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Preview Percy‘s back from something of an enforced break. Has he cheered up in the interim? Has anyone else got any stupid questions while we are at it? Here’s his look at Monday’s trip to Newcastle.

Next up we make the long, long trek up to Newcastle where we will be hosted by Newcastle United, obviously. Kick-off in the Preview Alastair Memorial Match is at 8pm on Monday, which is quite simply a two-fingered salute to the travelling support.




I would genuinely like to know what efforts the club went to in order to try and prevent supporters having to endure a 600-mile round trip, the return leg of which would be impossible by train, the last train home leaving around 30 minutes before full time.

Actually, given the current ownership’s attitude to the supporter base, I suspect they didn’t give it a passing thought and simply sat back and waited for the cheque to come in.

So Newcastle then. Here’s a funny thing. They scored six goals against us last season, of which only one was actually legitimate. Blatant refereeing errors compounded by VAR ignoring the obvious in order to cover up the officials’ errors. The away match alone had five separate match changing decisions go against us – a record for a game not involving Liverpool. More on refereeing a bit later on.

Their season has been a bit up and down so far. A decent start saw them win three and draw one of their first four, though their first four saw them pick up the mandatory wins against Southampton (1-0 on the opening day) and Wolves (2-1 at Molineux), as well as a 2-1 home win over Tottenham and a 1-1 draw away at Bournemouth.

There then followed a less productive spell which saw them lose three (away at Fulham 3-1 and at Chelsea 2-1, and 0-1 at home to Brighton). In the middle of all that there was a 1-1 home draw against Manchester City and a goalless draw at Goodison). They then returned to winning ways at home to Arsenal (1-0) and a comeback win at Forest (3-1).

All of which has left them in eighth place with 18 points from 11 played so far. Creditable enough one would say, but one might also say that eighth was hardly the sort of thing that the Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia had in mind when they most categorically did not buy the club at all as the lawyers would like me to make clear.

Daisy tells me that they did a bit of business in the summer. With all eyes on the profit & sustainability rules their first deal involved them receiving around £38m for Elliot Anderson, money that appears in the books immediately, then spending £20m of that on Osysseas Vlachomidos who has effectively taken the role of third-choice ‘keeper, his fee being spread over the life of his contract.

All of this being booked in by 30 June to make the books look nice. The irony is, of course, that the Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia, were they actually involved in the club, which of course they are not, have pockets deep enough not to worry about that sort of thing.




Things were slightly less complicated with the signing of defender Lloyd Kelly from Bournemouth. He arrived on a free, his contract with the Cherries having expired during the summer. He spent five years at Dean Court and the move northwards representing a reunion with Eddie Howe.

The arrival of Lewis Hall from Chelsea actually took place last season, his season-long loan coming with an obligation for them to make the deal permanent this summer. The fee was £29m with a further £7m potentially coming in add-ons. One of those add-ons may or may not have been triggered by his appearance in the recent England matches against Greece and Ireland, those two caps being his first at full international level.

They sent £15m to Sheffield United in return for the services of Danish striker William Osula. He has yet to find the net in any of his six appearances, of which four have been in the league.

There were a couple more signings, neither of which we will see this weekend. Veteran ‘keeper John Ruddy arrived on a free from Birmingham to make four 'keepers on the books, whilst Serbian defender/midfielder Miodrag Pivas, an £800,000 capture from Jednivsto Ub (come on surely you know THEM) was immediately shipped out to Willem II on loan to give him more experience.

They have a number of long-term injuries to deal with. Lascelles, Krafth and Botman will all be out until the new year. There is a doubt about the availability of Callum Wilson – one of those who always scores against us – who is rated no better than 50/50 at the time of writing. Kieran Trippier looks a better bet with a 75% chance of being available.

However, stalwart defender Dan Burn will definitely be out having picked up five yellow cards, earning him a one match ban.

And on we move to the Wild And Wacky World Of Association Football. PGMOL really are the gift that keeps on giving aren’t they. In a recent preview I referred to David Coote as gullible such was his propensity to fall for every dive going no matter how obvious. You can now add rank stupidity to that list of faults.




I mean, I wouldn’t say that calling Klopp a four-letter word was particularly controversial – the general reaction from the football world was that what was said was pretty much fair comment. However, doing so on camera was prime Darwin Award stuff.

If that wasn’t bad enough, further video appeared of him appearing to indulge in what may or may not have been some form of recreational pharmaceutical. I mean anyone who takes that sort of stuff is already low on the list of people I’d want in charge of a professional football match. Anyone who does so in front of a camera clearly lacks the sort of sound judgement required for the job.

