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Opinion

The walking dead

9 years ago
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I don’t blame anybody for trying to look on the bright side, whether in your everyday life or especially when it comes to gauging Newcastle players.

There are 50,000 different views inside St James Park plus many more outside of there, some Newcastle players we are more inclined to give another chance(s) to than the rest.

(To feature like John, send in your articles for our website to contribute@themag.co.uk)

However, after a certain period of time I think we all eventually have to accept that there are players who will never be good enough.

Newcastle players who may well be able to make a living in football but not in the Premier League.

It’s no good saying ‘remember when…’ and then recalling the one or two decent things they might have done in three or four years at NUFC, that does not equal being good enough for our first team.

Obviously if these players end up in the team then you support them the same as the rest, the point being though that teh warning bells should be going off if we have any of the following players being described as doing great in pre season training, or the dreaded ‘like a new signing.

These players are not good enough and need to move on for both their sake and ours, they aren’t Premier League standard and never will be.

Nine examples of bad judgement in the transfer/contract process over the years, some of course much more striking than others.

The number of Premier League matches for each player and the number of years since arrived/played in first PL match:

30 in 4 seasons – Gabriel Obertan

21 in 5 seasons – Sammy Ameobi

4 in 4 seasons – Haris Vuckic

13 in 4 seasons – Sylvain Marveaux

7 in 4  seasons – Mehdi Abeid

7 in 5 seasons – Shane Ferguson

3 in 3 seasons – Gael Bigirimana

17 in 2 1/2 seasons – Massadio Haidara

14 in 4 seasons – Rob Elliot

I’m guessing that Haidara and Abeid are the most contentious for some of you but they aren’t good enough in reality, they each have a little bit of what you need but nowhere near enough at the top level.

Of course we have many other players who aren’t Premier League quality, such as Emmanuel Riviere, Yoan Gouffran and Mike Williamson, but I think the difference with the nine above is that because they play so rarely over a long period of time that fans start believing that they are better than the reality.

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