Leon Best out for season?

First off, happy April Fools Day. I won't be lowering myself to unleashing some cheap rumours in some vain attempt at humour. Personally I find it irritating....

However, bitch over, I actually do wish that this headline was an April Fool, but unfortunately I fear that it's not. Yes, it's a sign of how desperate we are for strikers at the moment, but we aren't in a position to alter that now. We were, back in January, but we didn't so I guess we just have to deal with the fact that our only in-form forward could quite conceivably have kicked his final ball of the season with eight games still remaining.

Best was already doubtful for the weekend visit of Wolves after reporting, injured, to the Republic of Ireland squad and breaking down in training after being instructed to report solely to register his injury and have it verified as per the rules of internatioanl engagement.

Now it seems that this troublesome ankle 'knock' could be more serious than first feared with talk of specialists and unknown time frames and the like being mentioned. Now call me cynical, but I just don't like the word specialist. To me it translates to something akin to what a Thai hooker would say - long time! At this point it's worth refreshing everyone with what has been said about Best's injury by Alan Pardew:

“We have got to get him seen on Monday by a specialist to find out exactly what is the problem because it is just not right. But I do not think it was anything to do with the extra training he did with Ireland," said Pardew.

“We will have to wait and see with Leon. Are we talking weeks or months? I have no idea at this stage how long he could be out. When he has had this injury before, he has had an injection and it has seemed to go away, but he has had another injection this time and it has not gone away. We might go down the line of having a second injection, I just don’t know.”

Sounds pretty serious when it's put like that doesn't it? Perhaps this is the reason for the recent charm offensive regarding Nile Ranger?

Look, I know Leon Best is not the striker that we all aspire to see playing up front for Newcastle, but he has done rather well since the departure of Andy Carroll and is arguably our only realy main goal threat left. The fact that he has scored one less Premier League goal than the other three strikers combined is an alarming stat, but it does also highlight how key Leon has become to us in the second half of the season.

Now I don't buy into this guff about how selling Carroll has ruined our season. It may have dented team spirit, but he wouldn't have been available for the bulk of the matches since Christmas anyway. We needed a striker in January regardless, but we didn't get one which is why we are here now debating how losing Leon Best is such a blow.

The bottom line is that we need to score goals, and Best has done that when he has been afforded the chance. Lovenkrands hasn't, Ameobi hasn't and neither has Ranger, which is a concern.

They better take their chances soon though as it looks as though they'll be getting enough of them if my reading between the lines turns out to be accurate.

Rant over!