The yanking of my chain continues with cooler statements from Newcastle United manager Chris Hughton regarding the potential signing of Sol Campbell. Rumours abound as he seeks to reinforce the squad in the January transfer window. When asked about signing Campbell, Hughton replied; "I think there is always an interest in quality players that might become [. Click to continue reading...

Newcastle United manager Chris Hughton was impressed by Fabrice Pancreate. Is he the new Robert? Is he the new Ginola? Who knows? Hughton was impressed with his performance in the reserves though, saying: "He did well and I enjoyed what I saw," said the Toon chief after watching a double from Phil Airey and a strike from [. Click to continue reading...

Barry Moat still thinks there's a chance of him buying Newcastle United in the future. Apparently, whilst Moat has no immediate plans to launch another bid, he will continue to think about how he might wrest the club for Ashley in the future. Speaking to Sky Sports News he said: "For one reason or another it didn't come [. Click to continue reading...

Newcastle United manager Chris Hughton thinks we should be scoring more goals in our home games. Having not lost at home, perhaps Hughton thinks it's time to entertain a little more. He said: "I don't think that it is necessarily the case that someone is due a beating, but we know that we can play better in [. Click to continue reading...

Newcastle United are interested in Portuguese under-21 forward Ukra. Well, maybe. It comes from the Daily Mail, which is to newspapers what 'Snakes on a Plane' is to film history, and it doesn't quote anybody saying they're after anyone, so take a large pinch of salt with your porridge this morning on this one. Click to continue reading...

Newcastle United are sitting pretty at the top of the Championship right now. It's a good reason to be optimistic perhaps but what happens if we actually get promoted? Even the most pessimistic of Toon supporters would probably entertain ideas of us at least making a play-off spot this season. Sure, we're only a third of [. Click to continue reading...

Premier League reforms are in the wind but what will they mean for Newcastle United? The Premier League has been undertaking a 'strategic review' since November 2008 and plans to have new proposals in place by December 2010. Bolton chairman Phil Gartside has put forward plans that would lead to a two-tier Premier League of between [. Click to continue reading...

Danny Guthrie reckons Newcastle United won't have it all their own way in the 'crazy' Championship. The midfielder said: "When you look at this division it's a bit of a crazy one. Everybody is capable of beating each other. And that has shown in some of our games so far this season. It's something we can't lose [. Click to continue reading...

Chris Hughton doesn't rule out bringing Sol Campbell to Newcastle United. I think Hughton is yanking my chain because back on 31st October I wrote an article suggesting that Campbell was one of his transfer targets but then on the 3rd November I had to write an article saying he wasn't after Hughton said: "There is no [. Click to continue reading...

The Newcastle United Supporters Trust (NUST) has launched its 'Yes We Can' campaign, which aims to raise enough funds to finance a fan buy out of the club. The NUST's plan, which has been dubbed 'Barcelona on the Tyne' by the financial community, aims to democratise the club and ensure that the 'current situation at Newcastle [. Click to continue reading...

Chris Hughton might attempt to sign Danny Simpson permanently at Newcastle United when his loan contract comes to an end in January. Sources in Manchester have allegedly claimed that Sir Alex Ferguson has written off Simpson's chances of making it big at Manchester United, so he may indeed be available. Click to continue reading...

Newcastle United midfielder Jonas Guttierrez claims the international break will do us good ahead of an important period in our promotion push. Jonas said: "We have 15 days to recover, to rest and to prepare for the rest of the season. From here to January is a very important period for us." To be honest I never [. Click to continue reading...

Former Newcastle United star David Ginola has been talking about what it means to pull the black and white shirt on. "When I signed for Newcastle I didn't know the English mentality, I didn't know about the English tradition and I came straight away to the North East and its one part of the world [. Click to continue reading...

Newcastle United's Jonas Gutierrez did not celebrate his goal on Saturday with his trademark 'Spiderman' mask. This has already been covered, but it also appears he wasn't too keen on the anti-Ashley demonstrations. According to report in the Telegraph, Jonas did indeed leave the mask behind because he was unhappy about press speculation related to him [. Click to continue reading...

Chris Hughton claims that the team's focus was the key to Newcastle United's win over Peterborough yesterday. Cardiff lost away to derby rivals Swansea and West Brom managed to beat promotion hopefuls Leicester, which means a bit of a gap has opened up between the top 2 and the chasing back. After the game, Hughton said: "We have [. Click to continue reading...

According to the Mirror, Newcastle United legend Alan Shearer is available to manage other clubs with immediate effect. Shearer was of course pointedly ignored for the Toon job despite his 8-week temporary appointment being called "the best decision I ever made" by Ashley. Even then though, Shearer was still in with a chance as it was [. Click to continue reading...

Chris Hughton claims he will fight to improve Newcastle United's squad in the January transfer window. Since being made permanent manager it seems many people think he'll just be a 'yes man' a puppet and apologist for Ashley's regime but Hughton was keen to dispel such rumours, indicating that he's strong enough to get [. Click to continue reading...

