Woe for Ireland, temptation for Barton and Pardew wants a big Dong
Posted on April 28th, 2011 | 21 Comments |
No doubt you’ve all heard that Stephen Ireland is crocked for the rest of the season with an ankle injury. That, and the fact that he’s only made two substitute appearances for Newcastle, might mean he’s crocked as far as his future at our club is concerned too.
Alternatively, if Pardew is still keen on Ireland and thinks his spate of injuries is only temporary, it might allow the club to offer a fee somewhat under the player’s market value to take him off Villa’s hands.
In my post yesterday I said that I expected Joey Barton to sign a new contract for Newcastle this summer. However, since then – and in a move simply designed to make me look daft – Kenny Dalglish is apparently mulling over the idea of making a £5m bid for Barton. So now I’m not so sure about Barton’s Toon future. I’d like to think he’d sign for us out of some sense of loyalty, but Liverpool might be a tempting proposition for the player.
The other thing I wanted to pick up on comes from our old favourite The Daily Mail, a popular choice of newspaper for those spending some time in an institution. The Mail suggests that we’ve had an £8m offer for Lorient’s Kevin Gameiro turned down and have now turned our attentions to a South Korean striker called Ji Dong-won.
Ji Dong-won is 19 years old and 6ft 1.5in tall, which I’m guessing is big for a South Korean, and plays his football for the Chunnam Dragons. He played 29 games in 2010, scoring 13 goals, and has played 3 games in 2011 without scoring yet. He also has 5 goals in 9 senior appearances for South Korea.
The Daily Mail reports that “Chief scout Graham Carr was in South Korea at the weekend to watch the 19-year-old Ji play for Chunnam Dragons and was reasonably impressed.“. Apparently Ji also had a spell at Reading in 2007-2008 when they were in the Premier League, although I don’t remember seeing him play.
I managed to find this compilation of the striker’s exploits in 2010 and 2011:
Whether or not there’s any truth in the Mail’s report remains to be seen of course.
You were right yesterday. There is no way Barton would be of actual interest to Liverpool. It was just some fanciful rhetoric from an ill-informed hack.