This interview with Souness must signal the end of the road for Bellamy

This interview with Souness must signal the end of the road for Bellamy

The highlight being that on Boumsong And Babayaro's first dau of training he told them "this is a crap club with a crap manager"




Graeme Souness has blasted Craig Bellamy in a blistering attack which has to leave the Newcastle United striker's future at St James' Park in serious doubt.

The attack, in the wake of the player's axing at Arsenal yesterday, is so ferocious that it is hard to see how Bellamy can ever wear the black-and-white shirt again for Souness.

The row between the manager and his striker completely overshadowed the fact that Newcastle hope to complete the signing of Portsmouth midfielder Amdy Faye later today, with the player on Tyneside for a medical.

And the fact that new £8m central defender Jean Alain Boumsong is likely to be sidelined for at least a month after tearing a hamstring in yesterday's defeat at Arsenal.

For Souness alleges:

Bellamy told him and chairman Freddy Shepherd he was going to feign an injury before the squad left for London;

The striker has not apologised to the United squad for doing so;

Bellamy is said to have ridiculed the club in front of new boys Boumsong and Celestine Babayaro.

There was talk of a bust-up at Highbury yesterday as the grim-faced pair watched United lose to Arsenal just a couple of yards apart.

But, talking at length and in depth about the situation, Souness told me late last night: "After Friday's press conference at St James' Park I arrived at the training ground to find Craig Bellamy in the dressing room and with his boots off.

"He told me he felt his hamstring was a bit tight. But my first-team coach Dean Saunders informed me that Bellamy had told other players in the dressing room he was going to feign an injury.

"I took him to see the chairman on Friday afternoon at St James' Park and he admitted to both of us that this was true. I asked him in front of the chairman if he had feigned an injury and he said `yes'.

"I told Bellamy that he had to apologise to the rest of the players, but I then found out later that he had not done so.

"That was on Friday tea-time and that's when I decided he wasn't going to be in my team at Arsenal.

"If he had apologised he would have been in the team."

Bellamy has already had one very public bust-up with Souness when he clearly swore at the manager after being substituted at Charlton Athletic in the middle of November.

Things seemed to have settled down but Bellamy has made no secret of the fact that for most of the season he has been playing in what he considers is not his best position.

But Souness added: "The Newcastle United management team were suspicious of what happened at Liverpool when Bellamy stood down after what he said was a back injury after warming up, yet he managed to train the following day.

"And last week he didn't turn up for training on Friday, saying that he had a stomach bug but he still played against Southampton the following day."

Souness revealed he was furious with Bellamy on the day new defenders Boumsong and Babayaro trained for the first time.

The United boss said: "Bellamy said in front of Babayaro and Boumsong that this was a rubbish club with a rubbish manager.

"I asked him what all this was about and he told me he was upset about the speculation he was going to be sold or used as a makeweight in an incoming transfer.

"But I told him that if this was the case he would have heard it first from me and why hadn't he come to see me?

"I told him on Friday that I wanted him here but on my terms. And these terms are that everyone is pulling together and not acting in a confrontational manner and sniping away all the time. There has to be a boss and at the moment that's me. We are talking about other things here.

"The only thing I am interested in is the cause and that cause is Newcastle United."

We wont get relegated, we will always be better than Sunderland - regardless of on/off the pitch shite

Deal with it.

FUCKING SUPERB, whats your room number so i can redirect that dummy ????

there's a fucking brilliant article on nufc.com called 'sick and tired'. i for one agree with it, BUT getting rid of one of our best players would be a bitter pill to swallow.

Not really mate, the dummys still in.

Whats the phrase :

"Stating the obvious" is it ?!?!

Sunderland wouldnt know about scandal cos they havent got the big club status nor big players

Yeah iam gutted our club does not attract the scandal yours does

aye whatever, what John said is true and you know it

Yeah but my dad is bigger than his so ner ner ner

Bellamy has just been on Sky Sports News basically calling Souness a liar, Prob no way back for him now !!

I kind of blame the Dyer thing at the start of the season if they had got rid of him then the players would not think they can do out they like !!

Worring thing is with Shearer retiring, Kluivert on the way out and Bellars seaming like he is gone we are left with Shola as are only striker

This reminds me of the Souness Vs Yorke,Cole, Dunn that went on at Blackburn

Sunderland players made page 14 of Journal earlier this year when their players went around Sunderland shooting people.

Also there are unconfirmerd reports that a BIG JOCK at Sunderland hasnt been injured for months but was in fact serving a drug ban.

The Air Rifle story is more than any of Newcastles.

I often wondered what footballers got up too in there flash cars and was pleased to hear that they drive around City Centres with air rifles and shoot people

Get a fucking grip.

Gotta love the scandal

:clap::clap:

and the operative word in the sentence there is ...

ALWAYS !!!

Also a word that could quiet easily come back to haunt you

:rofl: yeah ok whatever you say ...