Chris Hughton has asked Newcastle United fans to put their disagreements with the board behind them and support the team. Fans are, of course, particularly upset that Ashley plans to peddle Sports Direct on the back of or, to be more precise, on the front of the St James' Park name. Hughton evidently fears [. Click to continue reading...

The Newcastle United squad will be boosted by the return of 3 players coming back from injury. Chris Hughton reckons Shola Ameobi should be back in contention by the end of the month, which could mean the game at home to Swansea on 28th November or the following game, at home to Watford on 4th December. Click to continue reading...

With an average attendance of 48,750 last season, Newcastle United are the 18th best supported team in Europe. In England only Manchester United, who top the whole league, and Arsenal manage to beat Newcastle's average attendance, although Celtic managed 9th and Rangers managed 16th. Given the mess we were in last season and the fact that there [. Click to continue reading...

! Article Start >In his statement when he took Newcastle United off the market, Mike Ashley said "... he is totally committed to the future success of Newcastle United and will be focussing on gaining promotion back to the Premier League." Fair enough, but what's with all this nonsense about giving Hughton a million or two [. Click to continue reading...

! Article Start >Newcastle United top goal scorer Kevin Nolan takes the October 2009 award for Championship Player of the Month. Nolan seems to have settled nicely into his attacking midfield/backup striker role and managed to pip Leicester City's Matt Fryatt to get the award. Furthermore, Alan Smith claimed 4th place in the voting. Click to continue reading...

! Article Start >Derek Llambias explains about the renaming of Newcastle United's stadium. The upshot is that St James' Park will not be lost. The names of sponsors will just be added to the front of it in the manner of something such as 'Sports Direct @ St James' Park' or 'Pampers @ St James' Park'. Click to continue reading...

! Article Start >Dave Clelland MP tabled a Commons motion asking Ashley to reconsider his plans to sell the naming rights to Newcastle United's stadium. He claimed the stadium was symbolic of the game, its supporters' loyalty and that it has been "an integral part of the city since 1892". The club, predictably, has declined to comment. Click to continue reading...

! Article Start >Who sang Twilight Cafe in 1981? Ah, hang on, not that sort of 'bits and pieces'. No indeed, just some bits and pieces about Newcastle United from the last few days that haven't managed to get their own article. Much has been said of Hughton's now permanent role as manager for the rest [. Click to continue reading...

! Article Start >Newcastle United's 1-0 win last night wasn't pretty but it did the job. Newcastle go back to the top of the table, clear by 2 points. Hughton had this to say about last night's game: "It was an ugly win. Sheffield play a style which makes it difficult. You have to be strong and [. Click to continue reading...

! Article Start >Alan Smith was been talking to the press a lot last weekend saying, amongst other things, that Newcastle United must get promoted at the first attempt or risk 'doing a Leeds'. Smith said: "It's vital we get back up at the first attempt. You look at what's happened to my old club Leeds [. Click to continue reading...

! Article Start >Alan Oliver is running an article in The People claiming that all the money from the stadium naming rights will go straight to Chris Hughton to spend on the Newcastle United squad. Ashley has apparently insisted the naming rights won't go cheap and he's looking for £6m a season before he'll sell off [. Click to continue reading...

Trick or treat? Which one does Mike Ashley have in store for Newcastle United over the next season and a half? Undoubtedly there are many fans who would like to celebrate Halloween by tying Mike Ashley to a stake and setting fire to him, not least because of his crackers plan to sell the naming rights [. Click to continue reading...

Sol Campbell fancies a move to Newcastle United but may be too costly for Hughton. However Matthew Kilgallon looks like a more affordable target. Campbell is currently trying to sort out the ramifications of getting out of his ill-fated contract at Notts County, but he found time recently to go public about his interest in joining [. Click to continue reading...

Former Newcastle United chairman Freddy Shepherd has blasted Ashley over his plans to sell the stadium naming rights. Freddy said: "I suppose nothing surprises me about the current regime, so news they are ready to sell the naming rights isn't exactly a shock. "I appreciate we are living in a commercial world, but there are some things money [. Click to continue reading...

New Newcastle United manager Chris Hughton hopes to get at least some of Mike Ashley's £20m cash injection to spend on players. Amidst Mike Ashley's popular announcement that he would be inflicting himself upon Toon fans for another season and a half, there was also the news that he's putting another £20m of his own money [. Click to continue reading...

Mike Ashley has taken Newcastle United off the market after 5 months and appointed Chris Hughton as permanent manager until the end of the 2010/2011 season. Emotions were running high when this was announced last night but I wanted to try and analyse the situation a little more objectively in the cold light of day. Click to continue reading...

According to an article posted on The Telegraph's site late last night, Mike Ashley has turned down Barry Moat's latest £80m bid for Newcastle United even though he'd previously said he'd accept the bid on the terms specified. What the article says is that whilst Ashley had previously rejected Moat's offer to take £40m down and [. Click to continue reading...

Would-be Newcastle United owner Barry Moat tried to persuade Richard Harpin to invest in his bid to buy the club. Richard Harpin is the head of HomeServe and has a personal fortune of more than £200m, which places him as one of the top 5 richest North-Easterners according to the Sunday Times Rich List. Click to continue reading...