Jonas Gutierrez

[Dr Gloom 21924]

I'd prefer an out of form jonas to obertan tbh

[JawD 99]

I agree Aeirs. Now blow my horn biatch.

 

I think that's a given isn't it?

[Lake Bells tits 1]

I'd prefer an out of form jonas to obertan tbh

 

same.

[DubiousBobcat 0]

same.

 

Why would you prefer an out of form player who doesn't even look close to being dangerous to one that has looked dangerous the last few times he has come on?

[OTF 7295]

 

 

Why would you prefer an out of form player who doesn't even look close to being dangerous to one that has looked dangerous the last few times he has come on?

 

Unfair to judge one player on a 20 minute cameo against a tired defense and another who was out there from the start getting no help from an unbalance formation.

 

I do agree though that changing it up to refresh Jonas looks like it would be a good idea and Obertan is the next best option we have for playing out wide.

 

I'm not sure the reason why, but previously Jonas was reluctant to put crosses in, probably because he knows he's not good at it and yet now he seems to only want to send in crosses to the point where it is utterly predictable. Some balance there is required. I think he's at his best driving forward making short sharp passes utilising an overlapping fullback and an attacking inside option.

 

I'd like to see the possession stats for our left side versus right and centre from the first half against QPR.

[Christmas Tree 4725]

Over loyalty to players is stupid. Its a squad game and the manager should be picking the players in form.

 

Obviously I am not a Jonas fan, but Pardew has recently gone on quite a bit about what a poor season he is having. His answer is to suggest making him more of an attacker again, even though his most loyal supporters realise that is not his strong point.

 

Its a squad game and after 5 months of poor displays its time for a change. (For the players sake as well as the teams).

[Gejon 2]

I would actually prefer Obertan at the moment, that would no doubt change after 60 minutes of his first start but absence does make the heart grow fonder, especially when the player he would replace is doing nothing.

[OTF 7295]

Over loyalty to players is stupid. Its a squad game and the manager should be picking the players in form.

 

Obviously I am not a Jonas fan, but Pardew has recently gone on quite a bit about what a poor season he is having. His answer is to suggest making him more of an attacker again, even though his most loyal supporters realise that is not his strong point.

 

Its a squad game and after 5 months of poor displays its time for a change. (For the players sake as well as the teams).

 

He hasn't had 5 months of poor displays to be fair. I think just one or two matches out could revitalise him, particularly if Ben Arfa is back when he returns, but all said and done we will miss aspects of his game even now when he's far from his best as we're far from spoilt for choice.

[Happy Face 29]

In a corner of Newcastle United's training ground canteen four players sit playing cards, seemingly oblivious to the world around them. For Jonás Gutiérrez, Fabricio Coloccini, Xisco and Davide Santon shuffling, dealing and trumping forms a regular post-lunch ritual, a chance to temporarily forget about the team's poor form and share a few jokes in Spanish.

 

"Davide's Italian but our languages are not so different and we understand each other," says Gutiérrez in near flawless English. "It's not like French – we have a lot of French speakers in our dressing room but I don't really understand a word. It doesn't matter though because I talk to most of the lads in English – except Xisco; he only speaks Spanish."

 

With Alan Pardew's squad containing 11 different nationalities Newcastle are nothing if not diverse but Gutiérrez, after playing under five managers on Tyneside, believes the club can rarely have been more united. "Alan Pardew has found a really good group of players who all want to do very well for the team," says the left-sided Argentina midfielder. "It's a difficult season, we're conceding goals we kept out last year, but we're all still working very hard.

 

"Last season we were lucky with injuries and suspensions. This year we've been unlucky and we now know it is the hardest thing to play well in the Europa League and the Premier League. But we have to start winning. Otherwise there's going to be too much pressure; we have to start climbing the table and then we can still finish quite high in the spring."

 

With the Boxing Day trip to Manchester United looming we are sitting in Pardew's "Strategy Room". Equipped with whiteboard, projector, various hi-tech toys and rows of chairs it is the place where players absorb tactical theory and analyse how best to deconstruct opponents. Such rigour has not always characterised Newcastle's preparations. Much as Gutiérrez adored playing for Kevin Keegan, the manager who brought him to England from Real Mallorca in 2008, pre-match analysis was less meticulous back then, and the freedom players were afforded hardly promoted bonding.

 

Today little at Newcastle is laissez-faire or off the cuff. The squad chat over excellent meals provided by the club's head chef, Liz Hornsby, who makes everybody feel at home thanks to frequent international food days including west and north African, Australian, Italian and, of course, Argentinian. "Liz's cooking is very, very good," enthuses Gutiérrez, who appreciates the fact that the team's communal lunches and breakfasts enable everyone, even the long-term injured and those well beyond the first-team fringes such as Xisco, to chat. "In the past, if someone was injured you maybe didn't see them for weeks," he says. "Now it's different. Everyone's so friendly and it's good to learn all about the different cultures here."

 

Not that he will have a word said against Keegan. "Kevin was a really funny guy," he says. "Always smiling, always wanting to play good football, to create the right feelings. We loved playing for him; he always wanted to play the right type of football."

 

When Keegan departed – after Dennis Wise, Newcastle's then director of football, signed Xisco behind his back – Joe Kinnear, or JFK as the expletive-loving former Wimbledon manager was known to local journalists, arrived. "It was a bit of a shock," says Gutiérrez, diplomatically. "But then he had a heart problem and had to leave so it turned into a small experience."

