This Weekend Can’t Come Soon Enough
Another week goes by without a Toon game, that’s two in a row now. Admittedly, the first one was due to us being knocked out of the FA Cup early again, but this week was filled with International action, or lack of action as it turned out to be. At least we couldn’t lose this week, but all the momentum picked up from our last win will be long gone now.
In some bizarre Newcastle news, there was a story doing the rounds on social media saying that the world-famous boxer Floyd Mayweather wanted to buy the club, and even better, make his friend Cristiano Ronaldo our first signing. Apparently, Floyd has been to Newcastle before many times and loves the nightlife and atmosphere of the city.
Don’t get your hopes up too much though Toon fans, he said that while his heart wanted him to buy the club, he only makes investment deals that are guaranteed to make money so will have to evaluate whether it is a viable deal or not. Although the man is loaded in terms of finances, he doesn’t possess the kind of wealth to run a successful football club, just buying the club would set him back nearly half his net worth, before any signings and wages. Back to reality it is then.
England Never Fail To Disappoint
Every time an international break finishes I vow to never watch the next bunch of boring, drab friendly games that only make us appear worse than most of our fans think we are. Somehow though, every time I end up sitting in front of the TV and watching the next ones to see if anything has changed and we can finally get an interesting game that can rival a Premier League or Champions League thriller. I was disappointed again.
The game against the Netherlands, who haven’t qualified for a major tournament since 2014, turned out to be a drab 1-0 win, with the goal only coming after a mistake from the Dutch keeper. It’s always funny how biased, or extremely patriotic, the commentators are for England games. If you had watched that game blindfolded you would have thought that England were world beaters, only not scoring enough because, quote almost every commentator and pundit covering the game, ‘the final ball wasn’t quite up to standard’. In my eyes, if the final ball isn’t up to scratch then it’s a lack of quality in the wide department.
England were then brought back down to earth with a bang with a 1-1 draw against Italy, another side who haven’t qualified for the World Cup this year. A late VAR decision saw the Italians given a penalty, which they duly tucked away. Although there was frustration among the England fans, there definitely was contact so the ref did well to use the VAR to help make the correct decision. That is what it was brought in to do and we would be complaining if a similar situation at the other end didn’t go in our favour. A lucky win and then bland draw against two teams who aren’t going to Russia this year, England showed just how far we’ve got to go before we can stand any chance of winning a major tournament. Although with Harry Kane ruled out of these games due to injury, least we have some hope.