Paul Dixon has been following Newcastle United for more than 35 years, 17 of which have been as a season ticket holder in the Gallowgate End at St James’ Park. Each week in his column, he takes a wry look at all things football – from a black-and-white perspective.
I DIDN’T have high expectations at Anfield on Friday. We never get anything resembling luck down there.
Even without their main striker, banned again for making a cultural hand gesture to Fulham supporters, they still had enough on call to see them home.
The only bonus for me was that I gave the Sky coverage a miss and watched on the laptop. Their unctuous attitude to Liverpool grates, it makes North Korean television look like Jeremy Clarkson.
The selection of their balanced studio guests sealed it, ex-Liverpool player Jamie Redknapp and current Liverpool man (albeit out on loan) Joe Cole, hardly suggested neutrality.
Although to be fair, Redknapp’s irritating holiday ads did appear up here, and Cole once played for Chelsea at St James’ Park. That said, you cannot go there and look to defend from the off. Their pace and flair (which Dalglish eradicated superbly from us when manager up here, maybe he has a twin?) were always going to make it tough, and then gifting two goals made it harder.
They spent just under £60m in the summer, compared to our £13m, so were they nearly five times better? Probably not, but that leads me inevitably to transfer policy.
The statement about not buying another striker, after the ‘collapse’ of the Maïga deal, was as obvious as it was depressing.
Pardew can use words like ‘reckless’ when justifying not buying anybody else, but I suspect that there was a phone call from finance after Taylor got injured. So we try to wing it until Ba gets back from the African Nations Cup. We are going to go with the ones not deemed good enough, hence the prospective purchase of Maïga, and potentially waste the unlikely position we’re in.
We were led to believe our scouts where flying around Europe like bankers with dodgy Greek cheques and lists were being compiled. Little did we know that the shortlist had the same amount of names as the North Korean leadership election.
Short-sighted and uninspiring. I hope I’m proved wrong during January, but I suspect we’re going to mirror Dalglish’s managerial reign up here, and can look forward to dull old pragmatism with a summer lecture from our Dear Leader. For Kim Jong-Un, read Him Done One. Happy 2012.
blackadderboy@yahoo.co.uk
