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Shola Ameobi after 4-0 hammering says things will be ‘different’ under Steve Bruce in Saturday’s match

5 years ago
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Shola Ameobi was a guest on Sky Sports today.

As always, towing the party line.

He was shameless with his pro-Mike Ashley comments before he even started working for the NUFC owner and now he is officially one of his employees, we can expect plenty more of that.

At the weekend he was wheeled out on Sky Sports by Ashley, along with John Carver, to say what a great appointment Steve Bruce would be, at odds with an overwhelming proportion of the NUFC fanbase.

Then today he desperately looked for positives despite Wolves humiliating Newcastle United in Nanjing, it was 4-0 but could easily have been 10-0, such was the gulf in class.

Shola Ameobi claims it was a ‘great to see’ so many young  players getting a chance BUT whilst there is nothing better than seeing young players come through the ranks, there is a big difference between giving them a chance when they are ready in the right circumstances/conditions…as compared to today when they were thrown into what was basically a reserve team – only of the first eleven started more than nine Premier League games for Newcastle last season.

Put in alongside the likes of Colback, Lazaar and others, the kids hardly got a touch, apart from Freddie Woodman in the second half in the Newcastle goal!

Steve Bruce is on his way to China and will be in charge on Saturday against West Ham, who took the lead but lost 4-1 to Man City in the end. Shola Ameobi says ‘things will be a little different’ with the new Head Coach in charge for that game.

That remains to be seen…

Shola was also keen to put the fitness of the opposition forward as the main excuse and says Newcastle need to be 100% when the season kicks off in three weeks time.

On this evidence they will need to be 1000% fit when they take on Arsenal. Make no mistake, today wasn’t just about any difference in fitness, Wolves were any number of levels higher in terms of ability and quality. Any number of new quality signings are needed if this season isn’t going to be a surefire disaster.

As for Shola Ameobi, it is quite shameless of Mike Ashley if he continues to send him onto Sky Sports to push out the Ashley PR spin, now that he is officially employing him.

Shola Ameobi talking on Sky Sports:

“If you look at those young kids: Kelland Watts, Elias Sorensen and Freddie Woodman, are there to gain experience in a first team environment, it was great to see.

“Obviously it’s disappointing to see that own goal for Tom Allan but I think ultimately it has been a good experience for them.

“It was a disappointing result…

“But it looked like Wolves were two weeks ahead of us in terms of fitness.

“So come the first game of the season we need to be at 100%.

“I think that going into the next game with Steve Bruce coming in, things will be a little bit different.”

The Mag – Earlier today (Wednesday 17 July 2019):

The inevitable end result of the way Mike Ashley runs Newcastle United was there for all to see on Wednesday in China, the game ending Newcastle 0 Wolves 4.

Minutes after Steve Bruce was announced as Ashley’s new patsy, fans saw a team put out on the pitch that didn’t have a chance.

It ended up 4-0 but in truth it could well have been double figures.

Wolves so much on top it was embarrassing and only dogged defending, poor finishing and luck kept the score down in this mis-match.

It was 3-0 after only 40 minutes and thankfully with it being a friendly, Wolves didn’t really go for it.

Diogo Jota gave Wolves the lead on 15 minutes before Morgan Gibbs-White made it 2-0 after half an hour.

Five minutes before half-time Diogo Jota got his second goal and Wolves’ third, then an own goal five minutes before the final whistle by Tom Allan completed the scoring.

At the other end of the pitch I think we had one shot on target but maybe that’s just wishful thinking!

As well as losing Rafa Benitez and now employing a loser like Steve Bruce, Newcastle’s lack of squad quality was there for all to see.

These last 14 months have seen Wolves put in a net spend of around £125m, whilst Mike Ashley is sitting on a net profit on deals in these last three windows of over £30m and not a single player bought in the first 63 days of this transfer window.

What an absolute mess with only three weeks until the transfer window ends and the Premier League kicks off.

In talking about the team selection on the club’s official website, the club confirmed before the game that Martin Dubravka and Dwight Gayle ween’t included but give no reason for their omission.

The highlight of the match was seeing our ‘local’ fans getting the message out there.

It is bad enough being born into this madness but imagine living over 5,000 miles away and choosing to follow NUFC and stick with us, when nobody would blame them if they packed it in.

A big cheer as well of course for those who travelled to the game from further afar…

This is who Newcastle started with…

Darlow, Sterry, Lascelles, Clark, Lazaar, Hayden, Shelvey, Colback, Murphy, Ritchie, Muto

Substitutions were made as follows:

46 minutes

Freddie Woodman, Javier Manquillo and Federico Fernández on.

Karl Darlow, Jamie Sterry and Jamaal Lascelles off.

58 minutes

Rolando Aarons, Ki Sung-yueng and Kelland Watts on.

Matt Ritchie, Jonjo Shelvey and Ciaran Clark off.

63 minutes

Tom Allan, Owen Bailey, Matty Longstaff and Elias Sørensen on.

Jacob Murphy, Achraf Lazaar, Jack Colback and Yoshinori Muto off.

The unused subs – Nathan Harker, Paul Dummett, Fabian Schar and Sean Longstaff.

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