Archie's List

In the middle of March my beloved other third (she’s not very tall) decided she was going home to attend a wedding and a family reunion.

Since then Pardew's Boys have notched up six consecutive victories scoring 13 goals and conceding only one.

She's already extended her stay by a week to give us half a chance against Stoke and I have even suggested she delay her return through to the end of the season, but quite frankly married life should not be like this.
As the saying goes, when she’s away the sex is the same but the dishes pile up in the sink.

She’s due back tonight so I’m now a little less confident about Wigan on Saturday.

Moving on - other websites, where the contributors are significantly less evolved with regard to their manipulation of the written word, instead of taking the time to research a real article quite often resort to just publishing “lists”.

Lists are easy. You don’t even have to make real sentences. And they are usually compiled by people whose opinions are, well, let's just say, not worth the paper they're thought on.

Recent lists have included “The 10 most hated Players in the Premier League”, “10 players who rue the day they left Newcastle United” and “the 10 most over-rated players in the league.”

While I quite never understood why Andy Carroll, as a mere slip of a lad on seriously stupid money, would ever want to "rue the day" that he doubled his salary and joined Liverpool, I did find it amusing that Joey Barton seems to feature in every list.

Well – I thought – if they can do it, and still claim it’s journalism, then so can I.

First choice for a list was the 11 best players that no longer play for us. This was an interesting concept. Make a team made up entirely of decent players who moved on in recent years, who are still playing for other teams. You can start with Shay Given, Charles N’Zogbia, Craig Bellamy, Scott Parker, Andy Carroll and Jose Enrique, to name but five and stroppy Welsh dwarf. I was convinced I could put together a top six team with our rejects, but then I was looking at the likes of Titus Bramble, Sebatien Bassong, Habib Beye, Jermaine Jenas and Kieron Dyer just to make up the numbers.

So that kinda fizzled a bit.

OK – so how about Mick McArthy’s top 10 aftermatch interview excuses?

Or – the top 10 aftermatch justifications of why it wasn’t a penalty?

Or – and this would be one of my favourites – top 10 quotes from commentators where they wished they had kept their mouths shut? David Pleat suggesting that there was nothing wrong with Ben Arfa because he wasn’t rolling around banging the ground would be up there somewhere. The fact that he'd broken his leg was neither here nor there.

But I decided to go with “10 reasons Newcastle United will go straight back down after promotion”

Think back just a few months and I can guarantee that you either heard, or even said, most of the comments below. I know I did.

1 - They sacked the Messiah and we ended up in the Championship with Chris Hughton in charge CHRIS HUGHTON? What has he ever done? The management know sod all about football!

2 - They sacked our beloved Chris Hughton – the nicest man in football – and replaced him with Alan Pardew. ALAN PARDEW? What has he ever done? The management know sod all about football!

3 - They sold Andy Carroll for £35 million and didn’t bring in a replacement. And we all know that they won’t put a single penny of that back into the club!

4 - They allowed Jose Enrique to move on to better things at Liverpool. He was our best player.

5 - They refused to improve contract conditions for Kevin Nolan and Joey Barton, who left as a result. How can you expect to seriously challenge for Europe if you allow your best players to leave?

6 - Lack of depth of squad. How can we expect to do well with the likes of Mike Williamson, James Perch, Shane Ferguson, Davide Santon, Danny Guthrie, Haris Vukic and Ryan Taylor as our backup?

7 - The owner is a southerner who understands neither the region nor the club. He sells tee-shirts on the internet for god’s sake! He wont do well if he doesn’t understand the people!

8 - The owner has changed the name of the stadium.

9 - Our recruitment policy seems to focus on relative unknowns who are either out of contract or injured, and 12 year old French kids. How can that possibly work? Just so Ashley can flog 'em on and make a few quid.

10 - And here’s the best one – “Don’t get too excited – the bubble will burst!” (Guilty as charged, M'Lud!)

Also a quick mention for this old chestnut: “The club can only move forward if it is owned by the fans”, so – all we need to do now is find either 50 fans who each have a spare 5 million quid, or 5 million fans with 50 quid each, and we’re on our way.

Shola keeping on scoring against Sunderland and us being where we are now. Neither makes any sense.

But no matter what happens with the rest of the games this season the team have surpassed all expectations. 6th is two or even three places better than we hoped for. If we can finish in 4th and Chelsea don’t win the Champions League then I’ll probably have to walk around with a constant supply of wet wipes in my trouser pocket through until September.

From here on in – it’s all gravy.

As for the wife - If we win on Saturday I suppose she can stay, but any other result and I’m shipping her back to her brother’s house until the end of May!