Newcastle United
Sam Allardyce is so short of players in his injury hit Newcastle squad that yesterday he fielded London-bound Kieron Dyer. Allardyce says:
We used him because we were short and he played very well. But I don’t think we can keep him, for the reasons I gave last week.
Whatever your opinions of the man, you can’t help but feel for Allardyce as he picks up the pieces of years of profligacy and appalling decision making by the previous regimes. Newcastle have spent millions of pounds in wages on players who were very rarely fit: Dyer himself is a prime example.
Michael Owen and Shola Ameobi both missed the friendly win over Juventus, Mark Viduka is yet to play for the club since signing from Middlesbrough. Another summer acquisition, Joey Barton, is already out for the start of the season with a broken foot.
New chairman, new manager, but same old injury problems.
Unremarkably, Joey Barton will miss the start of the Premiership season. Remarkably, it’s not due to suspension. He hasn’t been up to his usual high-jinx of viciously assaulting team-mates or putting cigars out in peoples’ eyes. Instead, he has suffered the most fashionable injury in football: the fractured metatarsal. A statement on the Newcastle United website read:
“He sustained a partial fracture of the fifth metatarsal in his left foot.”
Barton picked up the injury during a 1-1 draw in a friendly with Carlisle - a game which Michael Owen missed due to a thigh strain. It seems that a change in manager hasn’t yet brought Newcastle a change in fitness fortunes.
