The good people of Newcastle wait with bated breath to see if a combination of chairman Mike Ashley and manager Alan Pardew, which seemed doomed to failure from the start, will threaten their Premiership status once again.

Overview

The Magpies are the only club in their city, playing to packed houses in a 52,000 capacity stadium that sits atop the highest hill in the region like a grand cathedral looking down on the thousands of people who come to worship at its altar. There are few clubs in this country at the heart of their community in quite the same physical and metaphorical way as Newcastle United. QPR meanwhile is tucked away in a strange little corner of West London – not the only club in the city by a long chalk, and not even the only club in the tiny borough of Hammersmith and Fulham which they share with two other Premiership sides. Loftus Road is an 18,000 capacity relic from a bygone era and although you can see the floodlights from the Hammersmith and City Line it’s hardly the same feeling you get as the train sweeps round the arching corner into Newcastle station and St James’ Park towers before you.

And yet these two clubs have forged links in so many ways. Les Ferdinand is the obvious one – one of the greatest players ever to play for either who was taken from QPR by Newcastle for £6m in 1995 and was desperately unlucky not to win the title while on Tynside. QPR were immediately relegated without him and have only just fought their way back. Having done so, Rangers have brought a star name the other way in the form of Joey Barton.

If the Ferdinand sale was the final straw that broke the back of QPR’s weakening Premiership camel in the 1990s then the sale of Darren Peacock, again to Newcastle, 18 months prior to that was a metaphorical bale of hay given the effect it had on the QPR team, the supporters who immediately set about hounding out chairman Richard Thompson, and manager Gerry Francis who grew weary of having his best players snatched from him and headed for Spurs before Ferdinand went the same way.

Ferdinand, and Peacock, adorn the walls of The Strawberry pub that sits in the shadow of Newcastle’s famous Gallowgate End. On the Uxbridge Road, bizarrely, the White Horse carries plenty of Newcastle memorabilia on its walls alongside the QPR and Celtic flags. The clubs have shared managers too – Jim Smith moved from W12 to Tyne and Wear at the end of the 1980s, Ossie Ardilles played for Rangers briefly and then managed Newcastle (also briefly), and Glenn Roeder played for both and managed the latter.

The links just keep coming, this week’s history section took bloody hours - players, managers, pubs and of course the thing these clubs have become best known for in recent times: farce.

While signing Joey Barton doesn’t immediately hit home as a sane and reasonable act it is hoped that the takeover by Tony Fernandes at Loftus Road is going to be the cue for a new era of calm sensibleness at Loftus Road. Which is a shame in some ways, because in a twisted way I quite enjoyed the tit for tat quest to be the most ridiculous club in the country we've been engaging Newcastle in over the past few years.

Anything Flavio Briatore could do, Mike Ashley can do just as badly. For every cringeworthy “boutique football” quote from our Flav there was big Mike up there telling the locals they had to call the stadium SportsDirect.com@StJames’Park. For every manager Briatore appointed, undermined and then sacked Ashley did the same thing only worse. Briatore's fickle trigger finger only ever nailed people like Iain Dowie, Jim Magilton and Paulo Sousa. Ashley has done it to people who are not so much club legends as Geordie demi-Gods. It’s amazing the guy is still alive having ostracised first Kevin Keegan and then Alan Shearer on Tyneside – it would have been safer drawing his own cartoon of the prophet Mohammed and then using it to wipe his considerable arse on in the middle of Whitechapel.

That experiment with Keegan, where Nookie Bear look-a-like Dennis Wise scouted and recommended the signings over his head, set a club that is equipped for regular top six finishes up for a relegation. The job still needed finishing though and when Keegan walked out Ashley turned to Joe Kinnear who arrived in a blaze of swear words and left in a body bag - as is his time honoured style. Shearer followed, too late, and they were relegated anyway upon which Ashley seemed to lose all interest and allow the club to drift into a Championship season with a caretaker manager in charge. When that caretaker, Chris Hughton, did quite well and promoted the crisis club at the first time of asking with something to spare he was rewarded with the sack. In came everybody’s favourite arrogant twit Alan Pardew, seemingly on the basis that he and CEO Derek Lambias used to go to casinos together, to a welcome from the locals usually reserved by football fans for the arrival of Gary Megson.

