Who should be our next captain? Vote now!

Fabricio Coloccini

Fabricio Coloccini
Captain Colo?
One of the things that Kevin Nolan will leave behind when he moves to West Ham will be the Newcastle captaincy.

Nolan always said that he was very proud and honoured to wear the armband of our, and so he should be as he joins illustrious company such as Peter Beardsley, Alan Shearer, even going as far back as Bob Moncur. Unfortunately though our captaincy has also had the unfortunate honour of being worn by Michael Owen. As you can see, there are right and wrong choices in terms of picking a captain.

If there is one thing that us NUFC fans are good at it is dealing with catastrophe. We lurch from one thing to the other and have done for years. In fact most of my life we’ve stumbled from one disaster to another. Initially losing Nolan was a disaster, but with recovery mode kicking in I guess we just have to move on.

The appointment of a successor to Kevin Nolan is going to be a very important one. They will need to try and maintain some form of dressing room camaraderie and team spirit amongst the rest of the team aswell as help any new signings bed in and feel comfortable in their surroundings. Granted that kind of thing is more than a one man job, but picking the right ring-leader is fundamental in the continuation of at least some team spirit.

So who would you pick? Who do you think is the right man to take us forward and be the boss on the field of play? I think we already have a couple of potential captains in our squad already, so picking one of them seems to be the logical thing to do.

My first instinct would be to choose Cheik Tiote. He is involved in the middle of the park and there is no doubt that he is passionate about the game and the way that the team are performing. There are severe doubts over his temperament though. I mean is it worth having a captain that is going to miss a quarter of the season through suspension?

How about Fabricio Coloccini? Cool at the back and one of our best performers surely Colo would be an ideal choice? He can see everything that is in front of him and has played at the highest level so has the experience to do the job. My only worry is that he doesn’t seem very vocal on the pitch, but with a captaincy that could change. He’ll lead by example anyway.

Joey Barton would be another choice, although to be fair I’m unsure if he’ll even be here next season or whether his recent outbursts on Twitter will have scuppered those chances. If they have been scuppered the how about Steven Taylor? Knows the club, loves the club, and it would mean a lot to him no doubt, although I’d want to see more performances like the ones he put in at the back end of last season before I’d give him a chance of being captain.

Personally speaking I would much rather give the captaincy to one of our current players over a new face. I don’t think that would happen anyway, but this is Newcastle and you never know! I just think giving it to a current player would maintain some stability in a dressing room that looks to be getting the hatchet treatment.

It’s early days yet of course and there is still some way to go before we need to name the captain, but I would like to see the issue resolved before we start pre-season so that we have at least some sense of direction on the pitch. In fact a better idea may be to give people a trial run in pre-season maybe?

[poll id=”16″]

About toonsy

A lifelong Newcastle fan and current webmaster of this very 'blog who has the sole aim of creating a place by Newcastle United fans, for Newcastle United fans.

50 thoughts on “Who should be our next captain? Vote now!

  1. Got to be Tiote. He’s young, on a long contract and is our best player – no brainer!

      (Quote)

  2. Colo for me – classy, calm, commanding. Tiote will brilliant still too hot headed at the min. Also don’t know how good his english is yet

      (Quote)

  3. If Joey stays I think he should be captain , If he goes Colo should be given the armband

      (Quote)

  4. I used to think Joey ,but not anymore .Anyone who thinks it is right to slag the club off on the childish twitter thing,no matter how right or wrong his opinions are, should get nowhere near the captains armband.

      (Quote)

  5. Be looking forward to hearing pardews spin ..or I mean view…on all of this 😆

      (Quote)

  6. IMO the Captain should have the club in his heart, and been a longtime serving the club, should know all about the club and its history.
    If you look at most teams their Captains are like the above.
    As for Tiote apart from the language problem he cant even control himsel nevermind the other player, yes he is a fine player but captain ?? Not for me.
    Colo another fine player but very quiet.
    Joey has the qualities and wouldn’t let the players heads drop, but I do think he is a marked man.
    IMI that leaves the most obvious player to take the armband, he has been at the club for all his footie life, knows everything about the club and is a loyal servant and fan of the club and knows what makes the fans tick, and to me anyway he is Mr Newcastle and i think he would except it as a real hunour and would grow even more with it? Like him or not Stevie Taylor offers all that.

      (Quote)

  7. @10 Pardew’s opinion on anything to do with transfers and contracts seems to be worthless.

      (Quote)

  8. Colo for me – obvious choice.

    For Barton to be even considered he needs to get rid of Twitter!

      (Quote)

  9. Agree@2 and 5.

    Dave…Taylor would be a good shout too but would like to see how he does with a long run in the team.

