Happy Birthday Gabriel Obertan!

Today is Gabriel Obertan’s 27th birthday, so lets put aside our frustrations with the man and wish him all the best! Whilst he has our attention, lets take a little stroll down memory lane with the Frenchman.

Born in Pantin, France – a young Obertan would become a product of the much celebrtaed Clairefontaine academy – which has produced the likes of former Toon players Hatem Ben Arfa, Sabasten Bassong, Louis Saha and Thierry Henry. Yeah we wish… He continued his schooling of excellence within the Paris-Saint Germain set up before making his mark at Bordeaux from 2006 to 2009. This period included a short loan at Lorient before his searing pace caught the attention of none other than Sir Alex Ferguson and Manchester United, whom Gabby turned out for between 2009 and 2011. His career did not take off at the higher echelon of football and that is when he found his way to us.

Alan Pardew’s Newcastle United saw something in Obertan at Premier League level that Manchester United did not – and promptly shelled out somewhere in the region of £3m for the French flyer. It took him 5 months to register his first Toon goal – in February 2012 – latching onto a Peter Lovenkrands ball and firing home during a 2-o victory over Blackburn Rovers. It would take Obertan 3 years in total to register a goal at St. James’ Park – scoring on October 18, 2014 with the winner against Leicester City F.C.

Gabby represented France at all youth levels, but could never make the jump to the senior side. This will be explained by a number of factors – such as an extensive history of injuries involving his hamstrings and more importantly his lack of footballing intelligence. It has been a frustrating time for Gabby here at the Toon. He has such raw pace whilst his work ethic and professionalism has never been in doubt. The sad truth is, he is just not cut out for it at this level. His indecisiveness means he appears to get himself into good positions when running with the ball – but when it comes to releasing it – the ball will find itself more often than than not flying wide of the target or failing to reach a teammate in goal scoring position.

Here is an example of one of Obertan’s best moments for Newcastle United;

Unfortunately, this example from his Manchester United days should have been all Alan Pardew needed to know before deciding whether to sign him or not;

Gabriel Obertan has represented out club 77 times, scoring 3 goals and registering 10 assists in about 4-and-a-half years. That’s roughly 17 appearances a season, mostly from the bench – in which he has directly contributed just shy of 3 goals a season. It’s fair to say it’s not worked out here at the Toon and with his contract running down this summer – we will be waving ‘Au Revoir’. In the meantime though, lets just simply wish the man best wishes on his birthday.

About Shamrock

Like everyone here, support Newcastle United. Not the easiest side to feel good about at times, but it's our side!

248 thoughts on “Happy Birthday Gabriel Obertan!

  1. Just once, just once talk about football. Not Aussie football (soccer), not the fantasy football stuff. Just football. NUFC. McClaren. Shearer. Beardsley. Anything. Just once, just once mates.

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  2. You can’t though. You will come back with a pathetic retort like you always do. Just talk about NUFC for once mates, I haven’t seen either of you do it in about 6 months. it is always fantasy football tripe and a few digs at people.

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  3. Wow, top of the table clash in the fantasy league.I am predicting a draw as Newkie and Vegas pretty much have the same team!

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  4. Gashley@58, I do hope Taylor hasn’t taken it on the chin mate, he’ll be out for the season if he has 😉

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  5. Talk about football. It is a football blog. I will get back to football soon, I just have to get this off my chest mates. TALK ABOUT FOOTBALL.

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  6. Eric, exactly, tempting fate with those comments. I see we aren’t on TV once after march 🙁 we are obviously not much of a pull anymore, like a faded filmstar living on how we used to look. You could liken us and Scum to Bette Davis and Joan Crawford In the movie, what ever happened to baby Jane 😀

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  7. Looks like we might lose young Aaron’s if the club don’t get there finger out and offer him a contract,if I was Aaron’s I would keep my powder dry until season end to see where we are

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  8. The Chronicle keep on saying he might leave. They haven’t got a clue. One writer says something one day and another says something different the next.

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  9. ERIC don’t know about that mate,it seems he free to talk in the summer,Milan,juva,the gunners looking to sign him up

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  10. The press seem to be forgetting the automatic one year option we have on Aarons contract.

