Bringing North East Italy to North East England?
By Amy Eustace
Eight months ago, the top six was nailed on. You could bet your house on the fact that the usual suspects – the Manchester clubs, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and Spurs – would all be up there, fighting it out in their customary gloves-off style. But you wouldn’t have wagered a penny on the prospect of Newcastle, of all clubs, throwing their hat into that ring. It would’ve been like betting on a 12-year-old to knock out Ali, or a three-legged horse to win at Cheltenham. They had lost a raft of regular players; including the brash but effective Barton, the reliable Nolan, the indispensible Enrique and…well, Andy Carroll. Their fabled return to the Premier League hadn’t exactly coincided with a return to the glory days.
Geordies were faced with a lean transfer window. A few presumed nobodies from France here, some lad that played for West Ham there; it didn’t make for pleasant viewing. Expectations had been lowered since their year in the throes of the Championship, sure, but in a desolate summer thoughts strayed to the likelihood of being back there again sooner rather than later. No one expected to see them chasing European qualification at this point in the season. If you HAD bet on it, you would probably be looking forward to a handy payoff in two months’ time.
The question is…how did they do it?
How, at a time when all and sundry are abandoning the purse strings, did Newcastle manage to do the opposite, and compete at a higher level? To put it rather plainly, their methodology closely resembles another black-and-white-striped team: Udinese. From the North East of England, to the North East of Italy, a radical – yet perfectly sensible – strategy has been translated.
