Newcastle United - Here's to Sir Bobby!

Season 2016/17
Recap & Fixtures


After finishing 9th last season and investing in some younger replacements for Tiote, Cabaye and also Cisse, this is the year that we again could push for a european qualification. Hopefully the guys in Isco, Belhanda and M'Via can lead this club to glory after taking a little time to settle in, we all know how good they are and how good they can be on there day. Hopefully we will see a lot of those days over the course of the season. As well as the new guys fitting in, last season was brilliant for a few youngsters in particular Csali and Miele. Csali showed his prowess in front of goal and Miele showed he can put the ball on a platter for the strikers.

Again we started the pre-season really well then gradually letting go of the gas into the last game. But we can't really say anything wrong as we were just playing the new lads and also the lads that struggled last year to fit into the squad, they are looking more like a team and we were gaining a lot more possession and this lead to more shots and hopefully through the season we will get a few big scores. Soon as the fixtures were released we seen the Chelsea and City games so close to each other and thinking to ourselves not again, as we knew we would get a brilliant result against West Ham as usual. But the Chelsea game was even better for us, our new signing Manolo Gabbiadini kept his goalscoring record going to 4 in 4 and if this kind of record goes through the season we could have a top goalscorer on the cards and also a valuable asset on our hands.



Transfers
We've lost our oldies!



Firstly the outs, these were our main players for a lot of years but it was time they moved on due to them hitting the 30's and this was the last time we could get the most money for them. Cisse and Tiote going to Reading to get european football as they qualified by having the best discipline record so it was a chance at that for them next season. Cabaye also went to Wolves to get european football again next season but the £16m was a brilliant price for him as we did replace him with Isco. We also sent our youngsters to Westerlo who also need a work permit. The players we brought in were mostly youngsters, who we took a punt on a few years ago and had to wait for them before they could move to us. They also need to go on loan to our affiliate for 3 years before they can play for us, our main player was Manolo Gabbiadini who we spent £25m on and the way he's been banging in the goals we can definitely say that it was a bargain.

Midway Updates
Sitting pretty in 4th.

Yes, brilliantly we are sitting in fourth. After the start we had we didn't think this would be possible however the lads have always showed they want to compete and that is what they are doing. The likes of Gabbiadini who we brought in during the summer months has been a revelation and took over the scoring from the youngster Csali who has been injured a lot of these months. Also the assists that he is racking up alongside Wellington Nem as usual has made us a danger from a lot more places on the pitch. As well as going forward our young rock at the back Remie Streete has been in sensational form getting called up to the England squad however not making his debut yet, however that will definitely be coming soon with the way he's playing. Another boss we have is in the centre of midfield, Yann M'Vila. Last season he was a bit hit and miss until he settled in, and with the departure of Tiote he knew he would be playing constantly week in week out and this has gave him massive confidence in his own abilties. The amount of tackles he gets through in a game is remarkable and I would say he is a one of many reasons why we are doing so well this season.



Transfer Dealings
Only out's.

As well as this, the transfers only included out's this time. James McCarthy wanted to move on as he wasn't getting game time as he was behind the likes of Anita, Bigirimana, Miele. So he moved onto Dortmund for the rest of the season with a buy out clause of £10m. Also Steven Taylor went to relegation battlers Everton in a deal around £5m, I asked him to join on as a coach but he said he had a few more years left in him and wanted to move to get some first team action after Streete stood in for him. An update on Oscar Grossi at Hull, he's banging them in for them. Which will be another brilliant striker on our hands next season, exciting stuff ahead!

We'll travel Europe again!
Europa League returns to St. James'



We've done it, we done what we set out to do. Qualify in a European place, that was the main thing to do although Champions League would have been financially better for us. However we will go out and try to win the competition like we always do, there is some massive teams in the competition this year including Bayern Munich. Over the course of the year, we done very well in both the cups and eventually getting to win the FA Cup which we beat Tottenham in the final 1-0. This was the most surprising as we were rank outsiders before the clash and Gareth Bale and Douglas Costa have been on scintillating form. However we scored in the first minute and also held on even though getting battered all game.





