss, given the youthful look of our new signings. And the less said about Bruno, the better. He’s gone and we have to move on. Let’s stick to the positives!
With that in mind, here’s a big old positive statement; I genuinely believe that a couple of our signings could go on to be just about anything they want at St. James’ Park. Even though it’s early days, for me Sean Steur and Bazoumana Toure look more than a little bit special.
Steur in particular has been a fantastic surprise, bought seemingly when none of us were looking. But what a spot! The lad is 18 and plays like a seasoned veteran. It’s like he was born with a ball at his feet. I can’t remember seeing such composure at such a young age for a long time. In terms of his confidence with the ball there’s a hint of Gazza there for me. I watched him come into the team many years ago and just change games, demanding the ball. Steur feels similar. And while I don’t think he possesses the ‘God given’ talent that Gazza had, he’s certainly very, very special. Composed, intelligent, strong and always looking to play forward. He’s very quickly made himself look like a starter and him and Lewis Miley may be our central midfielders for a few years to come.
Toure is a very different player, obviously. However, he looks like one who could grab games by the scruff of the neck and change everything with his pace and flair. I’d become tired of watching wingers cut inside, slowing the game down, so it’s been good to see Toure so willing to go down the outside. I really hope he makes a positive start and manages to stay injury free as much as possible this year.
On top of those two, others have come into the squad and it’s to be hoped that once they settle they can live up to their billing. Furthermore, the likes of Leo Shahar and Mason Miley have impressed in pre season too, so you never know, the next future superstar might have already made their debut!
Further down the pecking order things are progressing well within the development teams with some notable additions being made and teams like our under 15s winning tournament after tournament. So who knows, with a little more patience we may see some of the likes of Park, Fitzgerald, Salia, Pivas, Neave, Ca, Ferreira and Wooster pushing to get into the team. And down the age groups the likes of Charlie Robinson, Sam Alabi, Michael Mills and Lucas Flack all seem to be making excellent progress.
Meanwhile, the manager who could well be giving those lads a chance in a few years time is young, highly rated, well motivated and tactically innovative. Matthias Jaissle was a name that I didn’t recognise when it was reported that he was coming in and the jury is still well and truly out on whether he’s up to the job, but I must admit I like what I’ve seen and heard so far. Hopefully, once the players are up to speed with his system things will begin to look even more positive.
The announcement about the new training facilities has also been a very timely positive. Some were beginning to doubt the ownership, so it’s nice to know that they’re still there! But these state of the art facilities are sure to benefit the club for many years to come and the part they’ll play in future recruitment can’t be underestimated. It’s certainly a long way from wheelie bin ice baths and paddling pool recoveries!
Furthermore, with more sponsorship just announced for the training kit and potentially the Stack and even St. James’, suddenly things are looking a lot healthier commercially too. So while plenty of others were revelling in the idea that our owners had ‘lost interest’ it actually looks far from it. And that could begin affect things in an immensely positive way for the club.
After the stale feel of last season something had to change and it had to be a big change. Players and a manager that we had loved have gone, but the club is still there and the team now has a chance to shake off that stale feeling and go again.
My one caveat would be that patience is going to be needed. There are a lot of moving parts to the changes at Newcastle United at the moment and whatever is being implemented by the new management team will take a bit of time. The importance of staying positive cannot be underestimated.
Middle Age Fanclub 