general discussion Story Of Your Season and Career

Started the season season knowing we had to improve on a poor showing last year which saw us finish way down the table and in the bottom half. We shaked up the teams look both in August and January with many big names coming to the club. The first big player to arrive was Sokratis Papastathopoulos who came in for £10.25 million. Another big name from France came to us as Guillaume Hoarau joined us for free from PSG after a season of no football after struggling to get game time behind Ibrahimovic and others. Another PSG player arrived, this time on loan as Jean-Christophe Bahebeck signed on to help on the left hand side. As for the departures, Steven Taylor left for QPR in a deal worth £6.75 million and Gabriel Obertan left to join French champions Marseille for £3.9 million. Shinj Okazaki left just a season after arriving in Newcastle as he made his way to Derby for a sum of £3 million. Dennis Aogo joined from Manchester United in August for £3.5 million but in January he was at a different club as he failed to settle in, the German went back to HSV for £3.6 million. Papiss Cisse was one of the last players to leave Newcastle during the season as he moved away to Portugal for a fee of £23 million after a less than impressive 18 months in Newcastle. With the money from the Cisse deal, Newcastle decided to sign one more player with Diego Renan signing on the dotted line for a fee of £12 million however, Renan will not join up with the squad till late June as he arrives after the end of the English League season.

Newcastle were eliminated from both cups fairly early on with Reading getting the better of them in the FA Cup and West Brom squeezing past in the Capital One Cup. Despite this, league form was very different for Newcastle and in December, they found themselves in a top three position. Poor form kicked in however, and a run of 8 games without a win in the premier league saw the Toon drop to 10th in the table. In a season of mixed fortunes, Newcastle then battled back and went 9 games unbeaten with 6 wins and 3 draws as they leapt up the table and back into European contention. A minor blip to Sunderland was rectified after a smasing 5-3 victory over Chelsea where Guillaume Hoarau scored his third hattrick in the Premier League. A loss to Bolton was then followed up by two draws as Newcastle, Liveprool and Stoke battled it out for the last two Europa League spots. Going into the penultimate matchday, a win for Newcastle would guarentee themselves a spot in Europe for the coming season but they were shown up by a rampant Manchester United side who came out as 5-1 winners and tied up the League title after getting the better of Manchester City. The last match of the season was against Stoke who were three points, and potentially a lot of money ahead in 6th place. A great 4-1 victory saw Newcastle leapfrog Stoke into 6th place on goal difference after they thumped them in the last match day to earn a place in the Europa League, just three points ahead of Liverpool who ended with nothing.

Spoiler:Results part 1


Spoiler:Results part 2


Spoiler:Final Table



There were many key players for the season, but the single player that outshone everybody was Guillaume Hoarau who arrived on a free transfer from PSG in the summer. Hoarau kicking into life early on in Newcastle with a shed load of goals in his first few appearances and he was soon top of the goal scoring charts in the Premier league because of this. A French call-up wasn't on the cards though with Hoarau not even getting a sniff of the National team. Despite this, Hoarau kept plugging away and kept scoring goals for fun and he was the only person who looked like rivalling Emmanuel Adebayor for the golden boot in the EPL. Finally, after his hattrick against Chelsea, and with only a few matches to go before the end of the season, there was talk of Hoarau being added to the French squad for the 2014 World Cup. Sure enough, on the 14th May, these rumours were true and he was a part of the 23 strong conditional squad along with teammate Yohan Cabaye. Ten days later though, he was cut from the squad but this didn't detract from a splendid all round season in which he was selected for the EPL Team of the Season alongside top goal scorer, Adebayor.

Spoiler:Guillaume Hoarau


Yohan Cabaye was one of the few consistent players for Newcastle this year as he cemented his place not only in the Newcastle midfield, but also in the French midfield alongside Yann M'Villa. 16 assists throughout the season gave him great recognition amongst other teams with Arsenal and Tottenham all vying for his signature. It seems that Cabaye is content to stay at Newcastle and he has two years remaining on his contract so it could be very likely that Cabaye sees out the rest of his career with the Magpies. 

Spoiler:Yohan Cabaye


Sokratis Papastathopoulos had a fantastic first season with us with super ratings in the majority of his matches. 3 goals over the duration of the season showed that his awareness and power in the box was second to none. 4 MOTM awards saw him become a regular in the Newcastle defence alongside Fabricio Coloccini, His performances throughout the season has easily justified the £10.25 million price tag that was set upon him when he was purchased from Werder Bremen. 

Spoiler:Sokratis Papastathopoulos




Our transfers for the coming season:

Spoiler:Transfers


No significant transfers that are missing so don't worry. Renan has come in to be first choice RB and Benteke arrived for a cheap price because Villa just weren't playing him, which is strange as he looks very good. Dunga and Junior are both regen DCs who look to have bright futures and Essien and Gourcuff are purely back-up although I can sign the latter for £2 million at any time. 

With them transfers in mind, this is how I'm lining up this season:

Spoiler:Tactic


As you can see, I have a slight dilemma as my formation is a bit uneven but Ben Arfa is not a player I can miss out of my squad. It also looks very defensive but it plays pretty forward and attacking most of the time with Cabaye playing pretty much AMC, MC and DMC all match.