Quote of the day

"I want to stay at this club for a long, long time and, hopefully, because I am still only 23, I can do that. I am loving life, and going to places like Old Trafford is special."

Music to our ears from Tim Krul. It seems he hasn't realised that he could be going to Old Trafford every other week if he was to move to Man Utd - long may his ignorance continue.

Also talking enthusiastically about the club of late is Obertan Kenobi, who experienced life both in Manchester and St James' Park: "I have never experienced anything like this at Newcastle. So many people follow the club and the passion around it. It's unbelievable. All the people wearing the shirts. It is great in a way but sometimes quite hard and we have been lucky with the results so far. It is good – you feel really loved." There was a caveat, though: "But I think it may be difficult when we lose." And, predictably enough, the Frenchman expressed puzzlement about the Geordie dress code: "I don't understand English people. It's freezing and just to look cool they wear T-shirts. I prefer looking really horrible, staying in my car and keeping warm..."

Vive la revolution!

It's fitting, really, that our renaissance should have been inspired and driven by a clutch of players of French provenance (if not nationality). Following on from TBW's identification of our Gallic contingent as a key factor in our expectation-confounding season thus far comes an article from the BBC's Jimmy Smallwood focusing exclusively on our imports from across the Channel.

Admittedly Smallwood's piece is limited in scope, drawing only upon comments from "French football expert" Ben Lyttleton, BBC Radio Newcastle's Mick Lowes and Sir Bobby Robson's mercurial Ginola replacement Laurent Robert (notably, another ex-player talking enthusiastically about his time on Tyneside). It's also true that he somewhat overstates the case - HBA and Sylvain Marveaux have been largely restricted to bit-part roles, Obertan Kenobi has shown only flashes of quality rather than consistency and not one of our impressively parsimonious first-choice back five hails from France. Lowes is guilty too - promising though Mehdi Abeid looks, he's yet to feature for the first team in the Premier League.

However, it surely can't be disputed that Dreamboat plus French speakers Mr T and Demba Ba (the latter born in Paris though representing Senegal internationally) have been central to our brilliant start, contributing intelligent midfield craft, energetic defensive protection and goals respectively to the cause. They've been instrumental in making us tough, resilient and hard to beat - far from Groundskeeper Willie's "cheese-eating surrender monkeys".

It's early days yet, though, so Lowes is a bit premature in hailing the Gallic recruits as an unqualified success. We can't really judge until at least halfway through the season - and certainly not until we've at least got the next three difficult assignments out of the way.

One out, one in

Something I forgot to mention in this morning's post about the Obertan signing - was anyone else intrigued by Alan Pardew's comment? "I contacted Sir Alex Ferguson about him early at the start of the summer to see if there was an opportunity to bring him to Newcastle but it wasn't until Wayne Routledge joined Swansea that we were able to bring him in".

This might explain why Pardew happened to be on the blower to Taggart to benefit from his advice on dealing with Twitter, but more significantly it begs another more significant question: why exactly did Routledge have to be sold before Obertan could be signed? Pardew has said repeatedly that he's desperate for reinforcements - but has Jabba imposed limitations on the size of the squad available to the manager? Surely it can't be that we needed the transfer fee and/or the freeing up of wages to complete the deal - that would just once again invite speculation as to where the £39m (in fees alone) from the sales of Rocky and Kevin Nolan has disappeared to...

Bienvenue encore une fois

After the drought of July, yet another French-born arrival in the form of Gabriel Obertan. Commenters on my earlier post on our new signing were critical of my negative verdict, and so I should point out again that it was based on my own personal experience of watching the Frenchman's admittedly fleeting performances for Man Utd.

Alan Pardew may have a point in highlighting Obertan's pace and versatility in being able to play on either flank or up front, and while the reaction from Red Devils' fans to the sale seems mixed, the fact that a player might not be deemed good enough for the champions certainly doesn't rule him out of being good enough for us. I'd be delighted if I'm left eating my initial words followed up with a big slice of humble pie.

And yet there's a new concern: the length of the contract we've given Obertan. Presumably the thinking behind tying him to a five-year deal is to defer any contract negotiations (and potential salary increases) as long as possible. But it's a double-edged sword, depending as it does upon him being a hit - if he's a flop, then we'll be saddled with a player who might be content to sit on the sidelines picking up his weekly wages rather than seeking out a new club who would pay him less. Added reason to hope it works out well for us, then...

As for who's next, the conclusion of our search for a new striker may be no nearer, but we can be sure the lucky man won't be Shane Long, the Reading striker having signed for West Brom today.

Meanwhile, ASBO's back training with first team squad - this might suggest that his little chat with Pardew (and, presumably, Jabba and Llambiarse) has taken place, but I'm not sure.