Newcastle 3 // Liverpool 1
Newcastle Nolan 15', Barton 80' Carroll 90+1'
Liverpool Kuyt 49'
Man of the match Joey Barton (Newcastle)
NEWCASTLE // There have been moments when Mike Ashley has recognised his shortcomings as an owner of a football club. Sadly for Newcastle United, there have been many more when he has demonstrated them.
It is as if the Londoner is engaged some kind of self-destructive game, entitled 'How to infuriate the maximum number of people at one time?'
Sack the manager who took Newcastle back to the Premier League with a record point tally? That'll wind up the players and the punters. He's one of the nicest men in football? Good, I'll get everyone else in the game going, too.
Hand a five-and-a-half year deal to a coach punted from his last three clubs after getting two of them relegated? No one can beat me at this.
Back in the Premier League after three years in which his career has head in a generally southern direction, even Alan Pardew questioned the sanity of succeeding Chris Hughton last week.
Yesterday his new team took three points from a madcap meeting with Liverpool yet it will be a surprise if there are not messier times ahead.
There may come a day when Pardew pens a column on his spell as the sixth manager of Ashley's three-and-half-year stewardship of St James' Park. If he does it will do well to match the excoriation delivered by the owner's first appointment to the position.
"I do not understand the decision to get rid of Chris," wrote Kevin Keegan, who had a second spell in charge of the club in 2008.
"I lived with the same people for eight months - I didn't understand them then and I don't understand them now, and I don't think many of the fans do. When a man buys a club like Mike Ashley did, and he knows as little about football as he does, he is likely to make these sort of mistakes and these sort of judgements, and still think he's doing okay."
Keegan lasted eight months in the job, Pardew's strategy to survive beyond that involves taking Wally Downes from West Ham United and Ray Lewington from Fulham as assistants.
Yesterday, he handled the dressing room by standing fast to Hughton's blueprint. Returning from injuries, Kevin Nolan and Joey Barton were the only changes to the eleven that lost at West Brom last weekend - both simple reinstatements.
As fans barracked the attending Ashley and unveiled banners thanking Hughton, his successor kept himself discreetly ensconced in the snow-covered dugout. Newcastle's football was of the meat-and-potatoes variety.
When Liverpool had possession, the home side filed back into their own half of the field to defend. When the ball was gained by opposition error or a tackle it was generally directed swiftly up to towering forward Andy Carroll. Hardly pretty, yet effective enough.
On the quarter-hour mark, Sotiris Kyriagkos bundled through the back of Carroll, conceding a 30-yard free kick. Barton chipped the dead ball to the left-hand side of Liverpool's area where Carroll out-leaped Martin Skrtel to head the ball square for Nolan.
Judging the offside line perfectly, Newcastle's captain swept home eliciting barely a flicker of emotion from Pardew. From Ashley there was a bear hug for a female companion.
Liverpool's equaliser, just after the break, was embarrassingly messy. Sol Campbell turned his back on a through ball, allowing it to bounce off his back to Dirk Kuyt. The winger shuffled away from Jose Enrique and slapped a weak shot at goal. Steven Taylor's intervention was sufficient to deflect it past keeper Tim Krul.
Worse almost followed as Fernando Torres emerged behind Campbell to have one shot smartly saved by the keeper, then spun another a foot past the post.
Newcastle's winner came via a familiar route. Long ball to Carroll, headed on toward the box, where Nile Ranger and the dominant Barton forced it on and into the net. In injury time the bullish striker drove a third beyond Pepe Reina to seal a much-needed win.
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Directors: Min Geun, Oh Yoon-Dong
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Name: Qyubic
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Founder: Namrata Raina
Based: Dubai
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Name: Lamsa
Founder: Badr Ward
Launched: 2014
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From Conquest to Deportation
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Winner Lamia, Tadhg O’Shea, Ernst Oertel.
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Winner Jap Al Afreet, Elione Chaves, Irfan Ellahi.
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Winner AF Kal Noor, Tadhg O’Shea, Ernst Oertel.
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England ODI squad
Eoin Morgan (captain), Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow, Jake Ball, Sam Billings, Jos Buttler, Tom Curran, Alex Hales, Liam Plunkett, Adil Rashid, Joe Root, Jason Roy, Ben Stokes, David Willey, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood.
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2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
