Magpies play down player bust-up

Newcastle today attempted to play down a training ground bust-up between team-mates Andy Carroll and Charles N’Zogbia.

The pair clashed at the club’s Darlsey Park training headquarters yesterday as tempers frayed following a challenge.

A club spokesman said: “It was a bit of handbags and an incident that has probably happened at other training grounds up and down the country lots of times before.”

However, sources on Tyneside have suggested the two men had to be separated on several occasions amid a furious exchange.

Carroll, 20, scored his first senior goal for the club in the 2-2 Premier League draw with West Ham on January 10, while 22-year-old Frenchman N’Zogbia has spent the last few weeks yet again agitating for a move away.

While scuffles on training grounds are not unusual, the fall-out between the two men could hardly have come at a worse time with the Magpies engaged in a fight for top-flight survival which would have been unthinkable just a few months ago.