As you can see Manolo Gabbiadini was an instant hit, 21 goals in all competitions was a brilliant return on the £25m and hopefully he will build on this and return the same back again next season. Again Wellington Nem was our top assister this season with 12, he wasn't on the usual form that he's been in the past few years hopefully next season he will be able to link up more with our strikers and fire us into the Champions League. Then as well as last year Remie Streete was awarded our player of the season, as well as the PFA young player of the year. He also was inducted into the PFA team of the year too.

Season 2017/18
Can we match last season?


Last season was a brilliant one for us, eventually getting back into Europe although it was the Europa League instead of the Champions League. But we will go out intending to win every game as always and hopefully get a good run together, our chairman wants us to at least reach the Semi Final of this. Also another brilliant thing was we didn't have to offload anyone that was ageing for the first time in a few years, this means that the core of the squad can stay together and hopefully by doing this and adding a few youngsters will be able to see us gradually get better this season.

Fixtures
How have we started?

Well the answer to that, is brilliant. We started pre-season with a cup of our own, we invited a few teams from around Europe to see the competition we would be facing in the Europa League and how we would handle ourselves using our youngsters as we usually use in these pre-season games. Real Madrid, Monaco and FC København were invited to St James' to give us an early indication and sights on our new players and older youth who have developed. We pulled Monaco in the Semi's and we ran out comfortable winners with Campbell getting them both after coming back from injury. Then we seen ourselves come up against Real Madrid and we played very well all game and getting in the lead to unfortunately get pegged back in the 92nd minute by Benzema. We went on to win on penalties. After pre-season we had Arsenal to contended with in the Community Shield, this was a dogged encounter with them losing Wilshere in the summer we thought we had a better chance... they ran us ragged and with Campbell scoring and then getting sent off caused us more problems. We conceded 2 quick goals and then they shut up shop and went home happy. However with the run in the Premier League so far we can't be too downhearted, played 3 won 3... bring on the rest of the season.



Europa League draw...



Transfer Season
Whose in and out?



We didn't have to get rid of anyone this summer, however we thought we would move James McCarthy on due to him being injured last season and he should go somewhere so he can get constant first team football. We also loaned out the lads that need a work permit and they are doing very well again since they have moved to Belgium. Also 2 strikers in Grossi and Leschinski have moved on loan as well as we would have 5 strikers to give football too, and we can't do that. However both of them done very well last season so hopefully they carry that on by going back to there native countries. We brought in a few youngsters this summer, this is to give our first teamers someone to tutor as a lot of them want to become coaches so it will give them something to learn as well.

End of the season!
Europe no more...


Yes unfortunately we haven't qualified, again marginally missing out by a few points. Although we racked up some brilliant wins throughout the year, as well as that our 3 strikers we rotated this year scored a bagfull each. However it was Manolo Gabbiadini who was top of the class this season, his eye for goal even from 40+ yards is amazing and what we need at this club. With Campbell and Csali in Gabbiadini's shadow we could have 3 potential world class finishers in our ranks which is brilliant news. Also the man 'Welly Nem' got our top assists again this season with a staggering 23, this is a current Newcastle record. He is going from strength to strength with us, and with him being only 26 we still have a lot of brilliance left in him. Hopefully with us being out of Europe, this might give us the push to get into the Champions League next season as that is where all our players want to play and that is where I want to manage, we have the players, belief and also the fan base.

Manolo Gabbiadini - Top Goalscorer Wellington Nem - Most Assists

Season 2018/19
Champions League is our aim!

Again, as we always do we start brilliantly as pre-season sets all the lads up until we usually play Man City or Man Utd. And again we got beat of Man Utd, however we flipped back over and beat Arsenal two weeks later dominantly and this will set us up again for a dominate run hopefully. As you can see Wellington Nem has turned goal scorer instead of goal provider, but as it's Nem he has also got a load of assists too. The only problem we have, is that we have 4 fit strikers to get into 1 position on the team. We may have to offload one of these in January.



