Has Rafa Benitez been vindicated after this defeat for Manchester City?

Remi Garde: “Charles N’Zogbia is not the worst person I have ever met….”

Now it is claimed that Newcastle were interested in Kone, and had been given permission to talk to him, but have now pulled out of the race, allegedly.

Interesting to see how hard Mike Ashley is prepared to go because it would appear fair to assume that the level of wages on offer could be the crucial factor.

It also lays bare just how little (no?) say Alan Pardew has at the club, at the time (March) holding the title of ‘LMA Manager Of The Year’ and yet he can’t even push through a cheap new contract for a player such as Perch.

The first instance involved a mass cheer going up in the pub when Wigan’s Emerson Boyce put Gareth Bale’s shot into his own net, earning Spurs a draw at Wigan that gave us potential breathing space before a disgraceful surrender to Liverpool. Since then we have faced the unpalatable prospect of preferring sunderland to beat Villa (which they emphatically didn’t).

Another weekend of matches and another week closer to the biggest miscarriage of justice in the 20-year history of The Premier League. Newcastle United are the victims of a conspiracy to relegate the club from The Premier League by a group of their bitterest rivals.

The first part of the equation was Villa losing to Demba Ba’s Chelsea today, which they did despite Chelsea trailing by a goal for much of the match.

Last night gave me a sense of ironic and poetic justice, to see Wigan comically throwing the game away while their smug chairman Dave Whelan looks on trying desperately to keep a smile on his face, it must have been pure torture.

Our final away match and we face ‘Arry Redknapp. If it could get any worse then how about if Loic Remy scores the goal that decides our fate? The striker who went to relegation certainties rather than Tyneside. It gets even worse because in only a few months Remy has ended up as QPR’s joint top scorer with five goals and if he’d signed for us I can’t help but think he’d have ensured we would stayed up.