Not Good Enough For Toon - Tonight He Plays Against Barcelona!
Last updated : 20 February 2008 By Footy Mad - Editor
When his loan with Hibs was over, Stirling-born Gary Caldwell went to Robson's office and (according to SBR) he had a few tears saying he was desperate to return to Scotland.
Robson thought long and hard, but finally gave the youngster his dream of returning to the Scottish Premier League.
He went on to skipper Hibs, and Celtic took him to Parkhead.
Tonight he faces Barcelona in the Champions League, while Newcastle have a two-week break because we didn't qualify for Europe and crashed out of the FA Cup early doors.
Several Newcastle reserve players have asked to be loaned out, and Trim Krul and Andy Carroll are two who have made the move this season (Falkirk and Preston).
Loaning out the youngsters has its benefits, but Caldwell's experience shows it can make them restless.
As for Caldwell ... he will have the eyes of the world on him tonight. And he says there will be no repeat of the negativity that angered the Catalan side when they played Rangers at Ibrox in this season's Champions League.
Frank Rijkaard's side drew 0-0 in Glasgow against a defensive Rangers side in the group stage in October, a game that led to star striker Lionel Messi condemning the Light Blues' tactics as "anti-football".
Caldwell: "Let's hope they are expecting us to sit in and try to play for a 0-0.
"For a start, we don't have the players to do that and we won't be doing that. We will be going out to try to win the game.
"Sure, we know our jobs and we will keep it tight when they have the ball. However, when we get it, we've got to go and express ourselves and try to score goals.
"We think we can win this one. When Rangers played Barcelona, they were in a group with them and the point they got was tremendous in terms of where it put them in the table. A knockout home and away tie is different.
"The challenges are different and we have to meet them by going out to win the game."
Caldwell was on loan from Newcastle at Darlington when he had his biggest roasting in a 7-1 thrashing in front of 3,000 at tiny Glanford Park.
Caldwell: "The biggest player I came up against was a guy called Steve Torpey at Scunthorpe.
"That's the biggest doing I've ever had off another player. That just shows you that names sometimes maybe don't matter.
"God knows what he's doing now, but he was pretty good that day.
"You can get a bit caught up with names at times.
"All those guys at Barcelona are tremendous players and we will have to be on our game to stop them, but their names are probably bigger now than the players they actually are."