The results since have been surprisingly good. Ashley, Lambias and the rest of the board continue to make a rod for their own backs by, for example, promising to reinvest the £35m from the sale of Andy Carroll into the team and then, errr, not. But under the circumstances Pardew’s results were not bad at the end of last season and have been very good so far this. The departure of Carroll, Kevin Nolan, Joey Barton and particularly Jose Enrique at a fraction of his true worth must surely have weakened their team. But Newcastle are developing a handy knack of picking up talent like Davide Santon and Cheick Tiote from Europe at a fraction of the cost of the players they are replacing with impressive results.

How long can this magic trick continue?

Interview

So James, Mike Ashley said he'd reinvest the Andy Carroll money, he hasn't, how's the mood on Tyneside post transfer window?

The atmosphere is not vitriolic, more apathetic. We've heard it all before. Llambias came out after the transfer window had shut and said that they wouldn't be held to ransom, that they had long term targets for Carroll's replacement and that there was a plan. That doesn't wash with the supporters and seems to me to be complete crap considering we put forward £12m for Bryan Ruiz just 30 minutes before the end of the transfer window when he was obviously going to Fulham. He doesn't have a great goals to game ratio anyway. The supporters are kept poorly informed and when the club do finally speak it’s completely contradictory to their actions.

Is he trying to get you relegated again? What's his overall aim do you think?

Ashley's aim is simple and, to some extent, sensible; to make the club sustainable in the Premiership. We have off loaded players who were on far too much money for their age and ability. For example, Kevin Nolan must have been on a packet to leave Bolton to join a sinking NUFC with Joe Fucking Kinnear at the helm. The contract renewal they offered him seemed reasonable but Nolan was motivated by money. Replacing him with Cabaye, a younger French international on a lower wage seems like good business. But this club is a sleeping giant with 52000 fans most weeks so to say that the Carroll money went on agent fees and training pitches makes us all wonder what our season ticket renewals pay for. His actions suggest his motivation is to reduce his costs for a future sale of the club.

Despite it all the team seems to have started the season quite well. How has it done that? Can it be maintained?

The fixtures so far have been very kind. We played a frazzled Arsenal who make our transfer policy look sensible, a one dimensional Sunderland who have a manager seemingly unwilling to admit he is two losses from the sack and a travel weary Fulham at home who had just arrived back from Ukraine. People left the Arsenal match acting like we had just got a good result but Arsenal were there for the taking, an opportunity that Man U took with relish. Your team represents the biggest test we have had so far. I think we'll have a greater understanding where we stand after this match.

What are your aims and expectations for the season?

The aim has to be a top ten finish. Pardew threw away a 3-0 lead and a top ten finish away with it against West Brom in the last game of last season which resulted in us finishing below Sunderland and Villa despite outclassing those teams quite comprehensively earlier in the season. The squad is stronger than last season collectively and individually and so should out do last season’s exploits.

What do you think of Alan Pardew because he didn't seem to be a popular appointment?

That West Brom game was representative of Pardew's relationship with the fans. He got his first "Pardew gis a wave" at 3-0 and seem to relish the chance. A quarter of an hour later he was getting booed for ridiculous substitutions and three conceded goals. Just when the fans seem to think they can trust him and he isn't a Thunderbird puppet under Ashley’s control (and to be fair he does look like Parker) he does or says things which undermine his authority. Ashley's net profit this transfer window was £34.35m and stands at £40m since he took over. If Pardew is the man he wants to lead the club why did Allardyce get more funds?

What have QPR got themselves into signing Joey Barton?

You got yourself promoted through team-work from a largely unfashionable side and a volatile but talented individual. Can your team and manager handle more than one? Personally I think Barton is overrated. He's the new Noel Gallagher; quite funny and passionate about what he does but hopelessly deluded about his talent and living on past glories. Again, like Nolan, he was not offering value for money. He could be the glue that sticks your dressing room together or the sledgehammer that breaks it. I'm in the minority with this opinion on Barton, though I think the majority of fans are annoyed simply to have another reason to be annoyed with Ashley.

Who are the players to watch in the Newcastle side? Tell us about an unsung hero or up and coming player we might not have heard about.

