Newcastle: Pardew Already Making Excuses Ahead Of Leicester Game

If in doubt, blame the international break.

By Simon Gallagher /

Pardew will also be able to welcome back three injured players in the shape of Daryl Janmaat, Paul Dummett and Steven Taylor. Janmaat's hamstring injury - which kept him out of the Dutch set-up this week - is not as bad as was initially suspected, while Dummett's thigh injury has cleared up. Taylor's mystery injury meanwhile is fine after he was forced to sit out the Swansea game last week. Both of the full-backs are back in training this week, and they should be joined by Taylor who will offer cover from the bench for Mike Williamson and Fabricio Coloccini for next week's game with Leicester at St. James' Park. Despite that good news, Alan Pardew has done his usual trick of making excuses well in advance of any potentially poor results, by bemoaning the international break.
€œIt€™s a time where we lose all our big players, and they come back and we€™re going to have two days to prepare for a massive game. €œIt€™s a big, big chance for us to get our win in the next home game. We€™ve got to try and take it.€
It's not like the club were pulled apart by "big" players going out on international duty: only Sissoko, Cabella and Krul went away, with Dummett injured and the other international players either developmental squad players (Ferguson, Elliott) or out on loan (in the case of Jamaal Lascelles) so it's not like the first-team will be decimated by fitness concerns. That is perhaps part of the reason why Mike Williamson came out with his heavily ridiculed statement that Newcastle were going into the international break "on a high", despite everything that has happened in the last seven league games. Reading slightly deeper into Pardew's language, it is frustrating to see him deferring to the language of industry, rather than confidence: we are playing at home against a newly promoted Leicester City, and we should be looking at the game as a definitely banker for three points - but the manager comes out with "we've got to try and take it" rather than an outright statement of confidence. Surely it would be better to go for the throat?