Onouha and O’Hara? Forget about it.
Posted on May 28th, 2010 | 42 Comments |
It looks like both of these deals are non-starters now, as both Tottenham and Manchester City have slapped high price tags on their respective players.
Man City have slapped a price tag of around £6-£7 million on Onouha whilst Tottenham have revealed it would require a similar fee to secure the services of Jamie O’Hara. Unfortunately, and as much as I would like to see both of these players at St James’ Park, at that price it just isn’t going to happen. Or perhaps it still could, I don’t know. But at a guess I would say that those prices take them players above what our owner is willing to spend, and if by some twist of fate we do have that sort of money to spend, would it be wise to lay all our eggs in one basket, or two in this case?
Lets not forget that O’Hara currently has two stress fractures of his spine, which could ultimately cost the player a year on the sidelines if it gets worse. Then you look at Onouha, who has a history of various injuries and has yet to hit the 100 game barrier at Manchester City, and that is in six years. So when you look at both players from that perspective, the prices are too high.
On the flipside, it does give Newcastle a bargaining chip should they decide to firm up any interest in these two players, and that chip will have to be used hard to buy two players from two clubs that have no need to sell.
The other weapon we could use in any potential negotiation is the fact that the future for both O’Hara and Onouha looks less than rosey at their current clubs, with both players having irritated their current employers in recent weeks.
Undoubtedly, O’Hara and Onouha are two players that would improve the quality of our team. But should we go down the route of splashing a chunk funds on just two players? Or would we be better off adopting a scatter gun approach and signing players who would be a bit cheaper?
There are arguments for both sides, with one side begging the question of what would happen if the more expensive options ended up sitting on the treatment table where they would be no good to anyone (ahem, Michael Owen), whereas the other argument would be if the cheaper, more numeorus signings would give us the quality in depth to survive?
At the end of the day, only time will tell. And it’s only on September 1st that we can sit back and cast a full and frank assesment of just how this transfer window has gone. Even if it slams shut with us only signing a few loan players, we still have a chance of stopping up. Although if we only brought in two players, and stopped up, it would be in spite of our owner and not because of him.
Time will tell, eh?
NUFCBlog Author: toonsy
toonsy has written 643 articles on this blog.
The question is, do you buy two or three established PL players who you know can play in the PL and add something to the team or; You spend the money on five or six cheaper players and just hope that one or two will be good enough. What about the players who don’t make it? Would they have a sell on value, considering we’d bought them cheap and they didn’t make the grade.
As for the injuries, that’s what medicals are for – If they pass they sign, if not they don’t.