Story courtesy of The Telegraphs Luke Edwards.
I will be honest, if you had told me in August Newcastle United would be sixth in the table in the middle of January, above Liverpool and level on points with Arsenal, I would have smiled politely, shook my head and walked off safe in the knowledge you had absolutely no idea what you were talking about.
There will be some who claim they always believed Alan Pardew had things under control, that Mike Ashley and Derek Llambias knew what they were doing when they refused to spend all the Andy Carroll money on new players in the summer.
There will even be those who stubbornly insist they had no fears following the summer departures of Joey Barton, Jose Enrique and Kevin Nolan. If you are one of those people you are lying.
This has been a truly remarkable season for Newcastle fans because there has been genuine surprise at how well their team continues to do.
Even when things go horribly wrong, as they did in the second half against Fulham, results went Newcastle’s way as both Arsenal and Liverpool also lost.
Indeed, just as Newcastle appeared to be sliding into a bleak mid- as a run of just one win in eight saw them fall back towards the mid-table pack, the campaign has reignited in the New Year.
Starting 2012 with a 3-0 thrashing of Manchester United, Newcastle have moved into the Fourth Round of the FA Cup with a late win over Blackburn Rovers and could even afford to play badly against Mark Hughes’ QPR and still win.
The Fulham result was a timely reminder of their limitations, just in case anyone thought they were good enough to qualify for the Champions League, but there is more cause for optimism on Tyneside than anyone anticipated when Pardew was appointed in December 2010.
Even with the excellent signing of Papiss Demba Cisse from Freiburg this month, Newcastle’s squad is not good enough or big enough to compete at that level. Not yet, anyway.
The biggest worry this month remains the prospect of Ashley deciding to sell one of the blue chip brigade, or that skipper Fabricio Coloccini really is playing an elaborate game of bluff in his new contract talks and intends to leave in the summer.
I don’t think Colo will do that, but maybe that is just naïve or wishful thinking. I do believe Newcastle will sell anyone at the right price, I just hope it is one of their best players in the summer rather than one now and one at the end of the season too.
The hard reality is Newcastle cannot fight off interest from the top four, not just in terms of wages and fees, but also player ambition. You can’t really blame say, Cheick Tiote or Demba Ba, deciding they want to play for Manchester City, United or even Chelsea if the opportunity is there.
They’ll earn more for a start, but they will also have a consistent opportunity to win trophies, as well as play in European football’s premier competition.
Newcastle, a bit like Tottenham a few years ago and Liverpool, are trying to close the gap on the best of the best, while Arsenal are frantically trying to stay in the elite four.
If Newcastle sell one player, the aim must be to reinvest the money in three or four new ones to improve the overall quality of the squad.
Their scouting system is good and with the exception of Gabriel Obertan all of the new arrivals have added something positive to the team this season.
Eventually, like Spurs did with Luka Modric, they will be in a position to resist bids. Don’t forget, though, it isn’t so long ago that Tottenham were selling Dimitar Berbatov to Manchester United and I still wouldn’t expect Modric to hang around for another year without Champions League football.
For the first time in years, Pardew has put Newcastle in a position where they can realistically aim to do what Spurs have done. It isn’t a top six anymore, Newcastle have made it a top seven.
Which brings me on to Kenny Dalglish and Liverpool. I’d pay more than a penny for owner John W Henry’s thoughts. He has allowed Dalglish to spend more than £100m in the transfer market at a club that started from a position of far greater strength when the Scot took over from Roy Hodgson.
Yet, despite beating Newcastle relatively comfortably at Anfield last month, the Geordies are not only making mocking remarks about re-signing Carroll for £10m, they are sitting above them in the table on a far smaller transfer and wage budget.
Having said that, Liverpool are on the verge of the Carling Cup final and yet another piece of silverware. They remain ahead of Newcastle, a bigger club with bigger pulling power, but only just and maybe, just maybe the FA Cup will have black and white ribbons on in May.
Right, enough, I’ve clearly got far too carried away so I’m going to have a sneaky bet this afternoon on Sunderland and Newcastle meeting at Wembley and a lie down.
LUKE EDWARDS writes for the Telegraph
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