Some stories will shock you - The Sixth Sense for instance - while others are just so painfully obvious that they probably don't even require media attention. One such story has already appeared today with the news that Andy Carroll was linked with a return to Newcastle, and another has also dropped with similar inevitability. Hot on the heels of his calling Shola a great servant of Newcastle, and basically suggesting he was "Mr Newcastle", it has emerged that Alan Pardew wanted to give the Nigerian World Cup player a new contract. Finally recognising that Newcastle need a striking coach, Pardew sat down with Mike Ashley and "floated" the idea of promoting Shola to a player-coach role. To anyone who witnessed Shola's training commitment first hand, or heard tales of his legendary work ethic, that suggestion is utterly ludicrous. And that's not to mention the fact that entrusting someone who scored once every 6 games to teach people how to score was never going to be successful. That is perhaps why the board nixed the idea, despite Pardew's keenness to keep Shola around. The veteran was apparently a big part of Pardew's dressing room - an unofficial club captain of sorts - linking different groups together. But is that really the case? Last season was rife with stories of dressing room unrest, and the public ousting of Marveaux, Ben Arfa and Yanga-Mbiwa for those reasons paints a picture of a fractured dressing room. Nevertheless, the club are still missing a guiding influence in the dressing room, with Coloccini's captaincy not going to plan at the minute. The board were astute in this case: Shola was not the answer, but Pardew was at least partly on to something. He recognised the need to have a buffer between players and management, and in the absence of someone like Terry McDermott, a former player would do the trick. Newcastle would still do well to follow QPR's lead and hire a Head Of Football Development - or whatever silly title is needed to shake things up - its just a shame that Les Ferdinand is now not available. We need someone to guide not only the dressing room but also to oversee youth development, and generally change the shape of the club's structure for the better, if only to take the responsibilities away from Pardew.
