While it is customary for fans of top-flight clubs with delusions of grandeur to cope with Fizzy Cup exits by pretending the competition is beneath them, this is no longer an option that is open to supporters of Newcastle United. Winning the trophy sponsored by a low-calorie, fruit-flavoured energy drink brand from Thailand may only rank fifth in the domestic pecking order behind the Premier League, FA Cup and both transfer windows, but nobody will ever forget how much it meant to hundreds of thousands of overjoyed Geordies when their team did exactly that the season before last to end a trophy drought dating back to the Jurassic era. And with a quarter-final trip to the tough-tackling League Two bullyboys of Fleetwood up for grabs during their match against serial trophy-dodgers Everton last night, the travelling Toon Army must have fancied their chances of being in the shake-up again.
Sadly, it was not to be and a season that could charitably be described as “mixed” hit another hole in the road as Matthias Jaissle – the German head coach, who Newcastle CEO David Hopkinson famously introduced as “a rock star” – masterminded another extremely tepid performance that smacked more of a half-hearted sound check at Trillians Rock Bar than his compatriots the Scorpions headlining the Wacken metal festival. But that’s part of the game, you need to avoid these mistakes, be more mature, more clinical in these situations.” On the plus side, Jaissle and his gaffe-prone players will have their first chance to either put this debacle behind them, or plunge their fans into existential meltdown on Monday night when they play Everton again. While David Moyes’s side have a quarter-final against Fleetwood that simultaneously looks extremely winnable and losable, last night’s victory was overshadowed by the absence of Jack Grealish, who was dropped for a breach of club discipline.
The on-loan winger is reported to have missed training without explanation on Monday, with one paper reporting his no-show left his manager “incandescent” with rage. It is something I don’t want to speak about too much.” While Moyes was understandably reticent when it comes to discussing the circumstances surrounding his player’s absence from training, assorted pundits haven’t been so coy and have – correctly or incorrectly – linked Everton’s disciplinary action against Grealish with the player’s fabled fondness for a night out on the tiles. Whatever the reason behind his ill discipline, it is fair to say the 31-year-old is in danger of leaving a once great future far behind him and has clearly let his team down.
Here’s hoping that, if required, those values extend to protecting their occasionally wayward own. I have to play football, so in my head I’m not going to give up, but I have to think that if this doesn’t work out, what do I do? I went to a physio in Sweden.
He was able to change my nervous system and then it felt different. When I did the exercises, I said, ‘I don’t have pain, like this hurt yesterday. Why is this not hurting today?’ Then I did the next exercise and said, ‘this is not hurting,’ and I went into the room to my wife.
And I told her, ‘it’s over, we’re going to do this’. From the minute I went into the room, it was better. There was still pain but it was different.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
