Newcastle United are not a big club. The only reason that Newcastle remain in the Premiership is due to the bias in decision making from the Professional Game Match Officials Board (PGMOB) representatives - Newcastle were last season's most favoured team and they are this season's second most favoured team. Saturday's 6-0 "performance" at Man Utd was dire. By sacking their one valuable member of staff in Sam Allardyce, Newcastle are doing the self-destruct thing. We advised Dietrological clients at Half Time of the massive fitness differential between the two teams in the First Half and 4 goals in the last 20 minutes are suggestive of too much festive consumption and absolutely no motivation. If Rob Styles hadn't been doing his darnedest to ensure that the break was reached without United leading in order to save the bookies a hammering, the score could have reached double figures. Big team?
It remains a constant source of surprise to us that the Newcastle fans are regarded as such staunch supporters. Similarly to West Ham, Leeds, Man City, Boro and a host of other clubs, when things are not going well Newcastle fans add considerable pressure to the stadium leading to the players always taking the safe option rather than enduring the moans and groans which greet every misplaced pass. By limiting tactics to predictability, the team are unable to generate the creative patterns which might develop goal opportunities. This is just a vicious cycle.
Sheffield Wednesday, Sunderland, Portsmouth, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Burnley and Ipswich Town have all won the top English league since Newcastle last triumphed in 1926/27 while Wolverhampton Wanderers, West Bromwich Albion, Southampton, Ipswich Town, Wimbledon and Coventry City have won the FA Cup since Newcastle last managed it. Big team?
Shepherd was a disgrace. His incompetence and arrogance alienated the support which established further divides in the unity of Newcastle Not-so-United. The managerial appointments were hardly inspiring either. Souness??
Since taking over, Mike Ashley has watched his financial empire decline precipitously over the last year with Sports Direct's share price seemingly correlated with Newcastle's on pitch endeavours (the share price has plummeted from 301.0 to 95.5 this morning). Having spent too much on buying the club (£134 million) and having also had to pay off much of the debt, Ashley is now feeling the credit squeeze more than most. We warned over the summer that the financial robustness of Newcastle was flimsy and matters have simply got worse in the intervening period. Big teams are run by gangsters, American investment banks, private equity firms, oligarchs, mafia, arms dealers and the like. Mr Minimum Wage and his second tier sporting leisure brands are simply not in the same league. Big team?
Derby County have gained 7 points this season scoring 10 goals in the process. 4 of those points and 3 of the goals came against Newcastle. Big team?
Somewhat surprisingly, the only team more favoured by PGMOB referees this season have been Portsmouth! Considering Redknapp's BBC Panorama tribulations and his subsequent arrest on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and false accounting last November, this might be seen as an unusual occurrence - the general template is for subtle punishment to be the reward for public undermining of the integrity of the game, think Leeds. A further peculiarity is the complete absence of any column inches in the mainstream press regarding the Pompey Five in the 7 weeks since the arrests. No articles about the corruption in the game, no assessment about the regulatory loopholes that allow this corruption and absolutely nothing to undermine Redknapp. Indeed, it has been business as usual for Portsmouth since the November 27th arrests, or so it might seem on first glance. The market for the managerial vacancy at Newcastle was dominated by insider trading from within the Portsmouth camp. There were sources within Pompey willing to lay Redknapp at every market price as it oscillated from 12/1 to 2/11 to 50/1 in a little earner which rivals the similar insider scoop on the Southampton-Portsmouth managerial switch of yesteryear.
Yet, it is our assessment that Redknapp and the Portsmouth team have been heavily affected by the impact and fallout of the November police raids. Portsmouth have deteriorated markedly since the arrests. In this period, Newcastle have had three heavily referee assisted victories at Villa, Reading and Ipswich while the other five games have yielded 1 draw and 4 defeats with only one goal scored. Even with the considerable help of referee, Chris Foy, on Sunday, Pompey were totally outplayed by Sunderland and our contact tells us that the internal atmosphere is chaotic. With four players away in Ghana and a February visit to court on the horizon, Redknapp is evidently distracted by the ongoing legal saga.
Derby County visit Fratton Park at the weekend offering one of those markets that should be non-tradeable but is actually a nice little earner for all concerned. Their meeting on the first day of the season was a hot match and we expect no different this time. It is a sad indictment of the weakness of Derby County that, if you remove the results from the three fixed games against Newcastle (twice) and Portsmouth (once), their resultant seasonal performance would be:
Played 19 Won 0 Lost 17 Drawn 2 Goals For 5 Goals Against 43 Points 2.
NB Shortly after the completion of this post, it was announced that Newcastle United are now to be the Bookmaker's Dream Team with Owen and Keegan in control. The childishly brief press release screamed "The Messiah has returned" - this is not a call to ecstasy for fundamentalist absolutists of all shades but an indication that self-delusion remains the Geordie core competency. It will all end in tears, no doubt after a brief resurgence in form to promote the sale of merchandising. Big Ground, Shit Fans (And Owner And Manager)...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
