Matuidi and Erdinç rumours gather momentum

Posted on June 23rd, 2011 | 19 Comments |

Matuidi and Erdinç still high on Newcastle United's agenda?
Matuidi and Erdinç - realistic targets?
Newcastle United allegedly maintain a strong interest in Saint-Etienne’s Blaise Matuidi and Paris Saint-Germain’s Mevlüt Erdinç.

According to ‘France Football’ (as well as our very own Chronicle) the French revolution is far from over at Newcastle.

Apparently we are still pursuing a legendary ‘double swoop’ for Blaise Matuidi and Mevlüt Erdinç. I have reported our supposed interest in both these players a few times on this ‘blog and the rumours seem to be gaining momentum rather than going away.

Matuidi won’t come cheap though. Saint-Etienne President Roland Romeyer has previously said:

“We will not discuss anything below €15m for Blaise Matuidi.”

That’s £13.4m that Ashley will have to fork out if he wants to bag the 24 year-old.

As a defensive midfielder, presumably the plan would be to play him alongside Tiote, maybe in a standard 4-4-2 or possibly in a 4-2-3-1 formation.

Then we come to Mevlüt Erdinç who, according to France Football, Pardew would be willing to offer Paris Saint-Germain €10m for (£8.9m), which the French media suggests would be an ‘irrefusable amount’ for PSG. Allegedly the 24 year-old striker favours a move himself after feeling he may be sidelined at PSG when the new Qatari money gets to work in the transfer market.

To grab that pair would cost Ashley over £22m and, given that the club has always intimated that the £35m we got for Carroll would be reinvested in transfers and wages rather than simply in the transfer market, that might seem like too excessive a chunk of money to be realistic.

But you never can tell with Ashley – he may surprise us yet. Or not, as the case may be. Pardew, at least, is reported to have a ‘strong interest’ in both players according to the French press.

The transfer speculation was further fuelled by comments from Pierre Frelot – the agent for both players – who said:

“Any player in France would love to come to Newcastle – they are an absolutely fantastic club.

“All the French lads who go to Newcastle are really enthusiastic about the club and the football public in the North East too.

“Newcastle has a place in the hearts of French football. Great players like Laurent Robert and David Ginola have played there and enjoyed it and the supporters loved them too.

“Of course any French player would be interested in Newcastle.”

Time will tell what happens with these two I suppose.

NUFCBlog Author: Hugh de Payen I'm a baby-boomer of the punk rock persuasion, currently exiled in Somerset for crimes committed in a previous life where locals keep trying to poison me with something called 'scrumpy'. Hates sprouts, coat-hangers, Cilla Black, ornaments, Steven Seagull movies and 50 Cent (he's not worth 10). Hugh de Payen has written 634 articles on this blog.

Related Posts:

Posted on by Hugh de Payen in category: Cheick Tiote and Hugh de Payen and Mike Ashley and NUFC gossip and speculation and Transfers , with tags: , , ,
Comment on this post

19 Responses

  1. Cant see us paying 15 mill for a defensive midfielder no matter how good he is after getting Tiote at 4.5 mill. Not gonna happen. Mulvut maybe.

  2. Agreed, I can’t see us buying either of these in the near future, not with the Spurts supposedly after Erding too…. we’ll either lose out or the price will be too high for Ashley…

  4. To be honest i dont fancy Erdinc, and i dont fancy a second defensive midfielder for that price….

    Im really hoping Newcastle are chasing Nolan Roux. He is 23 years old, French, Scored 21 goals in 53 Appearences and has a Release clause of 6.5mill. Liverfools are the only ones after him, and stealing another player from under their Noses, would put a huge grin on my face.
    Video:

  5. WHat do you guys think of the players in general:

    Are they of the quality you would like to see at NUFC?
    Are the the positions you feel we need to fill?
    Would you spend say £21/22 mil on them from the transfer kitty?

    I have seen a few games of Matuidi and I rate him, think him and Tiote could boss a fair few midfields and then let the new flair up front have their fun…
    Matuidi is another player starting to push to get into the French national team as well.
    Season Ticket for Blanc at this rate!! :)

  7. “Of course any French player would be interested in Newcastle”

    clearly because we are prepared to pay whatever for a player who will sit injured for months on end, or flops (ala Robert, Guivarch etc etc)

    this all smacks a little of “jobs for the boys” – at least Ashley doesnt have to pay a scout when he employs Ben Arfa

  8. What you on about Robert was not a flop. He was our most attacking threat at the time, scored loads and set up loads for shearer and Bellamy. We got in the champions league 2 years in a row with him in the team. And if it wasn’t for souness he coulda been one of the greatest players ever for the club.

  9. Would rather go for another winger. Jeremy menez would be a great signing and under 10 million to.

  10. So wish we had someone from the youth that was ready to step it up and have a cracking season for us.

    You never know, yes I’m looking at you Haris !

    p.s few seasons ago there was a lanky looking, VERY promising young forward, maybe we should give him a……oh wait…..oops.

  11. @Monkeysan

    This is a Newcastle blog, Not a Portsmouth Blog… Laurent Robert was a legend for us!

  12. Matuidi sounds like a triple-priced Tiote clone, and while 2 can be better than 1 (wink, wink, nudge, nudge), I cant see us spunking that kind of load for a player that might have to be rotated in a Def-Mid role – unless we play 4-2-3-1 EVERY WEEK.

    Erdinc would be great alongside Ba, and in the case of strikers, i tend to think 2-IS-BETTER-THAN-1 !!

    Pearce found out to his cost against Croatia U-21- when when u want goals, 4-2-3-1 gets u the ball lots but gives few opportunities up front. In that game he played Muamba and Henderson* as Def-Mids and they basically sat next to eat other, doing the same role, and desperately trying to find width and teammates by pinging deep balls up to the lone striker.

    *20m looked about 15m too much based on that performance alone – i say we keep to wise buys.

  13. Matuidi is a really good player, and normally I’d love to sign him, but he’s gonna be far too much money considering we already have tiote in that position. If we were to spend 13 million on one bloke is rather it was used on a striker.

    Talking of strikers, I’ve not really seen this erdinç lad, but someone posted his record on an earlier thread and I wasn’t very impressed.

  14. legend? Robert?! do me a favour – what next, Albert Luque was a “sound investment” PMSFL

    I could understand if you were talking about Ginola, he was a good French left-winger for us, even the great sulk Insomnia!

  15. monkeysan says:
    June 23, 2011 at 10:31 am

    “even the great sulk Insomnia!”

    That’s why N’Zogbia couldn’t possibly sign for Newcastle again. Everyone would just call him ‘Insomnia’, then he’d have another megasulk and walk off (again).

  16. Feels like groundhog day to me lmao,nothings really change since yesterday.

  17. Dreamer, we have got LuaLua who who I reckon could do the biz, and Lanky Jr looked good for the very short stint he got on for towards the end of the season. I think Vucic, Kadar, Ferguson to name 3 others could be ready to step up to the plate as well. So keep dreaming you never know.

  18. Lualua’s off to Brighton. Gutted for us. Happy for him though, He will 100% set alight the championship. Just wish we just loaned him out again so we can reap the benefits for the following season.

  19. I have to wonder how Pardew judges players, first Routledge and now LuaLua. I hadn’t realised he been allowed to go, flabergasted!!