By Jebediah
July 18 2005

Jebediah’s roundup of Mondays tabloid newspapers, and a look at the stories and rumours involving Newcastle United.

Main news revolving around the club in todays papers regards Newcastle's first fixture of the season, which took place yesterday in Slovakia.

After last seasons substandard Premier League finish, Newcastle's only route to Europe was through the not so prestigious InterToto cup, which began at the weekend. Newcastle were drawn against unknown Slovakian side Dubnica, and return to Newcastle today with a 3-1 advantage, thanks to a first senior goal for Michael Chopra, and efforts from Alan Shearer and James Milner. Steve Harper did his first team chances no harm with an excellent performance in goal.

Should they qualify, Newcastle would go on to face Deportivo La Coruna or Croatian side Slaven Koprivnica. The first leg of their tie was also played at the weekend, with Deportivo edging it by just one goal to nil.

It was a professional performance in their first game of the season from the Toon, with Graeme Souness pointing out before the game that he was wary of the fact the Slovakians had played four competitive games already this season, but his side had only trained for two weeks. Neither of Souness' summer signings played a part in the game, and some players who were on international duty at the end of the last campaign were rested.

In other transfer news, The Sun carries an interesting story regarding Jermaine Jenas' possible switch from Tyneside to London club Arsenal. According to the paper, Freddy Shepherd is prepared to let him go for less than Souness has stated. In a recent interview with Newcastle's newspaper 'The Chronicle', Shepherd claimed that he never got involved in transfers and left it to the manager, saying his own job is to provide the money, and the managers job is to spend it, however The Sun is stating that his actions could be contradictory to his statements.

The article says that Shepherd believes Jenas and his advisors are trying to engineer a move away from Newcastle, and the chairman is worried that this could have a knock on effect on the dressing room atmosphere, something the manager has been working hard this summer to improve. Apparently, the chairman is also excited about the possibility of Sol Campbell joining the club, and is prepared to do business with Arsenal against his managers wishes.