Is Steven Taylor off to Liverpool?

Posted on July 6th, 2010 | 77 Comments |

Taylor the bindipper?
Taylor the bindipper?
There was a bit of news, well perhaps not news, but there was some speculation over the weekend regarding the future of Steven Taylor at NUFC.

We all know that Taylor has only 12 months remaining on his current contract and will be free to walk away from Newcastle at the end of the forthcoming season, and this has led to a whole heap of transfer gossip being centred around the central defender, including claims from some sources that he is ready to sign a new contract at St James’ Park.

However, over the weekend there was also some reports that Liverpool and their new manager, Roy Hodgson, were keen to take the 24-year old to Anfield in a move supposedly worth around £6 million. This speculation has now intensified to the point where The Daily Express now claim that Liverpool have actually lodged a bid with Newcastle United for the player.

I will just mention that there is nothing official in this and we all know just how unreliable newspaper reports can be, but it really wouldn’t surprise me if this was true to be honest as Taylor has remained tight-lipped for some time over his future at Newcastle, and I don’t think it was due to those metal plates he has allegedly had fitted to his jaw either!

So would it be wise to let him move on? My opinion is that perhaps now is the time for him to move on. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to see him stay with him being a good defender and pretty much lifelong Geordie and all that, but if you think back to last season and the results the team had with him in it before his injury, and the results we had when he was out with his injury you have to ask; did we really miss him?

I would say not, and £6 million, as long as it is invested back into the team, could be a sum that is hard to turn down for a player with only a short length of time left on his contract.

One thing that has disappointed me about Taylor throughout all this speculation has been the silence coming from him. Granted the players have been away on holiday and such, but there has been no sound at all from Taylor, not one bit saying he is committed to Newcastle, which is fair enough as it’s his career and he doesn’t have to be committed to us, but it’s still nice to hear it.

Compare that to Andy Carroll though, who has also been hotly tipped to move away from Tyneside. We have heard nothing except from how committed he is to Newcastle, how he is happy here and how he wouldn’t want to play for anyone else. As a fan, that is what I want to hear from the players I support. I want to know they care just as much as I do, and I don’t get that feeling from Taylor at the minute, not like I used to anyway.

Perhaps it is just one of those things and Taylor feels he needs to move on? Perhaps the club feel they need to move on and draw a line underneath it? Maybe he willl sign a new contract, who knows? But something certainly isn’t right about the whole situation, and it is only a matter of time before we find out which direction Taylor and the club are going.

Will they be drifting apart? Or will they be drawn closer together?

NUFCBlog Author: toonsy toonsy has written 643 articles on this blog.

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77 Responses

  1. early one today eh toonsy? :D

    My sixpence worth, I felt more assured when Williamson played last season in the few games he played than I had ever felt with Taylor, just always think there is a mistake in him.

    Though I do think he has the attributes to become a fantastic right back.

    6mil for a skint club, providing we can replace him with someone as cheap and of the same quality of Williamson, may just prove to be a deal to good to turn down, and even, would be foolish to turn down.

  2. i feel more assured with taylor than with collocini albeit collo had a good season and i know he may have been unsettled in his first season, but im just worried hes gonna want too much time in the epl that you just dont get

  3. know what your saying about Colo, fingers crossed he’s learned eh, cant remember many times he got caught out last season

  4. SIGNING EXCLUSIVE

    just heard that NUFC have signed Raoul Moat on a season long loan, apparently he has a cracking shot…

  5. Taylor is so much better than any defender we currently have in the club. They should do all they can to keep him if they can’t then they should get as much money as possible & also add-ons for International caps sell-on etc. Great shame if he goes as he is the only one we;ve got who is a proven PL defender. mark my words Taylor will captain England one day

  6. I personally don’t rate Taylor but I’ll give benefit of the doubt to numerous managers who have selected him for both Newcastle & England (U21).

    That said I think he wants to leave so we should sell him for whatever can get now rather than letting him walk in a year.

    And for those who wish to play the blame game & I’m sure in this case it would be down to bad management but if a player want to run his contract there’s not much a club can do. I’d say it’s a bit of both…

  7. Geordiedoonsooth says:
    July 6, 2010 at 7:49 am

    “Taylor is so much better than any defender we currently have”
    “proven PL defender”
    “Taylor will captain England one day”

    What you smoking like? Can I have some?
    Didn’t know Ray bans did rose tinted….

