Black and white and red all over

HARD to know why such a loyal servant as Shay Given should be on the way out of his beloved Newcastle.

Dull, unimaginative, matter-of-fact types will point to a struggling team, a struggling manager, an owner nobody likes and a club nobody wants to buy. So what’s new, eh? There must have been a straw which finally broke the steadfast Donegal man’s back and my guess is that, out on the training ground one day, Joe Kinnear probably called him “Che”.

To the surprise of no-one, Tyneside has been the scene of the most comical war of words of the season so far, with Charles N’Zogbia insisting he will never play for Kinnear again after the gaffer apparently mispronounced his name in a post-match interview at Manchester City. To the player’s burning ears, Kinnear had referred to him as “insomnia” but the manager insisted it was all a misunderstanding. “I got a little tongue-tied,” said the former Irish international, adding to his stock of memorable quotes, “but if I had a pound for every time I’ve mispronounced a player’s name, I’d be a very wealthy man indeed.”