Up and Up

By: Daryl | January 16th, 2009

Managing: Newcastle
Date: Tuesday, January 12th
Progress: 5th in Prem after 20 games

Things are rolling now. First, here are my January transfer window ins and outs so far:

Ins:
Belletti from Cheslea for £700,000 (welcome home sir)
Martin Jiranek from Spartak Moscow for £275,000
Pavel Pardo from Aston Villa for £250,000

These three fill three needs. One, my need for some older heads (all are over 30). Two, my need for a new right-back (Belletti and Jiranek both play there). Third, my need for extra defensive mids (Belletti and Pardo both play there). So all that for £1.225m and you can’t complain.

Something interesting must have happened to Jiranek on the flight over from Moscow, because when I met him at arrivals he had a torn groin muscle that’s going to keep him out for two months. One of the stewardesses definitely looked guilty.

Also, have sealed a deal to bring young Dutch mid Georginio Wijnaldum to the club on a Bosman next summer. Will go nicely with fellow 2010 signing Rodney Sneijder. Hopefully.

Out:
Sofiane Feghouli to Toulouse for £3m.
He’s still promising but he was whining about first team football despite clearly not being good enough just yet. I paid £2.6m for him back in the day, so no problem (although he’s averaged 8.45 so far in his two games for Toulouse).

Mascio out on loan to Ipswich (with option to recall of course).
The kid’s got talent, but thought he might benefit from some first team action. Even if it’s in Suffolk.

Most recent match reports:
FA Cup 3rd Rnd vs Liverpool (home) D 1-1
Liverpool are top of the Prem, and I’m not. They’ve also signed Michael Owen from AC Milan (who he joined from me). So this was a tough draw for the FA Cup 3rd Round. But we went toe to toe and took the lead when Belletti sidefooted home on his second Newcastle debut. Mascherano equalized, so now we have to play Liverpool twice more in the next week (once in Prem, once in the FA Cup replay).

Carling Cup semi-final 1st leg vs Spurs (away) D 1-1
Saviola and Jonas caused mayhem down the wings, and we led from the 12th minute through The Pog’s header. But Spurs equalzied in the 86th when Dario Sjrana struck from just inside the box (depite my explicit instructions to “close him down at all times”). Still, decent result for the away leg. Do away goals count in the CC?

vs Liverpool (away)
Now I’ve got Belletti and Pardo, I can finally ditch Chantome, so did that here. 0-0 at H/T, so I brought Dzagoev off the bench with a feeling he’d score. He did, but Robbie Keane equalized in the 89th, only for Newcastle legend Belletti to score what looked like 30 yard half-volley in the 91st. Magnificent, and he’s already paid off that £700k transfer fee.

Only downside: Jonas injured his thigh and will be out for a month. Got a bad feeling that we’ll be half the team we were without him.

FA Cup replay (Liverpool again) up next, followed by a tough looking round of Prem games (Man Utd, Villa, Arsenal, Scumderland).