      (Quote)

  10. Would love to agree with yoy Big Dave, however is he guarenteed to start. Collo – Willo looked just as impressive as Collo – Saylor

      (Quote)

  11. Admittedly i wouldnt go for any of the above but rather steve harper…. the trouble with him though his although he would be respected he may not even start next year and a captain should really be on the pitch;

    I would prefer it to be an english lad and would like to see saylor get it as it may mature him on the pitch as well as off…..

      (Quote)

  12. leesten very carefooly I shall say zis onlee wonz……they ya go Toonsy, easy 😆

      (Quote)

  13. If I could have put money on who would come out with that I’d have backed you Rich 😛 😆

      (Quote)

  14. I just dont think Saylor has the concentration for it, he can seem too rash at sometimes. Although i agree what your saying about everything else. 😉

    Im with Brisvegas on this one, think Joey should take it. Would never have said that a couple of yrs ago but he seems to have the confidence, influence and determination for it.

    We could give the armband to anyone, it shouldnt soley be down to that person to motivate and organise, the more leaders that cross that white line the better 🙂

      (Quote)

  15. Hugh – Slight problem on a laptop 😕

    I just Googled it but for some reason the page didn’t agree with my browser so I closed it down 😕

      (Quote)

  16. Saylor would be the obvious choice if he were a guaranteed starter, which he would be if he could carry on where he left off last season.

    He just needs to get his head down and put in some graft this summer.

      (Quote)

  17. Got to be Mike Williamson – underrated player who has the capacity to be a team leader.

      (Quote)

  18. Premandup I liked willo from the day we signed him, but for me Saylor offers a lot more to the overall team.
    I really do think Pards thinks of him higher, and from he cameout and said how good Taylor was and that he always thought of Taylor as a future England player, it seems to have made Taylor grow knowing that his manager had faith in him.
    I believe the armband would make him grow even more. 😉

      (Quote)

  19. Ah, then you could use the Windows Character Map and cut & paste (my LT has a numeric keyboard).

    charmap.exe is the program. It’s under Accessories -> System Tools on my Windows 7.

      (Quote)

  20. Toonsy this mean we have a new thread for a french player we signing….?! 😛

      (Quote)

  21. Hugh you ever wanted to join the NUFC.co.uk blog have to say read some of your .org blogs and they are good reading!

      (Quote)

  22. Barton. Whoever it is should speak English at least, and I think Saylor’s been out of it a bit too long. All depends who we bring in, which should also determine who’s guaranteed a game.

      (Quote)

  23. Got to be Colo! Classy, consistent performer who has the fans onside. Pardew has already been on record to say that he is his first name on the team sheet.

    Good to see people seeing a bit more sense over Nolan today, the same fans complaining that we have let him go would be the same fans calling him a mercenary in 2 years time when he’s playing reserve team footaball on £60 000 a week!

    I do worry about the effect in the dressing room tho, however Joey7Barton is going down in my estimations with every tweet!

      (Quote)

  24. agree with Joey7Barton Killymag, he really needs to shut the fk up. It only stirs the **** up for media feeding frenzies. He should leave all that **** inside the club. He’s outspoken and in yer face, natural qualities for a captain, but needs to calm down on a bit on Twitter – it’s unsettling for all.

      (Quote)

  25. I voted Joey…but its hard to be honest-I think if he stayed he’d also be a brilliant deputy under Colo, with Colo keeping the cool head and Barton getting on the backs of players and such. Plus Joey has already had experience of being a captain and I think he’s held himself with dignity. Colo is undoubtedly a quality player but is he captain material? I’m really not sure to be honest, he’s definitely the obvious choice with Barton’s future still undecided. Tiote is a brilliant player, but only a season in and still learning english and the english game, he lacks the sort of nouse Nolan had with dealing with refs and such, and Steven Taylor is yet to nail down his first team spot fully. If he keeps playing like he has then he shouldn’t have anything to worry about, and captaincy could follow in a couple of seasons or so.

      (Quote)

  26. Colo, has to be, most consistent performer over the last 2 seasons and a real professional, i think Barton with his comments over the summer has been the complete opposite of what you’d want from a captain, although his interview yesterday went a small way to redeeming himself in my opinion,as for tiote, think he’s brilliant but we don’t yet know what his yellow card count will be so Colo all the way for me

      (Quote)

  27. Lobacka, yes mate. His Nolan-related disappointment tweet yesterday ended with “me jonas and jose” next. He quickly back-peddled almost immediately getting that quote on Sky Sports. His agent, or NUFC must’ve had a word with him I reckon.

      (Quote)

  28. i think barton if he stays with staylor vice captain or if barton doesn’t stay colo and staylor as vc 🙂

      (Quote)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *