Toon after 7 players. Yeah right.
Posted on February 20th, 2011 | 22 Comments |
The Sunday Mirror has us planning a £10m move for West Ham’s Carlton Cole. Staying with West Ham, we’re also reportedly interested in 21 year old defender James Tomkins.
Chelsea’s Daniel Sturridge – who is currently on loan to Bolton – is another one apparently on our hit list, and of course Tottenham playmaker Niko Kranjcar has been connected to the Toon a few times recently.
Then there’s the alleged moves for Seville’s Argentinian winger Diego Perotti and French striker Alister Tangane at £6m a piece according to The Mail.
We’ve also been connected to Valencia full back Miguel with a £3m price tag and my mate Big Bob at Milverton FC with a £2.50 price tag.
Even Tino Asprilla is tipped to come back to Newcastle, although only to open a bar and restaurant.
No doubt the speculation will run on and on up to the summer and beyond. In fairness, we probably are genuinely interested in some of these players but I expect most of it will turn out to be unsubstantiated rumour. I’d want to see one of these guys in a black and white shirt before believing anything, or at least have some sort of confirmation from a named source at the club about alleged interest.
The Daily Mail is particularly good at sounding authoritative when it announces our interest in players without the slightest bit of evidence to back it up. Sometimes there’s even no ubiquitous ‘sources close to the club’ quoted (or even ‘sources close to sources close to the club’). The Daily Mail is simply an omniscient higher authority and that’s that.
If we’re going to speculate we may as well just think about who we’d like to buy and who – logically – would fill a gap in the team. In all bar a few cases I’d suggest our speculation has as much chance of being true as that of the press.
My suggestion on a Sunday morning, though, is to forget about it and go back to bed.
Daniel Sturridge is one would go for but think we would blow all of our budget just to get him to newcastle