If there is one thing you can rely on in football - along with Chelsea outbidding their rivals for a transfer target - it is that Craig Bellamy will open his big gob at a bad moment.
The Welsh international has supposedly changed his ways now that he has moved to Anfield, as well as changing his supporting allegiance to Liverpool despite previously always insisting he had been a Cardiff fan as a kid, but big gobs never learn to keep it shut in the same way a leopard can never hope to lick off its spots.
I''m told the altercation in the tunnel after the 2-0 defeat were sparked when the gob on two legs suggested to former teammates they should not be too disheartened by the defeat because if they play well for Newcastle they might also get a move to a big club like he did!
Unsurprisingly, this didn’t go down too well with several members of the Newcastle team, although the presence of Terry McDermott would have been like a red rag to an unstable bull.
Why? Because McDermott has two great friends with links to Tyneside. Alan Shearer - who Bellamy allegedly texted last season to tell him he was past it - and Graeme Souness, the manager Bellamy fell out with so spectacularly when he feigned an injury because he didn’t want to play on the right wing - a position the former Newcastle striker had also refused to play in during the build-up to Kieron Dyer’s infamous bust up with Sir Bobby Robson two years ago.
To say there is a bit of history between in the pair would be like suggesting Britain has had a few arguments with Germany through the years.
I’m sure all the storm in a tea cup cliches will be used and both Glenn Roeder and Rafael Benitez have inevitably not seen or heard anything - although Benitez did say he heard some shouting having presumably raced Roeder down the tunnel and into the dressing rooms after the final whistle.
I like Bellamy as a player, at times I even liked him as a person, but while I can only admire his competitive spirit and would love to still have him at Newcastle in terms of pure footballing ability, there is a spiteful and unpleasant side to him which has reared its ugly head again at Anfield.
He will not change because he doesn’t think he has to, but a player who had to go to Blackburn Rovers for a season when he left St James’s Park because nobody else would touch him because of his bad apple reputation and who has only scored one competitive goal in nine appearances so far this season should at least attempt to learn a few lessons in humility don’t you think?
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