You probably have files on Leon Best but I'll talk about him anyway because he's really stepped up to the plate since Carroll's sale. He knows that this club is the best he'll ever play for so is taking the opportunity with both hands. He has no Twitter account and does his talking where it matters; on the pitch. He took both his goals very easily and stylishly last week and is really unappreciated. Cabaye I've already mentioned. It's pretty obvious that the starting 11 is completely based around Ben Arfa but he won't be fit to face you. It'll be interesting to see how Santon does on his debut. Three years ago he was Inter's best player marking Ronaldo in a Champions League game. He's had a knee injury a few years ago and so is a risk but I'm amazed we attracted him in the first place. Finally, if he makes an appearance, there is Sammy Ameobi. He got his first senior goal against Scunthorpe in the League Cup. Although I think our fans are harsh towards Shola, Sammi is quick and nimble with a good shot whilst keeping his brother's aerial threat.

Thanks, as ever, to James for his insight. He’s not a bad footballer himself as it goes – but it seems Newcastle can't find a space for him in the team just yet. We’ll catch up with him again in January.

Manager

The fury wasn’t just because Pardew isn’t particularly well liked in football. Anything Mike Ashley does on Tyneside is immediately criticised in the same way that anything Gianni Paladini does in W12 is always seen as a failure before it’s even begun – with good reason on both counts to be fair. Pardew was a mate of Ashley’s, and CEO Derek Lambias, and struck the supporters as a bit of yes man for their unpopular chairman. Also, his predecessor Chris Hughton had done a very sound job in trying circumstances in promoting the team into the Premiership and keeping it there making a lot of friends along the way and it yet it seemed as if they couldn’t wait to get rid of him.

But Pardew’s record is actually quite reasonable. As a player he was a ball playing midfielder who graduated from non-league and played more than 100 times for first Crystal Palace and then Charlton, reaching the FA Cup final in 1990. He finished his playing career at Reading where he then began coaching and was later promoted to manager after a successful spell as caretaker. Reading were chronic under-achievers in the third tier at the time but Pardew quickly fixed that, promoting them into Division One and then leaving for West Ham after a messy poaching operation.

He promoted West Ham from the Championship as well, and then took them to the FA Cup final where they were desperately unfortunate not to beat Liverpool. Poor results the 2006/07 season, and a takeover at Upton Park, saw him removed and he was then unable to keep Charlton up that year after they’d messed around with Iain Dowie and Les Reed for far too long. His attempts to promote them back to the top flight did more harm than good and our Monday Night Football comes just a week after Sky screened the Addicks in the same slot, now in the third tier.

He turned up at Southampton where, despite starting the season on minus ten points, he almost took them into the play offs and won the Football League trophy. He was sacked anyway after about five minutes of the following campaign, but this was again due to a clash of personalities rather than what he was doing with the team.

So we’re not exactly talking Paul Hart here, and yet there’s just something too smarmy and arrogant about him to like. And no, it’s not entirely the horrific image conjured up by his infamous remark on Match of the Day about Michael Essien “absolutely raping” Man City’s Ched Evans that does it. As it turns out, given Ched’s summer activities, such an encounter probably would have happened the other way around.

I’ll stop now, the lawyers are loitering again.

Scout Report

It must be said, so far so good. Nolan and Barton may have gone from the midfield but Chieck Tiote appeared from nowhere last season to great effect and Yohan Cabaye has done likewise this summer and impressed in the early games. I’m sorry, that’s such an English football fan thing to do – writing players off as “unknown” because they came from a team abroad that isn’t Barcelona. Tiote, whose head will explode killing him stone dead if he ever crosses the halfway line, is an Ivory Coast midfielder who won the Dutch title with Twente under Steve McLaren. A host of clubs came after him in the summer but he stayed, and now partners the similarly combative Cabaye who played more than 200 times for Lille and has six full French caps to his name. Any vintage English fears about a tarty foreigner shirking the physical side of the game over here have not found much support in Cabaye’s initial performances – in fact he seemed to relish the derby at Sunderland by all accounts and won friends among the Toon Army with a nasty late tackle on Phil Bardsley. With Phil Dowd as referee and Joey Barton on QPR debut that central midfield area is shaping up to be a war zone littered with cards.

It’s up front where Newcastle seem to be really short. QPR fans who recall Leon Best’s anaemic loan spell at Loftus Road are no doubt incredulous that he can lead a Premiership attack but he seems keen to grasp the chance and scored twice in a recent win against Fulham. Best signed for the club at the same time as our own Fitz Hall (the bastards sent him back) and Wayne Routledge and at the time they all rather smacked of Championship signings to shove them over the Championship line before being disregarded. It’s circumstances rather than ability that see them still relying on Best in the top flight but he’s not letting anybody down.

