Newcastle's Pre-Season Matches In Summary

With very few events happening during the pre-season, the Magpies will be gearing up against a good opposition today in Man Utd.

Anyway let's re-cap what have actually happen during the off pre season that has been happening on Tyneside.

Let's start off with the pre-season matches.

Newcastle went off to a bright start against a common pre-season fixture in Hartepool.
The Magpies went to triump 4-1 with a hat-trick of goals coming in from Damien Duff and a debut goal for new signing Danny Gutrie.

Next off is Doncaster Rovers.
The newly promoted Championship side showed great determination and persistent and manage to get an upset by beating the Black and Whites 1-0.
As this was only a pre-season friendly, Kevin mentioned it's a great workout for the lads.

The Mallorca tournament has always been proven a nightmare for Toon fans and Newcastle head there with 2 straight defeats, losing 1 goal to nill to both Herta Berlin (German Bundesliga) and host and tournament winners Real Mallorca.
But the good side of things is that the lads are getting more fitter than their previous pre-season preperations!

Two home games kicked in later with PSV Eindhoven and Valencia the next oppositions.

The PSV game was a gruelling encounter with the Magpies managing a 2-2 draw with the mighty Dutch club.

Goals from centre-back Steven Taylor and a home debut goal from Danny Gutrie ended the night with the Magpies showing flashes of the team back in the 90's when Alan Shearer was in the side.

Next is Valencia, with Euro 2008 golden boot winner David Villa on their side. The game got off to a big bang and the resillence of the Magpies and the fighting spirit in terms of commitment and play was simply astounding!

The Magpies won on the night 2-1 with goals coming in from Damien Duff and James Milner to cap a wonderful performance.

In all, what I've witness ...... there hadn't be a more committed and fitter team than the one Kevin Keegan assembled this time around.

The future looks bright....

Mike Ashley Stepping In On Contract Talks

Contract negotiations between current Newcastle players has been super slow and this has been going even before the previous season ended.

To think about it again, Newcastle has actually did a good move pertaining this contract saga by releasing fringe players which are deemed surplus to our club's requirement.

Now with Kevin Keegan back in town, our big owner has decided to step in expediting the rate of speed in contract negotiations among our current players.

With that also, it is reported that the owner will have more hands on approach on the running of this club and I believe this would suit well with King Kev as the recruitment team has been a no-news thing since its eventual setup back then in February 2008 this year.

I'm not saying our recruitment team are a hopeless bunch of fat pay-checks executives; they did scout for good talent but they fail in finalizing the target players to sign for the Magpies (Luka Modric is one very good example).

Anyway things are looking bright although we are set to miss out on Arda Turan and Andrei Arshavin for that matter :( .

Let's see what is coming and I hope it will be something good.