I heard all this the last time we came up and then we finished above you two seasons running so saying you will ALWAYS be better than us is a bit silly, here is a nice article for you to read from todays Guardian: SUMS IT ALL UP PERFECTLY

Newcastle must step out of history and into the real world

Kevin McCarra
Tuesday January 25, 2005
The Guardian

No one at Newcastle United knows his place, particularly not when it is supposed to be on the wing. First Kieron Dyer and now Craig Bellamy have mutinied this season when told to play there. Disgruntlement is understandable when a footballer feels he is being denied his natural role but at other clubs it would lead to discussions and perhaps, in the end, to a dignified parting of the ways.
Events follow a different course at St James' Park. Graeme Souness has been there only since September but already he knows how galling it is to be proved right so very often. He keeps on being justified in his comparison of football society in the north-east with that of the Latin countries. The passion, skulduggery and rumour-mongering also take him back to his days in charge of Galatasaray. It is no pleasure for Souness to find those sort of memories being revived.

He now appreciates that turning Newcastle into a disciplined and successful club would be by far the greatest achievement of his far-travelled and uneven career in management. There is a peculiar force that warps the talent of footballers whoenter the city. Jon Dahl Tomasson could make no impression there but his gifts recovered as soon as he had gone back to the continent.

Promising players have even seemed to be actively discouraged at Newcastle. Didier Domi, for example, arrived as a gifted left-back but was hurt to find himself mocked by team-mates for being devoutly religious. That treatment will be put down to the rough humour of the English dressing room but it has been a harmful tradition at St James' Park.

Alessandro Pistone, who had come to the north-east with the standing of a man who had been captain of the Italy Under-21 side while with Internazionale, was presented with a sheep's heart at a players' Christmas party. The scorn of him then might have felt like boisterous fun but the club were unable to get the best out of him and it is Everton fans who have a better understanding of his capabilities.

There are many other transfers that were simply unadorned fiascos, perhaps because the men targeted by previous managers were ill equipped for the Premiership. The Spanish centre-half Marcelino and Fumaca, a Brazilian whose nickname of Formica evoked his insensitive touch on the ball, have the sort of inverted fame of people whose blunderings will always be recalled by supporters. Some foreign signings appeared to sense doom from the start and Daniel Cordone soon began taking photographs of away grounds as souvenirs of an inevitably brief stay in England.

For decades Newcastle have specialised in absurdist failure. There is something disproportionate about the money spent, the expectation aroused, the adulation offered by the fans and the woe at the end of each episode. Newcastle is unique on the football scene: the city feels self-contained and sealed off from reality.

It is a place where the past will not leave. Souness was given the post in part because the club felt he would get control of certain players whose social lives hark back to the roistering wallowed in by the stars of yesteryear. Kenny Dalglish used to confine his squad to a hotel after midweek games. More recently the signing of the famous night owl Patrick Kluivert could have been taken as proof that a relaxed approach was acceptable.

As the Bellamy incident shows, Souness's intimidating stare alone will not ensure total professionalism. He understands that perfectly well; it will be the nature and effectiveness of the newcomers that determine his fate as a manager. A desire for soundness explained why he would back his own judgment to extremes by spending £8m on a defender, even if Jean-Alain Boumsong has not yet impressed his own country enough to become a regular starter in the France side.

We ought to hope that Souness's decision-making proves to be inspired. The Premiership badly needs a greater number of powerful teams to invigorate the contest at the top of the table. Should the burden of funding a new stadium ever weigh down the performances of the Arsenal side, there will be only Manchester United to pose the semblance of a challenge to Chelsea.

In too many possible centres of footballing excellence little is made of the remarkable promise. Demographics alone would suggest that Aston Villa should be among the titans but David O'Leary constantly makes it clear that he is managing a second-tier club. The situation is not so grave at Liverpool but each new season on the margins makes it harder for them to rejoin the elite.

Disappointment is even more embedded at Newcastle. Adding Bellamy to the long roll call of rejects will be easy but it will be far tougher to locate a group of players who all deserve the zeal of the St James' Park crowd.

He makes some good points but he is wrong about some of them players.

Jon Dahl Tomasson - Has never played well against England or British teams in the european club comptetions. Not cut out for the speed & tougness of English/British game.
Didier Domi - He wanted to go back to Paris & done a Van Hooljonik
Pistone - Was sold because he wasnt as good as Domi. A player who didnt step up from promising Italian junior a bit like Maccarone (sp) but a lot cheaper.


Picking bad signings out is poor journalism any moron can do that, I mean there is gaffer in the Premiership spent £30million on strikers & let all 3 go in summer & only got £2.5 mill back.

Yeah maybe a little silly in fact is it fuck , not as silly as been a mackem ... be honest with yourself you'll always be the 2nd best north-east team ... simple as, and as soon as you figure this out the more cash you'll save from going to that thing they call therapy. aka The Stadium Of SHITE ... !!!

YEAH BUT NO BUT YEAH BUT NO BUT, FUCK OFF VICKY POLLARD