Now, whilst lacking that sort of judgement is clearly no barrier to a career in PGMOL – indeed the continued presence of Stuart Atwell in their ranks suggests that it may even be a prerequisite – you do have to wonder what sort of screening they go through before they pick these people. Meanwhile my legal people Messrs Sue, Grabbitt and Runne, advise me that, according to some sources anyway, Mr Coote is challenging the authenticity of one or both videos.

Elsewhere, Tottenham have redesigned their pigeon on a beachball badge, removing the words 'Tottenham Hotspur' from the logo, which, as some wag pointed out, represented the removal of the only title they’ve had in years.

And so to us. Well it’s tempting to say that the last match was so long ago I can barely remember it. However, such was the paucity of anything of interest I could barely remember it 10 seconds after the full-time whistle. It was a game so bad that MotD gave serious consideration to leaving it until last in NEXT week’s running order.

Ok, the second half was slightly better and in the end Pickford was probably MotM for the one-man barrier he erected in the last 15 minutes. But overall it was one of the worst games I’ve seen in my life. The only bright spot of the past couple of weeks has been Bowen’s goal for England – it was nice to see him easing himself into the match like that.

Mo Kudus is still on the naughty step for causing Spurs players to feign going into a coma, such crime being deemed more serious than the feigning of the comas themselves. He had a miserable midweek, missing a spot-kick as Ghana failed to qualify for the African Cuppasoup.




Returning to availability are Alphonse Areola, whose return to fitness from an unspecified knock may not be enough to see him replace Lukasz Fabianski, such was his previous form, and Edson Alvarez who has served his one match ban for his two yellows at Forest. However each passing week makes me wonder if Niclas Fullkrug will ever play for us again.

Well its not a happy place at the moment, is it. You can tell when things aren’t right at a club, every story purporting to be from those “in the know” carries negative overtones. Take Areola for example. Had a lousy game up at Spurs and, having picked up a knock, was replaced by Fabianski for subsequent matches. Or, if you prefer, had a big bust-up with Lopetegui having been dropped.

Now I have no reason to suspect that Areola’s absence was down to anything other than injury. However, such is the state of things that any time a player is not present the wild theories go into overdrive. Every player that arrived is said to be regretting it and for all I know even the tea lady is looking for another club.

The truth or otherwise of all these stories is almost irrelevant – the fact is that the state of the club is such that conditions are perfect for the incubation of such tales. Sullivan has apparently agreed with about a dozen other managers to come in and replace Lopetegui any day/week/month now. Lord knows how he finds the time with all he must have on his plate at the moment.

My own worry is that things will get worse before they get better and I’m afraid I can’t see the improvement starting on Monday. We are not travelling well at the moment and having to go up to Tyneside for a Monday night is the least ideal of circumstances under which to start a recovery.

So with heavy heart the £2 that was going to go on a week’s break in a Cheshire care home (£1 for two weeks) will instead be spent on a wager at Mr Winstone’s Turf Accountancy Emporium for a home win. Make it 3-1 to them. Sorry.

Enjoy the game!




When last we met at St James’ Park: Lost 4-3 (Premier League March 2024)

An utterly disgusting refereeing performance that ought to have seen Peter Bankes banned pending retraining. I’m not one of those who subscribe to the theory that referees are bent per se. However when a performance that bad goes completely unpunished by PGMOL they create the perfect conditions for those mythical Asian Betting Syndicates to get involved. If referees can alter games to their hearts’ content safe in the knowledge that the one organisation who is supposed to be in charge of such matters won’t lift a finger, who is going to notice?

Danger Man: Anthony Gordon

“Won” two penalties last season by diving. Any organisation worth their salt would have sat the referees down and shown them a showreel of serial offenders and their modus operandi to ensure that it could be spotted.

Referee: Craig Pawson

Got relegated to UEFA’s third tier of officials in the summer. So it can be done.

Percy and Daisy’s Newcastle Fact Of The Week Type Thing

The Saudis, who as we have established, don’t actually run Newcastle, are about to be announced as the hosts for the 2034 World Cup. Part of the bid involved their commissioning an independent report on Human Rights and Labour issues. They hired UK law firm Clifford Chance to do the report. Er and a Saudi Law Firm. That word “independent” is doing some heavy lifting there then.

The report was knocked up in six weeks and interviewed loads of people from the Saudi authorities and, well, that’s it. Just the Saudi authorities. Happily everything was ok, helped by the fact that the report had a page limit set to make sure it didn’t ramble on and on about tedious little stuff like working conditions, modern slavery and human rights in general. Look out for disposable migrant workers giving their all to build the new stadia in 10 years’ time then.

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