The deadline day pursuit of Fulham-bound Bryan Ruiz smacked of a deal that they wanted to be seen to be trying without ever holding out any hope or desire of actually shelling out the £12m required – him choosing somewhere else and them keeping the money in bank back and saying “what more could we do?” seemed to suit all parties. They did bring in Demba Ba for free in the summer after his strong, athletic and impressive performances for West Ham last year but given his history of medical issues and knee held together with elastic bands and chewing gum it might not be wise to rely on him too heavily, despite obvious ability. They started with Peter Lovenkrands in attack against Fulham who scored on his last visit to Loftus Road and whose middle name, according to the squad lists submitted to the Premier League, is apparently Rosenkrands. Peter Rosenkrands Lovenkrands. Genius.

With Hatem Ben Arfa still to come back into the side perhaps things aren’t so bad after all but even with him the attack looks less than threatening, and there are no guarantees that the Frenchman will be as good upon his return given our own experiences with Rowan Vine.

One of the most intriguing deals of the transfer window saw Italian full back Davide Santon arrive at Newcastle from Inter Milan. Here is a young man tipped for absolute super stardom not so very long ago who then seemed to lose all confidence and self belief after a series of knee injuries and now finds himself moving to St James Park in a cut price deal. That one could turn out to be the signing of the summer – we’ll start to find out if they’ve unearthed another gem at 8pm on Monday.

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Photo: Action Images

QPR_Jim added 23:45 - Sep 8 "when Keegan walked out Ashley turned to Joe Kinnear who arrived in a blaze of swear words and left in a body bag - as is his time honoured style." Brilliant!
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Sewelly added 15:23 - Sep 9 NUFC fan here, What a fantastically refreshing article. Makes such a change to see a fan of another team not revert to the same ludicrous stereotypes with regards to Newcastle fans. Not a single mention of the 'D word'! Author seems very knowledgeable on football beyond his own team and this comes across in this balanced and interesting piece. Couldn't falt any of it and agreed with every bit with regards to both teams. I agree with the interviewed Toon fan, too, particularly with regards to Barton. I like Joey as a character at times but I find the hero worship for a player not fit to lace the boots of many midfielders to grace the black and white shirt over the years a bit bizarre. Ultimately Joey gave us 3 seasons of injury, prison and poor performances with 1 final season of good displays crossing the ball in the direction of Carroll's bonce. He's a good player and if he can perform as he did last year will certainly be an asset to QPR, but IMO he is definitely overrated not only by himself but by the media too. He's essentially a central midfielder who can't play central midfield anymore. Play him wide with the time and space to do what he does best with the ball and you'll get a lot out of him, play him in the middle of the park and you'll find he gets flustered in possession of the ball, lacks an effective short passing game and has a penchant for the ludicrous hollywood pass. Overall I'm looking forward to the game, I think it'll be a close one but I don't think it will do much to set the tone for either team's seasons. There is a long way to go. Good luck for the rest of the season! (...after monday)

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bishom added 15:38 - Sep 9 I found the report enhanced if you imagine James Harrison's very good contribution spoken in a Sid Waddell styli.
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Northernr added 15:51 - Sep 9 James is almost as cheerful as me when you meet him, you used to be able to find us moaning (him in Geordie of course) in the corner of The Nottingham House in Sheffield until the wee small hours every Thursday. Sewelly - thanks for the comment and praise, it's nice to be writing about different teams this season!
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pomanjou added 11:02 - Sep 11 Interesting stuff. Nobody at Newcastle (I'm talking management)really wanted Joey to leave. But Llambias gave him a take it leave it offer when he should have kept the door open and the hardball atttitude careered back at him. Its Llambias and aided by Pardew who are pulling the strings with Ashley's input being broad based target setting from a laid back position and gunslinger when required just as it is at Sports Direct. Ashley turned £25k into more than £1billion which dwarfs the size of his arse and an investment in Sports direct since he took it over would give about a 700% return. What a mug! Anyway, Santon is unlikely to play a full game and his absence and that of Ben Arfa will present QPR with the weakest links to exploit (so I understand). I'm still settling for 2-2 but what do I know.

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