  8. I want him to stay and I think he will stay. I can’t see why Liverpool would be interested, though stranger things have happened. I wouldve thought they would hold on and sell torres and invest all thatpney in onhua and cahill, better English defenders

  9. If he goes we have lost our best RB and potentially our best CB. Step backwards, unless he can be replaced adequately, which will be a tough call. At the very least we should hold out for £8m. Surprising that many don’t rate him – yes he has some positional weakness but is still young & to my mind has outperformed most CBs we’ve had since Woodgate. Colo and Willo remain unproven at this level.

    Bloody hell Toonsy 6.34?! Now that’s commitment!

  10. I have to agree with nimo, I do feel Tayls is a much better player than Collo. Yes he had a good season last season but that was in Championship, there’s a huge difference between that and the EPL. Do you remember his first season? I do think he will play better than his first season as he seems to be playing with alot more confidence and he will have picked up the pace better. But for me Taylor seems more naturally suited to the EPL, I think he would be a huge miss. Not sure about Endlang Captain though Geordiedoonsooth lad but a deffinate future England Player.

  11. Just one observation , if Rio Bl**dy Ferdinand is worth 25 million or whatever Manu paid for him then Tayls must be at least 12- 15 million , got to be SIX million is a joke , you always have to ask how much will it cost to replace him? more than six million thats for certain !!

  12. I think Taylor will be off at the drop of a hat…If anything it will be down to wages what we have to remember is our new wage cap will make many of our current players and future signings easy pickings for clubs that pay good wages…in a game dominated by money any clubs looking to poach our decent players will just come along flapping a big wad of cash under players noses.

    Taylor has made no noises that he wants to stay unlike his sparring partner Caroll and I think Mike will see it as an easy bag of casino chips for him and Owl heed to go and Razz on the roulette wheel down their local Mayfair casino.

    If he does go expect CH to be handed another £250,000 to find a replacement,possibly £350,000 if he has been a good boy and been doing as he is told.

  13. TC, no I meant it that way, but only because we don’t have a stand out certainty at RB in the squad like we have with Enrique at LB. I suspect Tayls is our best in both positions but am prepared to be optimistic that Colo and Willo will carry their fizzy form into the Prem.

  14. As toonsy says, the silence from Taylor’s been deafening and if his heart’s not with us, let him go and get the best we can before he walks – preferably, he’d go aboroad…… Uzbekistan, Tajikistan or where ever but not Liverpool!!

  15. I Love Mike says:
    July 6, 2010 at 6:58 am
    early one today eh toonsy?

    My sixpence worth, I felt more assured when Williamson played last season in the few games he played than I had ever felt with Taylor, just always think there is a mistake in him.

    Though I do think he has the attributes to become a fantastic right back.

    6mil for a skint club, providing we can replace him with someone as cheap and of the same quality of Williamson, may just prove to be a deal to good to turn down, and even, would be foolish to turn down.
    <<<<< are u stardusts clone

  16. Christ, what player have you guys been watching like?

    Some massive overstatements on here like, Maldini he ain’t!!

    Not a dig, just objective observations, to say he is ‘premiership proven’ is arguably not true, as a season ticket holder for 8 seasons I cant remember a game where I thought at the end, ‘well done Steven, you did well today’, the bloke always has it in him to make a mistake, and invariably, does. He actually hasn’t improved that much in the time he has been in the first team. Does that mean ‘premiership proven’ like?

    I felt more confident when Willo played for his 14 games or whatever it was, then I have in years with Taylor.

    Though I dont, and I doubt CH does, want him to go, as he is at a great age, can hopefully grow in maturity and class, can cover right back, if a decent bid came in, I would definitely consider it.

    Maybe involving Babel?

  17. ILM

    Sure he isn’t the finished article, but is the only one of our main 3 CBs to have performed well in the Prem. By all accounts Colo had a bit of a mare first time round and Willo has never played. Tayls hasn’t been a world beater but surely its equally an overstatement to say he has never had good games. At times he has been our best defender, albeit with paltry competition. Last he played in the Prem he was only 23, that’s proven enough for a younger player, especially CB, for me to keep hold of him. He will get better and it remains a major risk to let him go right now. We can’t know if we have anything better until we see the others perform at this level and replacing him would be tough.

