Toon Not Big Enough For Amsterdam

Last updated : 10 June 2007 By Footy Mad - Editor

It was always a strange set of circumstances right from the start, with SKY TV advertising the event as a competition involving hosts Ajax, Italian outfit Lazio, Spanish side Atletico Madrid AND Newcastle United in August. Yet Freddy Shepherd said on the NUFC official website that no contract had been offered ... or signed.

Now the Magpies have been informed the organisers had found another team to play in the tournament, understood to be Arsenal, which they see as "bigger fish" and a bigger draw.

The lateness of the decision has badly disrupted Newcastle's pre-season plans. United have only two games - against Celtic and local neighbours Hartlepool United - confirmed.

Allardyce: "We are trying to move our recruitment of players and staff along as quickly as we can, but we are also looking to tie off our pre-season plans as well.

"We want to make sure we've got the right games at the right time. We're very disappointed to lose the Ajax tournament. We've been dealt a rather severe blow and basically we've been dumped on from a great height, but we can't do anything about that now.

"It would have been a great tournament to be in for pre-season, but we have to focus on getting the right fixtures in place so that we deliver strength, conditioning and tactical scenarios throughout that. We want to build the players up right from a fitness point of view so that we don't get any injuries.

"We'll keep building up their all-round ability and we will monitor each individual from day one. We won't even be training as a group, it will be individual programmes or small groups. Then we will start focusing on the team shape and how we want them to play.

"I'm really happy if we lose every single pre-season friendly. I've done that virtually every year at Bolton, certainly last year we hardly scored a goal and didn't win a game, but we ended up with 20 points from the first ten matches in the Premiership.

"The fans have not got to get too worked up if we lose every pre-season game. It won't be a worry for me and it won't be a worry for the players. It's just about us doing the right things and getting ready for the most important thing, which is the whistle blowing on August 11 and winning that first Premiership game, not some meaningless pre-season friendlies.

"While it's a massive football club, it's achievement has been minimal over the last few years. I'm here to try to change that and we are going to try to get as many things as we can in place for the start of what will be a very important first season for me. I want to make the training ground better. It isn't a place for professional footballers to work on a day-to-day basis.

"This is a squash club converted. My vision in the long term is to create an all-encompassing building that would excite everybody who walks through the door every day.

"The players will be in a rush to get here and they won't want to go home as quickly as they do now.

"That's the long term and then there is the short term which is the most important at the moment."