Newcastle allegedly bid £1.5m for Forest’s Lewis McGugan (includes video)

Posted on July 8th, 2011 | 44 Comments |

Newcastle United allegedly make a bit for Nottingham Forest midfielder.
Another incoming midfielder?
Newcastle United supposedly bid £1.5m for Nottingham Forest midfielder Lewis McGugan.

Based on absolutely no evidence that I can find, the Daily Mirror yesterday claimed that we’ve made a £1.5m bid for Nottingham Forest midfielder Lewis McGugan.

However, as Nottingham Forest are allegedly after Wayne Routledge (now that QPR seem to have given up on him), maybe some sort of deal could be struck with Steve McClaren’s mob.

Lewis McGugan is 22, 5ft 9in high and plays in the centre of midfield as an ‘attacking midfielder’. He has been at Nottingham Forest from youth through to senior career and has scored 31 goals and provided 26 assists in 156 games. Last season was particularly good for McGugan with 13 goals and 16 assists in 45 games.

He’s also played for England’s under 17’s (2 goals in 10 games) and under 19’s (no goals in 4 games).

If by some freak accident the Daily Mirror has got this one right, I would presume he’s ‘one for the future’ given the number of players we already have in contention for midfield places.

A £1.5m bid seems fairly a fairly trivial amount given the amount we’ve accrued from player sales. If I may observe something on this whole £35m+ thing, much are the claims that the money will be ‘reinvested’ in the club on things like wages and such as well as funding transfers. However, don’t forget that we’ve also saved on the wages of Carroll and Nolan which, I would hope, would account for a fair portion of what we are paying Cabaye, Marveaux and Ba.

Here’s a video of McGugan in action last season (the video seems to be a bit spluttery at the start but then clears its throat and gets on with things):

He looks decent enough from that video, although ‘highlights’ videos can be deceptive as they only show, well, the highlights. It’s unlikely that such a video would feature him poking a goalkeeper in the eye or falling flat on his mush after stepping on the ball (which is a trick I could perform admirably in my footballing days).

I may have mentioned the £35m in this article but I think I got away with it!

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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.

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44 Responses

  3. Yea mate,
    but, if a player makes it look that easy, it’s a good sign like.

    He’s doing alright there, for a bairn. Can strike a ball nicely.

    It does fit in with our developing a team from youth mind, too.

  6. With all due respect, there surely can’t be any truth in this, you have heard in the past people say you wouldn’t get his left leg for that, well there is no way the Tricky Trees would sell Lewis’s finger nail for that, this lad is worth at least 7 or 8 million in todays market, he will be a Premier league player in the next season or so, but hopefully it will be with forest.

  8. you Gordies must been in dreamland your lot was in the chgampionship 2 saeasons ago lewis is worth 5 million at least and he deserves a better outfit than you if he leaves bye the way it is nottingham forest not notts your not newastle rovers are you

  9. All i can say is get this player. Ive seen him a few times and he will be one of the best attacking english midfielders in premier league if he is given the chance.

  10. Forest Fan in peace…

    Just for some perspective, this is the same newspaper who less than two weeks ago said we’d rejected a £4mill bid from Blackburn for Lewis, and that we’d dismissed it out of hand because SMc wanted to build the team around him!!

    McGoogle wouldn’t succeed if he moved now anyway. He has battled with his weight over the last few seasons and a bit like Ricky Hatton, piles on the pounds in any downtime. He needs to be playing week in, week out to keep up both his fitness and his form. and I don’t see anyone offering him that at the moment because his defensive game is almost non existent, he needs to be in a midfield 3 and be carried to a certain extent to get the best out of him, or play him out wide and let him cut in like we did last season, but he lacks Prem pace playing there.

    And whilst I think £7mill is a bit high, he’s at least worth the prices being linked with Matt Mills, Nicky Maynard etc because of his age and ability (and his English passport, of course!). Start your bids around £5mill if you really want him, but still think we’d turn it down at this point.

  11. @Terry, you are the only one to use Notts. We can tell the difference between Notts and Forest. One is rubbish and the other is worse.

  13. Massive talent, a little cocky, but definately a match winner at Championship level.

    I think he would do well in the Premiership, but can’t see him going. Forest have sold/lost/let go 8 players over the Summer and only brought in 1, they are now rebuilding with new signings.

    McClaren also stated that McGugan is a player that Forest need to build around, and as one of the fans favorites it would be crazy to sell him.

    The board will sign more players, Forest should be a top 6 team, and have a good chance to be involved in Promotion Playoffs (along with Leicester and Reading).

    Good luck to the Toon Army for this coming season, going to be hard for you without Carroll/Nolan/Barton (to go).