  18. Taylor is underated by most toon fans.

    Seems to be a common trend finding fault in our players. Only to rue it when we let them go and they become successful somewhere else.
    Taylor is a good strong defender. And if anyone is gona get on the back of a defender for making an error every few games then find a a defender in the world who doesn’t mess up every few games – because they dont exist!
    Only 24 and he has had to carry our defense for the last three years.

    He’s not world class but then nobody in our squad is! But he is definately one of our better players.

  19. Taylor is far better than Colo and Williamson, and if he does go then it would be extremely worrying.

  20. The thing about Taylor is he hasn’t really shown much progression since he became a first team regular.

    Now I’m sure that isn’t all his own fault when you consider that we’ve had 300 mangers in the last 9 1/2 months or whatever it is, but it does worry me slightly.

    I do hope he stays, but I think we could end up being significantly stronger if he did leave for a decent fee.

  21. Personally I don’t think there’s much to choose between Taylor and Wheater, and yet the fee for the latter would probably be a lot less – maybe £2-3.5m.

    If we got £6-7m for ST we could bolster the ranks with another decent player with the money left over – 2 for the price of 1. Could make sense.

  22. The big worry is that if he does go we replace him with players of the quality of James Perch. No disrespect to Perch, but he has no experience of top flight football and has hardly set the world alight at Forest.

  23. TC
    it does make sense mate, but he’s a geordie and he gives his all for team blah blah blah

    irritates the hell out of me when people talk about his best aspects as being he is from here!

  24. He’s a good, strong, whole hearted player who is our best centre half and also our best right back, so it would be madness to sell him. I’m not saying he’s perfect, he does get the odd rush of blood to the head and make mistakes, but he’s better than the alternatives in our squad.

  25. Macas – would it be mad if we replaced him with an equally able centre half and added another promising talent to the squad?

  26. If S Taylor is to go, he should demand a really high price, 1 year of contract or not.
    The new rules about 8 ‘home grown’ players in the 25 man squad demands a price hike & liverpool or whomever should be made to pay for that.
    Through the nose.
    A top end club wanting one of our ready made prem players to supplement their englishness should be taken to the f***ing cleaners.

    He’s a decent CB or RB & based on englands pathetic shot at the world cup, he should easily get a chance there.

  27. Toon Chicken – Not at all, I’m just worried if we do sell him that we will not be able to bring replacements of the right calibre. Far better to secure him on a new long term deal if possible.

  28. How much you reckon like, CLiNT?

    I don’t think he’s worth more than £7m currently – I’m not sure you can charge much of a premium for potential worth.

    As for the England thing – I used to agree but then I always expected him to kick on. Recently he’s been overtaken by the likes of Shawcross coming through, and as I said previously, I don’t think there’s much between him and Wheater.

  29. Macas – I agree mate – I’d rather keep him. But I think we’d cope all right without him, provided we reinvested the money in the right areas, which I’m sure we would.

  30. TC,
    dunno mate, as much as can be squeezed out of ’em.
    Probably too much. :)

    On the england thing: i was having a dig at englands weak defense there mate.
    More tongue in cheek than owt else.
    :)
    Although we ain’t seen him for a while through injury & people always seem to think when a player has a long term injury that they are now crap, just cos they ain’t played. Know what i mean?
    & when i seen a few shots of the team back in training Taylor looked like he was having a laugh & stuff…….So i think it’s all about whether he wants to play for NUFC or not TBH.

  31. Giovanni Dos Santos maybe? He has had a good World Cup, Spurs don’t want him and his versatility would help plug a few gaps in the squad.

  32. Anyone could walk into englands defense right now, or possibly walk right through englands defense? :)

  33. The fee is dictated by the fact he has 1 year left on his contract.If he wants to improve as a player he should go.

  34. jay jay ,
    F888 knows mate. :)

    sam,
    but if clubs ‘need’ more ‘home grown’ players to fill their quota, then surely that alters the price?
    It adds a new twist.

  35. I know what you mean about injuries, CLiNT. Out of signt, out of mind, I suppose.

    Although in the case of Barton it seemed to work in reverse – he was injured a sh!t bag and came back a born again Kaka!

