Newcastle United’s Top 5 Premier League Flops

Newcastle United will be playing Championship football next year for 3 reasons :
1. Managers have come and left too frequently over the last couple of years,
2. Newcastle have an owner who doesn’t have a clue about running a football club as gigantic as Newcastle.
3. Newcastle have players who just lack quality.
We will look at 5 players that have been bought by Newcastle that have contributed to the clubs downfall. Let’s start with the most severe.
1. Titus Bramble
When do you know you have a terrible player in your team? Having a flash of fear play into your head whenever his name is read out just before a game. While he has improved this season, Bramble often gave a series of comedic defensive performances when he put on the Newcastle shirt, signed for just under £5 million, Bramble, along with Jean-Alain Boumsong were meant to form a lethal defensive combination for Newcastle. There is even a video dedicated to Bramble’s best blunders, as shown below. Makes you wonder – what did Sir Bobby Robson see in Bramble when he bought him from Ipswich? From concentration lapses, to lethal own goals, when Bramble had a bad day, you knew Newcastle were doomed.

2. Jean-Alain Boumsong
If ever a player failed to settle into the Premier League, it would be Jean-Alain Boumsong, currently playing for Lyon and before playing for Newcastle had spent a season in Scotland (at Rangers), this man had some experience, after a couple of promising performances the Toon army thought they had a real player in their ranks, how wrong they would be. They should have seen the future when Boumsong made 2 errors in a league match against Manchester United. Boumsong had difficulties dealing with balls over the top and often had no idea where his touch would lead the ball, often his concentration would be related to the level of a small child, and combined with Titus Bramble, Newcastle’s defensive game at times was a joke.

3. Hugo Viana
Viana, before joining Newcastle showed huge signs of talent, a real Portuguese star in the making, he couldn’t settle into Newcastle’s first team and 12 million Euros went down the drain, unlike Boumsong and Bramble however, Viana did show some signs of promise, enlisted in the video below.

4. Albert Luque
A minority will remember him, none of these minority will want to remember him, Luque had performed very well for Deportivo La Coruna before being purchased for £9.5 million by Newcastle, Luque quickly picked up a hamstring injury in a match against Fulham and after spending a long time battling the injury, only scored 1 league goal for Newcastle.

5. Carl Cort
Bought for £7 million, Cort a large striker made a good impression in his first couple of games, just like what happened to Luque – Cort suffered an onslaught of injuries (the first being a hamstring, just like Luque’s) and was never the same player that Newcastle dished out £7 million on. He is currently a free player after being released by Norwich City.