Fabrice Pancrate: “In my blood, I am black and white”.
Posted on November 15th, 2009 | 66 Comments |
Belkacemi gushed:
“Fabrice loves Newcastle,” adding:
“Many clubs in France want him because he is free. Nantes, Strasbourg . . . they offered him a big contract just yesterday but he says: ‘I prefer Newcastle’.
“The French don’t understand why. They say: ‘But Newcastle are not in the Premier League!’ But Fabrice loves the professional environment, the town and the mentality of the supporters.
“Of course, he is ambitious, and Newcastle is the only team in the Championship he would play for [he’s already been on trial at Sheffield United – wt], because he believes they will soon be back in the Premier League. He told me: ‘I am a black man, but in my blood, I am black and white!’
“So we fly back to Newcastle on Monday night and we hope we can sign next week. He is 200 per cent for Newcastle.”
Well I telt yez it was OTT like! Belkacemi blathered on:
“He called Habib Beye and Didier Domi, and they told him Newcastle is a good city and a great club,”
“He is also very friendly with Didier Digard of Middlesbrough who told him the same.
“Fabrice said: ‘Maybe the weather is cold, but it’s not a problem because the people have warm hearts.”
Ahhhh! But enough Gallic guff, lets take a look at the player himself.
Pancrate has also attracted interest from Portsmouth recently, where he trained in pre-season, and as mentioned above, Sheffield United, with whom he trialled and played a reserve match with local rivals, Sheff Wed. It has also been reported that he has attracted interest from the likes of Burnley and Hull City, and allegedly turned down a transfer from PSG to Everton in January
On the surface, Pancrate appears to have some similar qualities to Peter Lovenkrands, ie he’s a fairly versatile winger / striker who has no flies on him when it comes to pace. However, he usually struggled to hold down a place in the PSG first team squad in recent years, and spent periods on loan at Real Betis in Spain and Sochaux in France. He is not an especially prolific goalscorer, with around 20 goals in 188 appearances in the league alone, though full statistics were hard to find at the time of writing.
According to ‘Wikipedia‘:
“Fabrice is a good dribbler, and he uses his position on the wing to produce powerful rushes into attacking positions. He is also a force as a header of the ball, and he was one of the most dangerous PSG players in the air. Fabrice also contains a lot of speed which makes him a particularly good winger. This is in part due to his participation in track and field in school.”
As to how unbiased the Wiki assessment is, it is not known.
NUFCBlog Author: workyticket
workyticket has written 1091 articles on this blog.
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Well he does not sound anything great but if he is half as good as our last french trialist then it won’t be to bad. But if he does end up wearing the black and White then I’ll certainly give him my backing.