    I certainly hope they get him tied down but can see where the club are coming from considering his injury record & what happened with Ranger, Vukic, Bigi, Ferguson ETC. when they were given long term contracts

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  11. The lads only just gotten fit again and played a couple of games and we are reading silly stuff about Arsenal and the like. Don’t believe a word of it, he has good potential but is injury prone at present. Let’s see a good season out of him before his agent starts touting him around. He was always a level headed young man when down south, people I know that knew him always said he was just wanting to play football and not money driven. These bloody agents poison every player they touch imo.

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  12. Fkin Aussies never see the irony of saying whinging poms, I have travelled all over and the Aussies are the worst. I would tell you about it but I don’t want to talk to them about it.

    Last trip, I did meet a nice Aus. Fckn first one.

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  13. Years ago I went to Egypt and the Aus lot tried to get the tour guide sacked. He did nothing wrong, but their constant moaning to each other was enough to make them think he should be sacked.

    Anyway, they had a “conference” and decided he should be sacked. My wife and I had another conference and said he shouldn’t be sacked because the Aus contingent were just being c@nts.

    He wasn’t sacked.

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  14. West Ham 2 Scum 1
    Leicester 3 Norwich 0
    Southampton 1 Chelsea 1
    Stoke 3 Villa 0
    Watford 2 Bourenmouth 1
    WBA 0 Palace 0

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  15. I remember it like it was yesterday. Nasty, nasty Aus people trying to get a man fired for doing a great job. I have met many of the Aus and their cunture is that they think they need to travel and broaden their horizons. Most of them should stay at home. At least the ones that travelled to Egypt and Munich.

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  16. ERIC I lived in Aussie for quite a while,NSW,Queensland and lived on a island with my brother for a year,what I found is they are very rude and the worse sportsmen you will ever meet,once in a bar watching a test match because the Aussies were getting beat they switched it off and turned it round to face the other way,the Boxing Fed refuse to hold championship bouts there saying you have to knock the guy out to get a draw if your fighting a Aussie,I found it very hard when coaching the kids putting all sorts of **** in my way I was just a bloody Pom (still beat them) of all the people I came in contact with maybe three guys were sound two of those were Kiwi,apart from the footy not a great time had

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  17. First it’s Adam Johnson now it’s Aussie bashing

    All I am saying is “Give us a game” for Gods sake.
    See Mitro’s back in training 🙂

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  18. GEORGIO that’s good news mate as they are talking about playing Perez up top on his own in other words no change to the tactics that worked so well against Everton didn’t it,ffs

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  19. think big Andy is back for the Hammers ❓ if so hoping he does his hometown a massive favour today and puts a couple in the net.

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  20. Georgio: I am telling you they tried to get the guy fired for no reason. I admire their cricket and especially Shane Warne and Don Bradman but they know nothing about football 🙂 And those shorts 🙂

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  21. Ha, at least Aussies don’t punch fuken horses whilst rioting after a loss.. shall we talk about all the upstanding English sportsmanship over the years.. lets not eh… 😕

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  22. RICHIE can I put my money on that forecast? think you could be off on the palace one like,WBA will be dragged into the scrap at the bottom after this game

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  23. Ice…Just if you can afford to lose it 😆
    To be honest the West Brom one is the one I have doubts with, I actually have it as WBA 1 Palace 2 in the predictor league I’m in.

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  24. I telt ya man, AMF: i have the greatest respect for many Aus “footballers” : Shane Mctee, Shane McPoof, Arlene Shane-McTee all come to mind mate.

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  25. RICHIE cannot afford to lose,if I was a pound behind you I would be in the slammer, your palace forecast 1-2 looks a lot better

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  26. Doing well mate.. lost the other night after 5 straight wins.. how’s things with you? Its been a while!

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  27. I thought scum would get something from this game,w/h pushing for 5th if they win this one,let’s hope they do

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  28. You should tell Eric, he loves to hear how it’s going over there 😆

    Things are good, just couldn’t be arsed really, no point going somewhere if you’re not enjoying it right? Like I said the other day anyway this place is like Coronation Street or Neighbours, you can give it a miss for months then go back and it’s the same faces repeating the same lines 😆

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  29. Gotta hand it to Big Sam.. he gets **** teams to give it there all.. I think he has too much of a task with this lot.. saying that, we can’t feckin beat them..

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