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The choice of supporters to be Newcastle Captain

9 years ago
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The Mag verdict is Out – It’s between Jack Colback and Daryl Janmaat for Newcastle Captain.

Amidst the transfer drama unfolding over the double swoop from Anderlecht, it was wonderful to see the overwhelming response from fans to the Mag poll on ‘Who amongst these 5 should be Steve McClaren’s Newcastle Captain’, my article exploring the credentials of the five leading candidates.

(To feature like Rishiraj, send in your articles for our website to contribute@themag.co.uk – all views those of the author etc etc)

Well we Geordies do take our no. 9s and Captains seriously, don’t we?

So the verdict is out now  and the poll results reveal that the supporters are clearly split between possibly the two ‘Player of the Season’ contenders for last season –

The Geordie Spine – Jack Colback – 38%

The Crowd Favorite – Daryl Janmaat – 30%

The New Core – Siem De Jong – 14%

The Marquee – Georginio Wijnaldum – 13%

The Old Guard – Fabricio Coloccini – 5%

No prizes for guessing the current incumbent has surely lost his place with the Toon Army.

Coloccini, though most would still like to see him in a back-up or a mentor role, will probably be leading the backline again, given he can overcome his Achilles problem and if no more recruits at center-half follow Mbemba.

Still, he no longer looks like someone to take us forward in what we would like to call the ‘dawn of the new era’ at United.

Well we also had two title winning captains in the list – Siem De Jong and Gini Wijnaldum – but it is clear the fans are yet to be won over by their promise as Captain material.

Siem was indeed made Vice-Captain last season, but the time he spent in the treatment room has definitely put him out of favour, considering how much we needed someone to lift our spirits a couple of months back. Looking at the friendlies, he still looks quite vulnerable on the pitch, looks out of breath more often than not, and is still miles away from his full fitness and thus, from his full potential.

I do believe 14% of the fans would have taken some liking to the idea of him being the New Core, but when Steve McClaren looks to build a team around somebody, he will have tough competition in Wijnaldum. Over to you, Mr. Schoenmaker….

Well we still can land Austin and Matip after Mitrovic and Mbemba (fingers crossed!), so whether Gini is our Marquee….and him being the next Captain only entertained 13% of our fans.

Not bad for somebody untested in EPL, Gini will have huge expectations to live up to, and I agree with the 87% that it’s better we give him that time to settle down before piling up additional burden.

So, it all came down to the two crowd favorites – Ginger Pirlo and Dependable Daryl!

Funny, I find many fans on Twitter and The Mag still haven’t accepted Jack Colback as our own, and consider him as a closet Mackem.

I mean, c’mon fellas! He played his heart out in his first season. Little credit is given to our outstanding players from last season, undermined since they played amongst some real shi** and thus looked good rather than being really good.

In my opinion, playing good despite the headless dolts in our team and our coaching staff last season, makes their performance even more credible and praiseworthy.

Even in my poll article, I may have had a bit of positive leaning towards Colback and Janmaat, and the results only bear testimonial to the fact that fans are too split between the two.

That said, more fans in favour of Colback have really identified with the ‘Geordie Spine’ argument.

For Janmaat, as I called him above, dependability has got him the close runners-up spot for the armband.

Personally, it would be great if we could have both on board, make either of them Captain and Vice-Captain, just so that they both represent and take this club forward into what I believe would be a ‘turning the corner’ season for us.

So here it is Gaffer, the fans have chosen their Captains for the season – Jack Colback and Daryl Janmaat. Time to test one of them in Portland, eh?

Yours sincerely,

Rishiraj Lahiri

[Toon Army India]

You can follow Rishiraj on Twitter @rishirajlahiri

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