Dodds' - Comments

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

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

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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!

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.

End of the season!
Thank goodness.

This season has been dreadful, starting from the beginning when we were very poor and hardly picking up points and that seemed to get a little better during the middle part of the season. However coming to the tail end we just couldn't gain enough points to get us back in Europe unfortunately. The big ego's were coming out to the press a little too often, and this was disrupting the club rather than helping it. I do concede a little to be my fault by going in a little hard on the players after some unlucky games, I must just think we are a better team than we actually are.

Award Roundup
Nem, is a massive part of this club!


As you can see our Danish young striker Csali at the age of 18 getting our Top Goalscorer award, we always had high hopes for this kid and hopefully he will be around us for the next 10 years banging the goals in and hopefully he will have a stint in Europe in the not so distant future. Again what can I say about Wellington Nem, he's our new Ben Arfa combined with Cabaye. The way he dribbles and the vision he has to create a chance is frightening, not just for us as viewers but the defending team as they will have to be constantly on there toes and one little slip of concentration will result in a goal. He also got PFA Young player of the Year. Lastly our player of the season, this could have went to a few people but in the end it went to Remie Streete. His value has rocketed through the roof this past year and the 21 year old has been a revelation for us this season, he reminded me of a young Steven Taylor which is what he wanted to do by following his idol.





Fixtures
Good wins and disastrous loses!

Some brilliant wins against Arsenal and Liverpool in the last stages of the season, however the run of 5 defeats at the end saw us slip away from European football. Despite this we done well to reach the Semi Finals of the FA Cup, but getting put up against Wolves who finished 6th. They were brilliant going forward with the likes of Doyle and Ebanks Blake who scored around 40 goals between them so we didn't really expect the result to go any other way. However with those results we saved ourselves in the last 2 games with two brilliant results and also Raheem Sterling bagging a hat trick.

January 2016
Have we picked our form up?

Considering the fixtures we had in the past few months I would say we have done brilliantly well, the wins against Man Utd, Arsenal and Man City gave us massive confidence and all the players were ecstatic and the way we played against these clubs I am not surprised. As well as this you can see in the fixtures below that we done well by getting a few 4 or 5 game unbeaten runs however it was a bit unlucky to come to the end of them so soon, we need to make the attacks count more as we are creating a lot of chances ever game. Also as you can see Cisse, Sterling and Campbell were scoring a lot for us during this period unfortunately we may have to offload Cisse in the near future as he isn't creating the movement and excitement that he has in the past few years, and especially with our young Danish striker Csali is coming through the ranks banging the goals in too and making himself available in more situations than Cisse is. You can clearly see in the 5-1 win against Everton with Csali bagging 4.



Transfer Front
In and out, within 6 month



Firstly the big sale of the winter is Hatem, the £26m we received for him was a brilliant price for him. Especially due to Hatem not performing as well as he has been, also he was keep signalling he wanted new contracts worth over 100k which was far more than what we wanted to give him so Arsenal came in at the right time. Secondly, ter Stegen moved on as we only had him on a years contract and when we went to renew that he wanted a £50k per week pay rise. PSG came in one month before they could have signed him for £0 so we believe we got very lucky. Then the incomings, firstly we had to replace Marc so we went on the look for a goalkeeper that was atleast 90% as good as him and we stumbled across a transfer listed Zieler. We also knew that he could also speak English due to him spending time at Manchester United, this gave us a big relief as he would be able to fit right into the side as he would be able to communicate and this was aswell as his £15m listed status. Another player that came in was a Chilean striker, Peter Leschinski. Who hopefully will come into the same state as Csali and Campbell, who came as youngsters through the ranks and waited and took there chance as first team football.

Season 2015/16
Season re-cap.


Unfortunately last season wasn't what we expected, we were at least expecting to qualify for Europe. However the travelling and the amount of games that we had to go through every week took it out of our thinned squad. This year could see us push on from our 7th place finish, with a new owner who has pumped in a lot of money. He cleared our debts then took out a £55m loan which I don't understand from his part but never mind, he has started a £5m upgrade on our youth facilities to try and get the best English players through our systems.

Transfers
In's and out's



This pre-season had me excited more than any other, this was because of the dealings that we had made half way through the last season. Captures of Marc-Andre ter Stegen and Younes Belhanda, were tremendous deals on our part to get the morale up with the squad. As well as bringing in ter Stegen we had to offload Tim Krul, especially with how many points he caused us last season due to his failure to keep ahold of the ball. Another departure was Mehdi Abeid, the £3.5m we received was appealing due to him being injured a lot last season which seen his first team chances disintegrate. Then lastly our big capture of the off season was of course the midfield general Yann M'Vila, the £22m we paid for him was definitely a bargain in my eyes as well as the clubs fans. He will be a direct replacement for Chieck Tiote as soon as he is settled we will look to move him on for sure. We also brought in two youngsters, a young American striker (Danny Aygei) and a younger future midfield general who I'll be looking for Yann to tutor (Antonello Primerano).




Fixtures
Another hard start with City

Again our pre-season couldn't have gone any better, well apart from the loss to Athletic. We managed to get a lot of our new signings involved early and also our younger lads involved a lot too, this will give them confidence playing with the new lads and also get a bit of first team action. As well as this we have won our first trophy under my reigns, with the Pepsi All Star cup. Then the league started with two massive games so early into the season, with Man City who finished 2nd and then Spurs who managed to get the quadruple last season. We were very unlucky in both and probably should have nicked a draw but the luck was against us, hopefully it won't be like this all season. Hopefully the win against Brentford will push our season on, as the league table is still very close and one win can take you from 13th-20th up to 1-8th.

End of the 2014/15 season.
Will we be back in Europe again?

Unfortunately the answer is no, the form we showed in the league was nothing compared to the form we showed in Europe. However at least we can say we beat Real Madrid and Barcelona in the same season, right? I think this year the lads weren't used to the travelling and playing at least 2 times a week, this obviously had to force changes we wouldn't need to make usually. The lads that we brought in were very inexperienced, however that didn't stop them producing sometimes better than the players that they filled in for. When called on, Brandon Miele, Esteban Lopez, Remie Streete and Adam Campbell were all brilliant and hopefully the more games they get the better they will get and make sure to challenge for a place next season. Also with us not being in Europe next season this could cause a bit of controversy due to a few players we brought in wanting Champions League football, players such as Angelo Ogbonna who has had Manchester United sniffing after him. If they pay his £21m release clause they can have him I'm sure Remie will be able to step in his place or even Jores would too. Isco is another player we spent big money on, however his home sickness caused him to leave to go back to Spain twice this season. We don't want that next season as he will be a massive player for us if we want to get back into the Champions League spots again.



Player Reviews
How have they performed?


Again as usual, our top goalscorer was Papiss Cisse. His 22 goals has took us to 7th in the league and also to the Quarter Finals of the Champions League, at the start of the season he wasn't firing on all cylinders and I think if he was we would have been sitting here waiting anxiously for or our Champions League draw. Next season will probably be his last year as he will be hitting 30 and we usually shift players on that are hitting there 30's due to losing a lot of money and also them being on high wages, so if he doesn't perform he may be gone in January. Our top assister this season again was Wellington Nem, this lad is going from strength to strength. As well as his 20 assists this season he has got a lot more goals for himself too, I can see him coming one of our main players next season as he was hardly ever off the team sheet and I think there was only Santon and Cabaye that got put on before him.