Here are the major news stories associated with the Newcastle club for today in no particular order of priority.

Well the injury jinx has hit us again as Joey Barton yesterday broke a metatarsel in his foot and will be out for up to 7 weeks. That’s a bad blow for Newcastle - especially when we were looking forward so much to having a reduction in injuries this year. We still think that will happen but this is not a good omen.

We are linked today with Brede Hangeland - the 6′4″ center-back from FC Copenhagen for around £2.3M - and also strangely with Brazilian Julio Baptista (£6M), who was at Arsenal last season on loan from Real Madrid. Not sure why we would want him unless Martins is on his way.

However, we think Hangeland is good value for money.

• We had a story this morning about how Sam had rested players like Given, Ameobi and Milner yesterday because they had niggling injuries - and Sam didn’t want to risk any further damage to them. Unfortunately we had also heard rumors that Joey Barton had broken his foot yesterday - which unfortunately turned out to be true.

  James Milner- with his Elvis impersonation

• We run a story today on whether we are cursed as a football team. Ruud Gullit said he thought we were - because of all the bad luck we seem to have. Now with the Barton injury it certainly is looking that way. We report on the injury to Joey - who was of course captain yesterday - and suggest we may well be cursed. Don’t take this too seriously - it’s a little tongue in cheek - but certainly not our prediction at the end about cursed teams winning the Premiership.

  Joey Barton- out for 6-7 weeks

• Another interview today with our center-back David Rozehnal. We ran a piece on David yesterday and these are fresh interviews where David talks about coming to Newcastle, the star players here and other things related to his move into the big time. David seems a smashing lad - and as we say in this piece - if temperament and character have anything to do with it - David will be a huge success on Tyneside. We do have a quote from one of our readers in Belgium - Obafan - who has watched David over the last 2-3 years and thinks he will be a huge success at Newcastle.

  David Rozehnal - great guy

• Something Newcastle fans have been waiting for is ton the transfer front is news that we are after Brede Hangeland of FC Copenhagen. We have been linked with Brede for about 3 weeks and at £2.3M we think he would be a good buy. news is that Sam thinks he will need to fight for his place in the team with Taylor and Rozehnal the probably starters but we think Brede will be a great acquisition for the squad. Still waiting to find out specifically who we bid £7M for.

  Brede Hangeland- £2.3M bid?

• News from the Sunday Mirror that Julio Baptista is a target for Newcastle United. We’re not sure if this is true but Julio mentions Newcastle in the piece and refers to them as a big club. Not sure why we would be after Julio - although he is big lad and can make himself felt up front. However - he didn’t score many goals for Arsenal. The fee is said to be around £6M - but we already have 4 good strikers.

  Julio Baptista - celebrating his goal in Copa Final against Argentina

• Here’s some funny football quotes for today - and it’s back to Kevin Keegan. This is to lighten up the day.
  

  “Young Gareth Barry, you know, he’s young.”

  “I don’t think there’s anyone bigger or smaller than Maradona.”

  “I’d love to be a mole on the wall in the Liverpool dressing room at half-time.” ”

  “Luis Figo is totally different to David Beckham, and vice versa.”

  Kevin Keegan - pondering the difference between a mole and a fly

Ed writes at the Newcastle United blog.