What's the French for "clique"?

Confirmation of the Francophone clique within the Newcastle squad: fast forward to about 16:30 and you'll find footage of Dreamboat, HBA, Demba Ba, Sylvain Marveaux, Mehdi Abeid and Romain Amalfitano enjoying a meal and lively game of cards. Speaking French is something the Silver Fox has apparently tried to discourage on the training ground, but the sight of Ba, HBA and Dreamboat on friendly terms and enjoying each other's company can only be good for the cohesion of the team. That said, fellow Francophone player Papiss Cisse is nowhere to be seen...

The footage is part of a twenty-minute Canal+ piece on Dreamboat, which also features the Silver Fox and Mathieu Debuchy - probably primarily of interest to those who can speak French, but it does show Dreamboat working with his personal trainer in his back garden, in his gym and on the beach (presumably on top of the team training sessions held in the mornings).

A model professional, and one we could definitely do with being fit for the visits of Bordeaux and Man Utd - perhaps he might be able to reprise his goalscoring feats against the latter...

Smudger signs on for Dons

There surely can't have been many people who've gone to Milton Keynes and declared "I've come to the perfect place" - but those were the exact words of Alan Smith, who has sealed a permanent move to the MK Dons following his release by Newcastle. The goalshy striker/lumbering midfielder spent the second half of last season on loan in Buckinghamshire, coming close to helping the club into the Championships via the play-offs.

During his time on Tyneside, Smith never really came close to living up to his price tag or reputation, and his departure hardly gives cause for tears to be shed. True, he was instrumental in the dressing-room revolution that turned the club around post-demotion - but ultimately paying him £60,000 a week to be our "head cheerleader" was more than a bit excessive given the newly instilled culture of fiscal prudence. Smith was markedly better during our one-season sojourn in the Championship than he ever was in the top flight, so League One may well prove to be more his level.

Meanwhile, John Carver has been talking enthusiastically about the returns to fitness of Saylor and Sylvain Marveaux, claiming it'll be like having "two new players". Understandably, though, he stressed the importance of remaining cautious and protective of Saylor in particular - we've rushed him back into action before and it's ended badly.

One reason that Saylor is "itching" to get back into action, no doubt, is fear that the competition in his position is about to hot up. The Silver Fox, who already has Mike Williamson at his disposal, has been talking about recruiting another option to partner Sideshow Bob, with FC Twente's Douglas still the most likely candidate. Watford's Adrian Mariappa, the subject of several failed bids in January, has now been linked with Wigan, so that particular ship might be about to sail.

Haris hits the Taff trail

With the loan window reopening for Football League clubs last week, Cardiff were quick to bolster their squad with the addition of Haris Vuckic, who's signed up for a month-long loan.

It's been a bit of an odd season for the Slovenian. The Silver Fox handed him an early Christmas present against West Brom in December, somewhat unexpectedly giving him the nod over Mehdi Abeid in the absence of Dreamboat, Danny Guthrie and Dan Gosling. We lost, but he was the pick of our players, only to find himself dropped for the Boxing Day trip to the Reebok. Back in the starting line-up at Anfield, he was anonymous and hasn't been seen in the first team since.

This loan will give Vuckic an opportunity to get some games under his belt, hopefully in his preferred position in central midfield. The display against the Baggies suggested he'll have plenty to offer the Welsh side, who are once again pushing for promotion to the Premier League but suffered a setback last weekend, throwing away a lead in a home defeat to Blackpool.

Meanwhile, fellow midfielder Sylvain Marveaux has conceded that his season may already be over, curtailed by the groin strain he picked up against Everton in November - his first and, to date, only Premier League start for the club. We knew we were signing a player with a track record of injuries, but sadly it seems as though the gamble may not be paying off with Marveaux, even if it's doing so spectacularly with Demba Ba. You win some, you lose some - but, as Marveaux mentioned in the interview, he's still got four years left on his contract. We may rue making such a long-term commitment.

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.

New boys

Perusing Twitter over the weekend, I noticed a couple of articles concerning two of our new acquisitions which I thought were interesting.

The first deals with our new target man Demba Ba, with whoscored.com applying an interesting statistical analysis to his time at West Ham, and comparing it to Messrs Nolan and Rocky, whose goals he will be required to replace next season. Pleasingly, at least in mathematical terms, it looks like we've picked up a decent replacement.

The second is courtesy of Football First. Then Life. which gives a good account of our new left winger (albeit written at a time when the author thought he was off to Merseyside). Heartening to note we look to have added some pace to our attack, albeit slightly injury-prone pace. Hopefully Marveaux will prove to be adept at providing the ammunition for Ba, Big Lad and co, rather than simply being a French Wayne Routledge.

Both links courtesy of @gibfootballshow

Alan's Marveaux medicine

First Yohan Cabaye, then Mehdi Abeid, then Demba Ba and now Rennes' left-sided midfielder Sylvain Marveaux. Perhaps we should just build our own Channel Tunnel?

Like Ba, Marveaux has been snaffled on a free transfer but arrives with a bit of a question mark hanging over his fitness. He's reacted angrily to reports that a move to Liverpool broke down due to failing a medical, instead citing disagreement over terms, but does have a history of thigh and groin problems which have needed surgical intervention.

Marveaux spent most of last season sidelined through injury, but the previous campaign he contributed an impressive 12 goals in 38 appearances and also supplied much of the ammunition for now-Mackem striker Asamoah Gyan.

Reacting to the signing, Alan Pardew claimed: "It's been a good couple of days for us on the transfer front." Roughly translated: who's this Kevin Nolan fella you lot keep bleating on about? According to a source blabbing away in today's News Of The Screws, Nolan "feels let down and ... furious with his former manager. Kev expected him to try harder to keep him at the club during contract talks". I think it's fairly clear who was calling the shots in the negotiations, though - and it wasn't Pardew. Just as with the sale of Rocky, Iron Mike demonstrated a willingness to ride roughshod over the wishes of his manager. Pardew could have pleaded for Nolan's retention all he wanted, but it wouldn't have made a difference.