 

Whereas the winger had been told by Keegan he could be "the new David Ginola", Alan Shearer's brief period in charge before Newcastle's relegation in 2009 came suffused with criticism of Gutiérrez's crossing. "The moment wasn't the best," he concedes. "We didn't have a relationship – there wasn't enough time to get to know each other."

 

Gutiérrez blossomed under Chris Hughton, excelling in the side who stormed straight back up from the Championship, and cannot praise the current Norwich manager enough. "I really enjoyed my time with Chris. Chris is a really good person. We have to thank Chris and Colin [Hughton's assistant Colin Calderwood] for Newcastle being a very different, much better, club than the one I joined. They were very important."

 

Gutiérrez has recently been told by Pardew that he needs to rediscover the "je ne sais quoi" which made him one of Newcastle's outstanding individuals as they finished fifth last spring, and has been warned that the manager expects his faith to "be repaid". "I play most of my best games on the left wing but because of the injuries we've had this season I've had to be more in the middle of midfield and it's been harder," he says. "But in some ways Alan Pardew is a bit like Diego Maradona. They are different people but they are both passionate for football. They have a real thing for it; they think about it in the same way."

 

The highlight of Gutiérrez's international career came before and during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa when Maradona, Argentina's then manager, spoke of having "Messi, Mascherano, Jonás and eight others". The memory is guaranteed to make the man known as El Galgo – the Greyhound – smile. "It was something wonderful, those words from Maradona," he says. "It was a good time for me."

 

The great maverick certainly did Newcastle a favour in 2009. "Maradona told me he would still pick me even though I was playing in the Championship," says Gutiérrez. "He told me he didn't care and that gave me the confidence to stay after we were relegated. If Maradona had wanted me playing at a different level I'd have left."

 

It would have been quite a wrench to have said goodbye to his compatriot Coloccini. "He's our captain, our leader and all the players respect him," says Gutiérrez. "Colo and I have everything in common and we do everything together. The only problem is he doesn't allow me to beat him at cards – he has to win – but I have better hair than him; different, darker and much straighter but better, I think."

 

The two Argentinians are routinely the first to arrive for morning training and take time to make a few cups of yerba mate or South American green tea, putting the world to right between sips. It is safe to assume one regularly raked-over topic of conversation will be ways of reducing the substantially increased percentage of optimistic long balls which have reflected Newcastle's recent struggles. Such hit and hope tactics last week proved the subject of a moan in the French press from Demba Ba, an influential dressing-room voice, and you sense Gutiérrez sympathises.

 

"Last year we found a really good type of football but now we are not finding the same," acknowledges the Argentinian. "The injuries to people like Yohan Cabaye and Hatem Ben Arfa make it hard; when the team keeps changing it's difficult to keep standards high. We want to play on the floor, to pass and move, pass and move. I want our fans to say, 'Oh that's really good'. I know I really enjoy watching good footballing teams like Swansea and West Brom and Arsenal."

 

The phrase "really enjoy" punctuates Gutiérrez's sentences. He "really enjoys" regular chats with Sunderland's Jack Colback, a near neighbour in the Newcastle suburb of Kingston Park, and feels exactly the same about the "people, restaurants and shopping" of his adopted city. "I love Newcastle," he enthuses. "It's different. It's a unique city."

 

It is also an awfully long way from Sáenz Peña, the small town near Buenos Aires where Gutiérrez grew up, but his willingness to immerse himself in a new culture perhaps explains why his Premier League career has endured whereas those of several other South Americans imports floundered on Tyneside in recent years.

 

Daniel Cordone, Christian Bassedas, Clarence Acuña, Diego Gavilán and Fumaça disappeared swiftly, almost without trace. "Sometimes it's luck," says Gutiérrez. "Look at Marcos Angeleri. He was at Sunderland until last summer but couldn't find a place in the team. I know Marcos very well, I've played with him for Argentina and I was sure he had the quality to do well in England. I was very surprised it didn't work out but you've got to be at the right club at the right time."

 

A bit like El Galgo and Newcastle.

 

Louise Taylor there doing her best to make Keegan look a twat without a siongle quote from Gutierrez to back it up.

 

Slag.

[The Fish 10857]

Enjoyed reading that, cheers.

 

[Asprilla 96]

in some ways Alan Pardew is a bit like Diego Maradona

 

 

[Happy Face 29]

Course.

 

They both love the ladies and a line of toot.

[Asprilla 96]

and who can blame them?

[Monroe Transfer 0]

Didn't think he'd be bessie mates with Jack Colback of all people.

[Lake Bells tits 1]

Didn't think he'd be bessie mates with Jack Colback of all people.

 

Why not?

[The Fish 10857]

In a

[Lake Bells tits 1]

Are you leaving small hansel&Gretel breadcrumbs across threads for me to put together sentences Fish? I like it, like a easter egg hunt.

[Monkeys Fist 42449]

[Gene_Clark 12]

Didn't think he'd be bessie mates with Jack Colback of all people.

 

His brother Callum was a great player for Percy Main

[Monroe Transfer 0]

Jonas has a brother called Callum?

[Gene_Clark 12]

Jonas has a brother called Callum?

 

Jonas has a brother called Jonas

[Monkeys Fist 42449]

And a sister called

[Monroe Transfer 0]

Isn't that just Jonas in drag?

[Brock Manson 0]

She keep a spiderman mask in her undercrackers?

[Monkeys Fist 42449]

She keep a spiderman mask in her undercrackers?

Funnel web?