Transfers this summer were very bare, we didn't really need to invest in the first team. However, after getting rid of Ogbonna. My director of football, decided to spend £25m of our £70m budget on Kurt Zouma and he's been an absolute animal at the back. We may look to buy some u18's in the near future to bulk up the reserves again as a lot of our young one's are now pushing for a first team place and this gives us massive confidence in our coaches and backroom staff.

January Updates
Going strong, top of the league!

Yes, we wanted to be in and around the top 4 for Champions League football next season. That is exactly what we have done so far, we've actually been tremendous in the first half of the season. We went on a 20 game unbeaten run and that is by far our best run, we also racked up a 10 game winning streak and this is the best by far we have had as a team and myself as a manager so far. As you can see we have been doing very well with the rotation of our 4 main strikers this year, I'm dreading Grossi coming back next year we will have 5 players that can play at striker I don't know how we will cope. A lot of young players this year have been tremendous for us including Liga, Biondi and Fortuna. Liga and Fortuna are a lot like a young Totti in his prime, they have magnificent eye for the pass and are brilliant going forward and also tracking backwards too.



Transfers
Goalkeepers in and out!

As you can see we picked up a phenomenal goalkeeper from Paraguay, at a measly price of £4m. We had been scouting him for a few year and as we were getting Butland ready for games he just never came to what we expected of him so as Nunez got older he got more games in his native country and got a lot better and for us he was transfer listed as he wanted to move. We pounced on the price, although giving him £88k per week was a little more than expected but seen as though the price was reduced we gave in to his demands. We also got rid of Zieler as he wasn't performing well since his move to us, we lost a few points in the end of last season which caused us to miss out on European football. We also shipped out Okore and Bigirimana as both were fringe players and both wanted to play more than they could, they also had troubles with injuries. We received very good money for both.

Other Awards

We also had another two reasons to celebrate this season as Csali got Golden Boy, and also Zouma got put in the FIFPro Team of the Year.

We are the champions, my friend!
We kept fighting, till the end.


Yes, after a disastrous season missing out on European football last season we wanted to get in the top four we done that from around the 3rd game and we never moved out of it. We lead the charge and we kept on leading till the very end, our rotation on the strikers was a brilliant plan as they all scored constantly and they weren't ever sitting on the sidelines for too long. This is why our top goalscorer Campbell only had a measly 16, the rest of the lads also notched up around 10+ goals each for themselves too. We also seen Omar Liga our Italian pass master take the reigns off Wellington Nem as our assists champion, it's brilliant as Wellington Nem pitched in with a lot more goals than he was used to.



Last Fixtures
Manchester defeated.

As you can see we only picked up one defeat in the last 14 games of the season, and 2 wins were over the Manchester clubs. Bare in mind that one was the Final and it made it that much more special, after that we knew we were going to go on and do the double this season. As well as these another youngster showed his worth to our team, Cristiano Fortuna was playing and creating chances at will... his movement and goal threat will definitely be around for many many years to come. As well as the two wins against the Manchester clubs, we had a massive win against Sunderland at there place with Csali bagging a hat trick! Hopefully this run will carry on next year.




More memorable shouts!

Start of the 2019/20 campaign
Can we repeat the success?

Well we couldn't have started much worse, I think the intake of the new lads and the outings of the older lads has caused a little blip to our results. I think we are going to have to do a lot of team blending so the new lads can get to know how our usual lads play and how the team plays as a whole, we've done well in most games by out possessing our opponents but we just can't seem to score when we get in the last 3rd of the pitch. Firstly losing the Community Shield to Wolves was very hard to take, due to Yohan Cabaye playing a massive part for them and still running the show at 33. Always we pull a massive team to start the league with this time we pulled 2 within the first 3 games, especially losing these when last year we had a massive chance of winning both was very frustrating. But, the only way is up from now we can't get any worse.



Transfers
Two massive midfielders join.

Firstly we seen the sale of Vurnon Anita to Barcelona for £17.5m, as he hit 30 half way through last year we thought his best years were behind him and we thought he should get one last big move before he should retire and Barcelona is a massive move for anyone. We also said goodbye to Manolo Gabbiadini due to his form and injuries last season, we also had 4 strikers to rotate and this was harder than first thought. £25m return was a brilliant sale. We also said goodbye to Shane Ferguson and Brandon Miele.

