Words of warning for Ranger, again!

Alan Pardew has given a further warning to Nile Ranger over the strikers Newcastle United future.

Ranger is widely known to be a bit of an idiot and has been warned many times over his conduct and punctuality by both Chris Hughton and Alan Pardew, both in public and behind closed doors. Neither option appears to be working as desired though according to Pardew, who gave quite a long interview to the Sunday Sun about the 19-year-old striker.

I think we all know that Ranger is a talent, and I think that when compared to Andy Carroll at a similar age that Nile is the greater talent. He certainly has more to his game than Carroll did at 19 years old in my opinion. If the attitude doesn't change though it won't mean anything and Ranger will end up on the scrapheap before he has even made it.

Being on time for work is something that we all have to do every day when we go to work. Granted there is the odd occasion where being late can't be helped, but if it is a frequent occurrence then I would expect to be pulled up on it and given a rollicking. Ranger, who is in a far more fortunate position than many of us, would do well to remember that.

“We see him day-in and day-out, and I said from day one he needs to sort himself out as a professional footballer," Pardew told the Sunday Sun. “He’s always on the cusp of being late – we’ve stopped him from being late but he’s always on the cusp."

“We’ve only improved him five per cent on that factor. If we had improved him to 50% and he was here early and preparing himself – and the other players see him preparing himself – and when he trains he’s here on time to warm up and he’s doing the right things, then the other players will start to buy into him."

“At the moment the other players are looking at him and thinking ‘You’re a young boy, you need to learn’. And he does. And that is reflected in his game. He’s had big opportunities for us, but to be fair they are opportunities he’s created for himself. And that is the point – he has got talent. We’ve got to just try and eke it out of him. It’s not going to be overnight, but it’s coming. He’s getting better.”

Pardew was also keen to rubbish Ranger's poor upbringing and quite rightly pointed out that Ranger is not the only person to have come from a troubled area. He continued:

"I still have young players here who I haven’t got a problem with who are on time, who are professional and have similar backgrounds to Nile. So I’m not accepting that – I’m not accepting it from Nile, I’m not accepting it from any young player."

“There are certain strategic things at a football club that need to be done. You need to practise on your weaknesses, the senior players need to see that. “Then they’ll buy into you, then they’ll ‘have’ you.”

The underlying tone from Pardew is that Ranger has enough to be a regular starter for Newcastle United in the future. He has had chances this season, and has impressed in his cameo appearances from the bench, but if his attitude doesn't improve then that is all he will ever manage.

It's time for Ranger to grow up and realise that he is paid a lot of money to do something that many of us would willingly do for free. Once he gets a grasp of that then he can hopefully move on and improve both as a player and a person.

We'll see whether he can or not of course, but the amount of stories that we have heard about Ranger's conduct is starting to get more and more worrying. Instead of getting twatty tattoo's on the inside of his lip he should focus on his actual job first and foremost.

All in my opinion of course.....