mdfc
13 Aug 2006, 01:27 PM
Manager's comments from the Sunday Sun:
"I believe you should have goals, but they have to be achievable. The first goal will be to get more points than the 58 we ended with last season.
"We want to improve on seventh place and our points total - and that is not an easy goal.
"But the longer-term target is to break into the top four.
"If you have the attitude that the top four are the untouchables you will not achieve it. You are giving yourself an excuse not to be in the top four.
"Yes, they have the best four squads. Not teams - squads. They can afford injuries and suspensions and the players they bring in hardly affect the quality of the team.
"But they are not untouchables. Nothing stays the same forever. When I played I thought Liverpool were the untouchables.
"At the moment Chelsea look untouchable, but for sure one day they will slip.
"Which one of the top four is most at risk, I wouldn't like to say. But somehow Newcastle have to break that stranglehold.
"There are teams who have owned cups who have had weaker teams than Newcastle United. Yet we have not won a domestic cup since 1955. It's ridiculous.
"Every season you get the opportunity, and we have three this term. It is going to happen. It will happen. We will win something.
"I would prefer to have a signing or two before the Wigan game and I'm as confident as you can be of doing it.
"I will wait another week if we have to but it will be nice for our supporters if we go out that day with new faces."
"Once the window shuts that is it, and you are on you own until January."
"The sort of names you have thrown up (Bridge, Gravesen, Martins) are names we all know.
"They are proven and, with them, you're not taking a chance with someone from a far-off place.
"All transfers are a risk, but we can't be taking big risks.
Alan (Shearer) will be back at the training ground for a few days next week
"His ambassador role doesn't mean he will get involved in the training ground day to day but it doesn't mean that when he appears around the place he will not have an input.
"He will coach and come out and watch training for a couple of days and then he will go off again.
"His involvement with the club this year is loose, but it is an involvement. I don't want to think that when he hasn't got any work, he won't come into the training ground.
"That is his intention, and he is a really good man to have around.
"For other managers of the past to say he is too big for the club is nonsense. He is not too big at all. I welcome Alan when he is about at Newcastle.
"The dressing-room will be a lot quieter without Alan. That's why I want a loud player coming in this summer.
"He (Kuyt) has got good movement and takes up positions where it doesn't surprise me that he scores goals.
"But Feyenoord are trying to keep him, and the amounts of money - though I don't know what the actual figure is, because we've not asked - being bandied around about him seem huge; they seem very high.
"The last thing we want to be doing is buying the wrong player at the wrong price, because then you end up catching a cold.
"He definitely plays high up the pitch and is always looking to receive the ball played to feet.
"I do feel we need pace in the team - we need a player that is happy to run without the ball to start with to receive it in behind. You've got to have genuine pace to do that in the Premiership.
"Obafemi Martins is a different type of player. I saw him in Amsterdam last Friday night, and he is much more a player with a lot of pace."
All kinds of interesting topics in there...discuss...
"I believe you should have goals, but they have to be achievable. The first goal will be to get more points than the 58 we ended with last season.
"We want to improve on seventh place and our points total - and that is not an easy goal.
"But the longer-term target is to break into the top four.
"If you have the attitude that the top four are the untouchables you will not achieve it. You are giving yourself an excuse not to be in the top four.
"Yes, they have the best four squads. Not teams - squads. They can afford injuries and suspensions and the players they bring in hardly affect the quality of the team.
"But they are not untouchables. Nothing stays the same forever. When I played I thought Liverpool were the untouchables.
"At the moment Chelsea look untouchable, but for sure one day they will slip.
"Which one of the top four is most at risk, I wouldn't like to say. But somehow Newcastle have to break that stranglehold.
"There are teams who have owned cups who have had weaker teams than Newcastle United. Yet we have not won a domestic cup since 1955. It's ridiculous.
"Every season you get the opportunity, and we have three this term. It is going to happen. It will happen. We will win something.
"I would prefer to have a signing or two before the Wigan game and I'm as confident as you can be of doing it.
"I will wait another week if we have to but it will be nice for our supporters if we go out that day with new faces."
"Once the window shuts that is it, and you are on you own until January."
"The sort of names you have thrown up (Bridge, Gravesen, Martins) are names we all know.
"They are proven and, with them, you're not taking a chance with someone from a far-off place.
"All transfers are a risk, but we can't be taking big risks.
Alan (Shearer) will be back at the training ground for a few days next week
"His ambassador role doesn't mean he will get involved in the training ground day to day but it doesn't mean that when he appears around the place he will not have an input.
"He will coach and come out and watch training for a couple of days and then he will go off again.
"His involvement with the club this year is loose, but it is an involvement. I don't want to think that when he hasn't got any work, he won't come into the training ground.
"That is his intention, and he is a really good man to have around.
"For other managers of the past to say he is too big for the club is nonsense. He is not too big at all. I welcome Alan when he is about at Newcastle.
"The dressing-room will be a lot quieter without Alan. That's why I want a loud player coming in this summer.
"He (Kuyt) has got good movement and takes up positions where it doesn't surprise me that he scores goals.
"But Feyenoord are trying to keep him, and the amounts of money - though I don't know what the actual figure is, because we've not asked - being bandied around about him seem huge; they seem very high.
"The last thing we want to be doing is buying the wrong player at the wrong price, because then you end up catching a cold.
"He definitely plays high up the pitch and is always looking to receive the ball played to feet.
"I do feel we need pace in the team - we need a player that is happy to run without the ball to start with to receive it in behind. You've got to have genuine pace to do that in the Premiership.
"Obafemi Martins is a different type of player. I saw him in Amsterdam last Friday night, and he is much more a player with a lot of pace."
All kinds of interesting topics in there...discuss...