However the lads that have came in, atleast 3 of the 6 we brought in will definitely be in the first team most weeks and this is very important as they are still young and can develop into world class players. Yannick Feldhoff has played 4 times for Germany, he will be used as an AMC to sit in beside Isco and Wellington Nem. Jose Cespedes will be used as an Anita type player who will dictate the play, most things will go through him. Luciano Correa will be retrained to a RB and will be tutored by Santon, he will be an amazing first teamer by 2 years time. We also brought some young lads in too.

UCL Group
Tough group, as usual.

January time again!
Found form?

After our dreadful start, we decided in training to have a look at our tactics and get everyone up to date with our formations and the way we play. This started instantly with a brilliant win at Hull, however it was short lived and we thought we would have to do even more work however after that loss at Celtic we went on a brilliant little run beating the top of the table Spurs in the Capital One Cup. Also we started horribly in the Champions League then we turned it round when we demolished the oil rich PSG 3-1 at there place. I think that was the push that we all needed and it gave the lads a mass confidence boost then the win at Hannover made us go through second and with my second team Celtic beating PSG for the second time, it knocked them down to 3rd place. Even after the Man City loss we've managed to rack up an unbelievable 16 game unbeaten run so far and it's knocked us back to top of the table where we should be!





Transfers
Only outs!

Soon as January came we knew that the big boys would be after our players after our recent unbeaten run, with Real Madrid, Barcelona, PSG and Man City all wanting a few players each. However we only wanted to lose 1 player, at most it would be 2, although Yann M'Vila didn't want to leave. We stupidly put a £25m release clause in his contract, at the time it was a brilliant idea as it knocked him down £20k per week. But Barcelona and Real went head to head for him, the only good side was that he was nearly 30 and you know we don't like to keep players after they are 30.



UCL Knockout Draw
Return of the group draw of 2014/15.

Retaining Champions Status
Consecutive league, and also cup winners.


We, Newcastle United have retained the Premier League title. After the start we had we didn't think, well I didn't think that we had a chance in hell of getting in the top 4 never mind regaining the title. But the lads have been exceptional this year even after losing our two midfield generals in Anita and M'Vila, it kind of reminds you when Cabaye and Tiote left us we also dealt with that very quickly too. This season Adam Campbell again got our top goalscorer award, and this could have been any of our three strikers really. Although all three lads got injured at some point in the season, Campbell and Csali were out most and this caused Peter Leschinski play a lot more that he was expecting and it caused him to score many goals against many different high end teams and this got the whole crowd behind him. Also our top assister this year was Cristiano Fortuna, he was joined with Isco however he played a lot less games. Also our assist master from last year was out nearly 2/3 of the season so Fortuna definitely filled in for his Italian friend.



As you can see by the fixtures we mainly dominated every game in the run in to the title, however we were a bit disappointed losing to Tottenham and also especially giving such a poor account of ourselves against Barcelona. Although we are very happy never the less in getting to the Semi Final of the Champions League, we also managed to get to the Semi Final of the FA Cup and we also managed to win the Capital One Cup again for the second time running. That was a very close match and our main man, our number 9 Csali got us the Capital One Cup with an amazing dribbling run with a fantastic finish at the end.




Other Mentions

New Season
Worst Start

I seriously don't know what to say, we have been dreadful that is all I can say at this time... we will train very hard for the next few weeks. We need a win.



Transfers
A load have left

We have lost a few players in the summer this was due to them wanting to move, and not on my own behalf. I think they just wanted another challenge, even though we want to do everything we can to win as much as we can and the teams that they left for haven't won much in the past 5 years. Santon left for £20m to go to Arsenal and Clyne also left for £20m to go to Liverpool. We also let go a few of our youngsters, due to them not performing when being in the first team and then not being able to reach the potential we thought they had. We also only brought in one youngster,

UCL Group
Another nightmare for us