I don't think there are too many Geordies who will be surprised by the injury to Michael Owen.
Annoyed yes, but the pointless trip to Austria and the disaster that went with it was always on the cards.
And if anybody was going to get injured admit it, your gut reaction would have said it would be Owen.
Why?
Because that's what gut reactions do when it comes to our players going away to represent their countries - and it's not like it hasn't happened before.
There's no way Owen would have wanted it to happen of course but it's happened before because our prize asset is also England's star turn.
Ever since Owen crashed to the turf in Germany at the World Cup, nervous energy sweeps the pubs and clubs of Tyneside after THAT knee injury cost Newcastle United the whole of the 2006/07 season and ultimately cost Glenn Roeder his job.
That was at the World Cup though and if you want the world's best players, whether you like it or not, it's the gamble you must take.
This, however, was a friendly with nothing at stake and before Steve McClaren watched Israel do England the favour of all favours.
What on earth was McClaren thinking by risking Owen - who has not long stepped off the treatment table with groin problems - with Croatia just around the corner?
Had Israel lost, then was McClaren - who is already without Wayne Rooney (not that we really care) - prepared to play Owen in TWO pointless games in less than a week?
The answer probably yes which must drive Toon fans up the wall!
It means he'll miss up to six weeks, including the Liverpool game a match that we were all hoping Owen would finally give the Scousers a taste of their own medicine.
Now that the dust has settled only slightly - McClaren is still in a job and according to some sources Big Sam may be the man who replaces him.
Well knock me down with a feather!
First the FA injure our best player by playing him in a kickabout against Austria ahead the most important England game since 1993 (when they failed to qualify for the USA World Cup finals).
And the plan B is, if England don't get the right result against Croatia, is to pinch our manager!
Well let's hope that Mike Ashley and Chris Mort do everything they can to stop them.
They don't have to give them permission to speak to Big Sam.
Even if Big Sam isn't everybody's cup of tea so far, surely it is up to Newcastle United WHEN they decide to change the man in the hotseat and not the FA.
Allardyce might want the job but he did state when he came here it wasn't a stepping stone to the national job.
Big Sam has made a decent start to the job and we have more points than at this time last season even if it has not been spectacular.
And if the truth was to be known Big Sam can be a bigger football legend by staying with Newcastle than he can if he did go to England - who have already snubbed him once in favour of McClaren.
Indeed winning a cup of getting to Newcastle back to the Champion League will earn him more respect in football than success with England and he's got a better chance of success on Tyneside.
Because he'd have to win a World Cup or European Championship to get that and with the national Press on your case after one defeat these days just what chance has anybody got of getting it right in the England dugout?
Not a lot really.
And if the FA don't even look after our players properly, why let them just cherry pick the empire that Mike Ashley is trying to build up at St James's Park whenever it suits them?
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