Monday 4 November 2013

10 Questions For Alan Pardew

"This win is for Mike Ashley and all our fans.  Trust me, he is a fan and I’m pleased for the club.  We are all Newcastle fans."  ...Alan Pardew


Would a real fan try to rename St James Park?
Over the last few months Alan Pardew seems to annoy me more and more every time he opens his mouth.  His latest comment to get me completely riled up (made after the Chelsea game) will no doubt have annoyed many other fans as well, and it's printed above.

Mike Ashley is a fan, is he, Alan?  If that's the case, here are a few questions which perhaps you could answer...

1)  Would a real fan trouser the £60 million TV money for himself, or would a real fan spend that £60 million on improving the squad?

2) Would a real fan sacrifice millions of pounds worth of potential advertising revenue by using marketing space at St James Park to promote his own company for free?

Sunday 20 October 2013

Things More Useful Than Joe Kinnear

Joe Kinnear: A modern day proverbial chocolate fire guard...


Joe Kinnear: The modern day
proverbial chocolate fire guard.
At the close of the transfer window many Newcastle fans were questioning the point of Joe Kinnear's role at the club*, and there were a few tweets doing the rounds on twitter using the hashtag #ThingsMoreUsefulThanJoeKinnear.

* Actually, long before the close of the transfer window fans were questioning the point of Joe Kinnear (and that's the polite way of describing fan reaction).

Some of these tweets brought a chuckle to my face, so I thought I would do a round up of the most amusing tweets (plus a few other examples) in a list of 'Things More Useful Than Joe Kinnear'...

1) #ThingsMoreUsefulThanJoeKinnear Alan Shearer's hairbrush. (@GeordieCulture)

2) #ThingsMoreUsefulThanJoeKinnear The 'g' in lasagne.

3) #ThingsMoreUsefulThanJoeKinnear The 'share this on facebook' button on any adult website.

Wednesday 2 October 2013

Everton V The Toon: Tips Round-Up

"...the inconsistency being shown was disturbing at one point." ...Alan Pardew


Alan Pardew would get few arguments that the inconsistency of Newcastle is disturbing.  He also talked about restoring a bit of pride in the second half, which we did, but it's also worth mentioning the following insightful comment from twitter, "That second half shouldn't fool anyone. That was as much about Everton switching off than any so-called comeback."

My tips followed a similar 'game of two halves' pattern as Monday's match with my Newcastle tips being a total washout and my general football tips making a reasonable overall profit.

This is the breakdown on how my general football tips got on...


General Football Tips:

Tottenham V Chelsea - Over/Under 2.5 Goals:
10 points on Under 2.5 Goals at 1.95 (Stan James) - WIN 20 points

Tuesday 24 September 2013

Everton V Newcastle United (30/09/13)

"If we want to be serious about being in the top ten or look to bigger things, or be a big team in the Premier League, we have to start to take the chances we have." ...Fabricio Coloccini


As you'd expect given our disappointing result against Hull on Saturday, my Newcastle tips were a total washout last week.  My general football tips performed quite well, however, as I correctly predicted QPR to beat Yeovil 1-0 and Swansea to beat Crystal Palace.

Last season the trend was for my general football tips to regularly outperform my Newcastle tips, and things have started off once again in that vein of form.  I don't know whether that means it's therefore wiser to keep your emotions out of your betting choices, or maybe it just means Newcastle are an unpredictable side who often lose the games we should be winning.

I've come to the conclusion that when Newcastle play, a lot depends on which side turns up on the day, and by that I'm not necessarily referring to who Pardew picks in his starting eleven.  We just don't seem to have any consistency, and our performance can vary quite considerably even throughout the ninety minutes.

Despite that unpredictability, however, I'm still going to try to pick out some winning Toon bets.  I'm skipping our League Cup tie against Leeds and instead making a few predictions for our match against Everton on Monday...

Friday 20 September 2013

Newcastle United V Hull City (21/09/13)

"This season will see the best of Hatem Ben Arfa, more consistency in every game, not just one good game, I want to play every game to a big level." ...Hatem Ben Arfa


Unfortunately from early October due to my circumstances I won't be able to get to any games for a few months.  I'm therefore going to make a final few sets of tips over the coming weeks before then taking a break for a while.

Here are my predictions for Saturday's match against Hull...

ToonTips:

Match Result:
20 points on Newcastle at 1.85 (Bet365)
On paper this looks like a comfortable victory.  However, although Hull lost their first two away matches of the season, those matches were against Chelsea and Man City, so we can't take anything for granted.  Nevertheless if we start with a similar line-up and approach as we had in the Villa game, then we've got to be confident of getting three points.

To Win To Nil:
10 points on Newcastle to win to nil at 3.2 (Coral)
Hull have found goals hard to come by so far this season, with just a single goal in each of their league home games and no goals yet on their travels in the league.

Thursday 12 September 2013

Aston Villa V Newcastle United (14/09/13)

A round-up of which bookies are offering the best prices for Villa V The Toon.


Here are details of where you can find the best odds for Saturday's game...

Match Betting:

Aston Villa - 2.15 (Bet Victor, Coral)
Draw - 3.4 (Bet Victor, Coral, BetFred, Stan James)
Newcastle - 3.8 (32Red)


The best odds in the First Goalscorer market are as follows...

Thursday 29 August 2013

Newcastle United V Fulham (31/08/13)

A round-up of which bookies are offering the best prices for The Toon V Fulham match.


It was hard to take many positives from the match against Morecambe, but if you look at things in terms of the bigger picture, then hopefully Mike Ashley must surely now realise how wrong he is if he thinks out current squad is good enough.

I generally don't take much interest in conspiracy theories, but a mate of mine raised the issue (only half-jokingly) that he wouldn't be surprised if Pardew actually picked his team last night specifically with the purpose in mind of opening Mike Ashley's eyes to reality.

If we look back at the Brighton game back in January then as well as the shockingly poor performance that day by our team made up largely of squad players, one of the other consequences of that match was that we subsequently went out and made a few signings.  Hopefully last night's performance will lead to a similar result with Mike Ashley finally realising what every Toon fan has known all summer.

I don't want to come across as too negative because if our first eleven are fit (and in form) then we can put out a strong team potentially capable of putting a good run of results together.  However, if we get another batch of injuries like last season, then last night should have hopefuly made it very clear to Ashley that if he fails to strengthen our squad then he's taking a big gamble again.

Moving onto Saturday's game, it's very hard to tip the Toon with any real confidence at the moment (other than perhaps for another nil nil draw), so once again I'm instead going to round-up the best prices which various bookies are offering on the Toon.