Christmas is considered to be the business end in football and serves as kind of a benchmark to monitor and reflect on the team’s progress in the season thus far and if the results at the turn of festive periods are not satisfactory then there are some shocks
and surprises.
Newcastle manager Chris Hughton had been under pressure for several months now as his team have continued to be inconsistent on the football pitch and with results not going in their favour recently the Newcastle board of directors decided to relieve the
manager of his services.
The club skipper Kevin Nolan has confessed that all the players are in shock regarding the dismissal of their manager but at the same time he has insisted that the squad needs to stick together in these dire times.
The decision to sack the manager was taken by club owner Mike Ashley after Newcastle suffered yet another defeat at the weekend and as a result are stuck at the 11th position in the EPL table.
Although the club has named Peter Beardsley to be the interim coach of the first team on temporary basis but soon a permanent replacement will be announced.
The front runners for the job are the former West Ham boss Alan Padrew and Ajax’s Martin Jol who also just vacated his job in Netherlands.
The players and the fans have thanked Chris Hughton for all his good work with the team and have said that they are deeply indebted to the man for his efforts with the team and thank him for guiding Newcastle back to the Premiership just one season after
they were relegated at the end of last season.
Martin Jol who is the speculated to be the leading man to land this job was also just recently sacked by his club in the Netherlands but his sacking has been described by the club as a decision that was reached through mutual consent.
Ajax are currently lying 5th in the Dutch Eredevisie table and trail the runaway league leaders, PSV Eindhoven by 5 points at midway through the season,
Martin Jol only took charge of the Godenzonen last year and in recent times has complained that the expectations from him and his team by the fans were too high and he was finding the going very hard.
Ajax had been the best side in the Dutch League in recent seasons but have fallen off the pace in the last two or three years and Jol was brought in to restore the glory days back to the club but after a season and a half in charge of the team his performances
was deemed to be unsatisfactory and the man was relieved of his services yesterday.
Meanwhile in Jol’s absence, Ajax have announced that former Dutch midfielder and Captain Frank De Boer will be taking charge of the Amsterdam club on interim basis with a permanent replacement to be announced soon.
Ajax only missed out on the league title last year b one points when Steve Mclaren’s FC Twente surprised everyone by winning the league but Jol was allowed to continue as the margin of defeat was very thin and Ajax had been very impressive through out the
season notching up a staggering +86 goal difference in the league but in the end their defeat at the hands of eventual winners proved to be their undoing as Twente lifted the title.
This season Ajax have been off the pace since the restart and even in the Champions League their hopes of qualification into the next round is very doubtful as they were paired in the same group as AC Milan and Real Madrid and after suffering defeats against
Madrid and Milan they have found their qualification hopes all but vanish.
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