Allardyce keen to keep English the language of choice

5:07am Saturday 27th October 2007

By Scott Wilson

NEWCASTLE'S players were told to "watch their language" in training this week, but it had nothing to do with a desire to avoid unnecessary bookings for dissent.

With the Magpies squad increasingly resembling a 'League of Nations' following Sam Allardyce's summer recruitment drive - Monday night's starting XI against Tottenham contained nine different nationalities - a variety of different languages can be heard as the players arrive at the club's training ground.

Once a training session begins, however, anything other than English is banned. Foreign influences are welcome, but Allardyce clearly wants his Newcastle side to be speaking with a common voice.

"When they are together on a casual basis, I don't mind them moving back into their own language," said the Newcastle boss. "It's a difficult thing to continually communicate in English if you're not very good at it.

"But when we move into the training areas and start training properly, they have to communicate in English. That communication has to spill over onto the field and, while you might be able to communicate with one or two players who might speak French or a different language, that's not the answer.

"It has to be one language for all when we're training and playing. I haven't gone as far as issuing fines but, if a player persists, it's something I might consider."

Adapting to an alien culture is difficult enough without the added complication of a language barrier to overcome. Throw in a need to learn English effectively from scratch, and you have the makings of a difficult few months.

Habib Beye's English was far from fluent when he joined Newcastle from Marseille in August, so given the presence of fellow French speakers such as Geremi, Abdoulaye Faye and Charles N'Zogbia, it would have been understandable if he had expressed an early desire to converse in his native tongue.

In fact, the opposite has occurred, with Beye emerging as one of the staunchest supporters of Allardyce's English-only ruling.

"The manager wants us to speak English to each other and I'm happy to do that," said the full-back. "It's the language of the team and the country and it's important for me to learn it very quickly.

"My English isn't too bad, but it's by no means perfect. I played with Abdoulaye with Senegal so I suppose we could speak French to each other, and Claudio played in the French league as well. But it's important for the team to speak English because it's the language of the country we're playing in."

The assimilative process has proved surprisingly trouble-free, with skipper Geremi emerging as a unifying force between the disparate national groups within the Newcastle dressing room.

"Geremi is our guru," added Beye. "He speaks Spanish, English and French and is also the captain of the team. He has a lot of Premier League experience and it's good to have him around.

"He's great on the pitch and in the dressing room because if we can't understand something, he's happy to explain it to us.