Steve Harper vs Obafemi Martins: Two Men Quarrel, One Man Leaves

By: Daryl | December 9th, 2008

As mentioned earlier, there’s trouble in the Newcastle dressing room. Apparently Steve Harper finds Obafemi Martins “impossible to work with”. Basically, the back-up keeper doesn’t like the star striker’s ‘tood, and says that one of them has to go.

Here’s the dilemna:

On one hand – Oba Martins is pacy goal machine who’s in the first eleven every week while Steve Harper is my easily replaceable reserve keeper.

On the other hand – Oba Martins is a scumbag (not in real life, say The Offside lawyers) who repeatedly asked for a move in January and only bothers turning up on Saturdays to show Alex Ferguson what a good signing he’d be. Martins also has a £13m minimum fee release clause and refuses to sign a new contract. Meanwhile Steve Harper is Newcastle through and through, never complains about being backup keeper and even signed a new long term contract worth £5,000 less per week when financial times were hard this year.

So who should go?

None of this mattered while Shay Given was fit, because I could just leave Harper on the bench and not worry about it. Martins could score goals while Harper scowled at him from the dugout. But now Shay Given has torn his hamstring while sprinting in training (not sure why he was doing that, but what’s done is done) and it’s decision time.

…

After some pretty serious thought over a cup of tea (I literally pondered this while the kettle was boiling, suggesting a worrying disconnect between myself and reality) I decided “screw Steve Harper.”

Young Dutch goalie Tim Krul is almost as good, and more match fit too as he’s been playing regularly for the reserves. And if I dropped Martins then there’s really no one with enough pace to replace him [note to self: sign more strikers this summer].

So Harper gets left out in the cold and Martins gets to stay despite his terrible ‘tood. For now.

But come the summer, it might be time to get rid of Martins before there’s any further unrest.