  36. TC,
    :)

    Last season all the pundits were saying how cahill had been crap for everton, when he was injured. Then when he came back & started banging them in, it was all: “wow, cahill is excellent”!
    Clueless mongs.
    :)

  37. Pissed off with these shite Monday night matches, we must have more than anyone else :(

  38. It says on the sky link that ‘even the newly promoted clubs will get at least 1 game live by nov’.
    Except we have 5.
    Sluts!
    :)

  39. I hope Chrissy Hughton puts his nice guy demeanor to one side for the Man U game and tells them all to have a right go at winding Rooney up.

    The poor love must still be quite fragile after all the emotional strain he was under in South Africa! :lol:

  40. He’s a fat, baldy, oversized baby.
    & people say Nolan is fat. :)
    Aye, get on his case & watch him pop!
    :)

  41. just 1 comment, if upson is being touted at £7m, £6m for taylor would be a joke, along the same lines as Given going for £10m…

  42. sky sports say we’re in for Mcfadden. I was screaming for us to sign him in our relegation season but I’m not as keen now as I was then. Still, wouldn’t say no to him. Could be a useful player and perhaps playing at St. James will revitalise him somewhat. The kids could definitely learn a thing or two off him. What dyo guys reckon?

  43. My problem with Taylor is his inconsistency and he never actually dominates match now does he? Not saying he can’t improve though- A young english player with potential is exactly the type of player we should be keeping around. If his heart isn’t here, goodbye for 10M. That could bring you 2-3 young players. It has been a little disconcerting to not here him come out and pledge allegience to the toon, but isn’t he off training in Los Angeles this summer?

  44. personally I think we should be doing everything within our power to at least get tayls to sign a contract extension. Fcuk loosing him on a free next year. And, as MDS says, young, talented and english isn’t exactly the sort of player we want to be loosing at the moment

  45. Exactly Devon – people keep harping on how the ‘big 5’ need homegrown players, well all 20 clubs need them! Balls to them. We need Taylor, CH has made it a priority to keep Carrol and ST and I hope he stays. I am 90% confident he will stay.

    McFadden would be a good addition, a decent link up player with Carrol I think.

    I am a little happier today at the prospect of bringing in young talented players, and I also am looking forward to seeing Vuckic get a chance this season too

  46. Never been Taylor’s biggest fan ( he handles too often), but I think he’s worth trying to keep hold of. It’ll cost us a lot more than £6m to replace him for one thing. Overall, it’s always nice to have defenders that can bang in a goal every now and then and Taylor can do that. I also have a wonderful and enduring memory of him dumping Ronaldo over the sideline pretty much by his throat. Good lad.

  47. somebody wrote on another thread that newcastle were after players from toulouse,this was wrong it was just ashley interested in buying another two loosers lol.

  48. For all those saying ST is not that good… Why is it a good manager like Roy Hodgson is keen on him to player for a bigger side than us?

  49. JJ

    Please enlighten me where is the proof that a a good manager like Roy Hodgson is keen on him to play for a bigger side than us??

    I have seen no quotes from the player, the clubs or Roy Hodgson, The express have ran with this shite again after the bullshit story about Staylor putting in a transfer request to join Everton a year ago which of course was completely untrue…

    Why people continue to think newspaper articles are gospel is well beyond me, Did you not see the signing yesterday or the offer for Erding after 4 months of the press telling us Ashley had refused any cash, How about the ridiculous O’Brien and Shittu interest that CH has laughed of at least three times or the algeria keeper, Lee Naylor, Samaras FFS, it is all bollocks!!!! :lol:

  50. CC, my point is, he wouldn’t be linked to good clubs like Everton or Liverpool if he wasn’t a half decent player.
    He’d be looking around Stoke or Blackburn or somewhere like that.
    Just don’t know what Toon fans have against him.

  51. JJ

    I agree i think he is a very decent player who in a better side could improve, I just dont believe every club that he is linked with are true, This liverpool link is 2+2=5 IMO The same with the Zog arsenal link.

  52. Also, he surely knows he wont get many games at Liverpool where I would have thought he will be first choice every game here.

    I hope he dont go and I am fairly sure he wont!!!

  53. I wonder if Taylor is injured and can’t make an away trip, how many other player will become injured and stay home with their wives and girlfriends aswell?

    A.L.L.E.G.E.D.L.Y ;)

  54. unless they get a big offer i cant see newcastle letting him go for nothing , seeing as good english players seem alot more expensive than the average foreign player , not 100% sure on coloccini in the premier leauge and selling taylor for 6 million ? when we payed 10 million for coloccini dont think that works out myself