FC Groningen

Yes, OK, they lost at Fortuna last time out in the league.

Lost 4-0 at Heard and Vane, 5-1 at home to Groningen.

Before that, though, a draw with Ajax, a draw with NEC.

And they did win in the Cup midweek, a 3-0 win at MVV.

While for Telstar, I think they will keep struggling, but I believe they will survive this season too.

Let's go to our final game of the weekend.

FC Groningen lost 3-2 at home to Sparta Rotterdam.

Not one that I had in my bingo card for this weekend.

So now I think he will be under so much pressure next match.

He's going to face Ajax away, and then he's going to face Juventus in the Europa League, and then he's going to face Groningen, which is not going to be an easy match.

So if he fails to win these three matches, at least two of them, the pressure might accumulate, might be rising.

I cannot really find one reason why AZ did not beat Kambour.

They have 11 points now.

And yeah, I just hope for the best for them.

While for Groningen, they have a very good season so far.

They are the eighth.

Um, needless to say, he has really transformed himself, um, since then.

Augsburg sent him initially out on loan to Groningen and, uh, in the Eredivisie, and then sold him to PSV for €11 million after making them, uh, after making him their record transfer, um, when they signed him from FC Dallas, a move that just didn't work out.

Um, it wasn't the right move for him at the time.

Having said that, he has really grown in market value, um, over the last few months.

Okay, let's go on to another game.

FC Groningen 2, Ajax 5.

I caught this one and thought Ajax were very good attacking-wise and produced lots of chances, much more than they have in more recent games away at Groningen, which is a tough game.

And Groningen did give them a good go, and I thought they came out like a house on fire early in the second half and put Ajax under loads of pressure.

There were a few penalty shouts in the game, and I think the ref might have got those right.

But I think, Abdul, you would disagree with me on one of them, don't you? Because David Klaassen goes sliding in on a Groningen attacker when a cross comes in and doesn't win the ball, but takes the man.

But I didn't think it was a penalty because he's...

He's not going to win.

We will see what will happen in the next matches.

And the final game of this weekend, Excelsior one, FC Groningen five.

Ooh, um, a bit of a shock result because Excelsior started the season so well.

And it began with Marco Renta getting the first goal of the game.

And, uh, a penalty, uh, brought Excelsior level.

Yooi Jan getting another goal, um, from the, from the spot.

Groningen then kind of ran away with it after an own goal from, um, Steinhuis.

And then Tom van Bergen scored a penalty.

Antonio Cordero, is he going to play for Newcastle's first team ever? I think that's still...

looks unlikely at this stage but can Newcastle get more than a return on their investment the likes of what they did with Travis Hearn who moved to Groningen over the summer went on loan last year Newcastle had signed him as a youngster and they've actually made money on him so this is still the way that it has to work is that if players in Newcastle the ideal is that they produce players for the first team but if they can't produce players for the first team can they produce players who they can still make a profit on who they can turn into professional footballers elsewhere

Right then, chaps.

We've got a little bit of chat about Coventry to do before we wrap things up.