  15. Hi All,
    I’m a Forest season ticket holder & fan of over 40 years & McGuigan is a class act if he’s managed properly for his fitness & attitude as Billy Davies achieved last year.
    In my humble opinion he will make the step up easily but you’ll never get him for £1.5m!
    We told Villa to take a hike at £3m and he’s on a long contract.
    He’ll be staying at Forest unless we get a serious quality replacement. But given the amount of players shipped out already I think he will be staying put!
    It is The Mirror! Worst football paper ever (except the Express or Mail)
    How’s Perchio doing?

  16. Hope he is as Good as Perch…..what a outstanding talent.
    Only thing worrying me is being so cheap the add ons will include his wages upfront right now for 5 years paid by BACS,Taxi from nottingham,puma kit and a massive signing on Fee and a massive Fee for his agent….I hope this won’t leave us bankrupt it would be heartbreaking after so much austerity.
    I think we should wait til next year the market may be better suited to such high value purchases.

  17. play the lad up front, looks a natural goalscorer not scared to shoot, look what happened when they turned supermac from a full back to a striker ot henry from a winger to a striker. £1.5 mill is nowt for this lad!!!

  18. Pwood if your a pies fan your a knob what you ever done up there nowt Terry Nottingham forest fan what else you got up there your pie and peas hare coursing and ferriting say no more

  19. There is no way Forest are gonna let him go. A – he is worth £7m+. B – he will be playing in premiership next season with Forest. C – McClaren has publicly stated that the team will be built around Lewis.
    You can have Perch, but Lewis isnt going anywhere lads.
    Sorry.

  20. mcgugan is worth at least 7-8 million geordy fans so theres no way 1.5 mill would be accepted…hes our best player…get yer 30 mill from the carrol deal and stop being so tight!!..lmao

  21. Another Forest fan here (well, the page has been linked from a Forest news page so don’t be too surprised if a few of us show up). I can quite confidently repeat what all the other reds have said – there is no way you will get him for £1.5m. Realistically it will take £5m+ to get him – and there is no hope of a straight swap for Routledge.

  22. “we’ve also saved on the wages of Carroll and Nolan which, I would hope, would account for a fair portion of what we are paying Cabaye, Marveaux and Ba.”

    regarding the savings made. do we also look at the saving made beggining of last season with M Owen, Duff, Bassong, Martins, Beye wages etc. I know we signed a few but most of these were on huge wages, probably double the wage of the replacement players

  24. You’d think Hugh ‘made the news’ the way some of notts forest (NF) fans come on.
    Calm down lads, it’s only a report of news gannen roond. He’s probably not good enough anyhoo.
    & we’ve been without AC for half a season already & Nolan will be tucking into jellied eels as we type.
    ;)

  25. Oh yea, we spent a year in the chumpionship, but due to bouncing straight back without losing at hyem & amassing over a ton of points…Aw, y’ know…
    zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

  26. Could be another Jermaine Jenas, think we paid 5 million for him from Forest. What a let down he has become.

  28. Clint, I was flicking through Sir Bobby’s book on the plane the other day, he rated Jenas so much. Said stuff like Jenas being in the England team the next 10 years, what a great player he will be etc.

    Just turned out to be another overrated English flop.

  29. With SBR & staying with the Toon, he might have. He totally lost focus after moving to spuds. It happens to a lot of players at that mid 20’s time of their careers. They get a bigish money move & think they’ve made it. It can be the death of most careers.
    Think that’s what happened to jenas.

  30. Deff mate, having someone like Sir Bobby looking after you would make you feel 10 foot tall.

  31. You have got to be kidding. Tarrabt is the only attacking midfielder in the division with more talent and Lewis has a better attitude. Given his age and potential we’d be mad to accept less than five times that. Sublime finishing, regular assists, the boy is class

  32. He is easily worth £5,000,000 not this pathetic £1,500,000. Also as our star player we wouldn’t accept anything below £7,500,000 I’d think.

    To sum his week in week out performances I’d say that when he’s having a good day his passing is Barcelona standard and his finishing is great. On a less good day he tends to be very quiet, occasionally pulling some genius out of the bag.

  33. Husky Red Junior says:

    “He is easily worth £5,000,000 not this pathetic £1,500,000. Also as our star player we wouldn’t accept anything below £7,500,000 I’d think”

    Don’t panic Husky Red if McGugan is really worth £5m or more then we’ll not be bidding any more as we have the only tight arsed billionaire in the world :)

    I had thought he was worth a punt but as you’ve let eight players go already, you’ll need some stability and SM says he wants to build the team around LM. Maybe you’d like Perch back ?

  34. huskyred,divvent worry he’s not called ashley 1.5 for nowt,he might come back with an improved offer of 1.75,then maybe 2.0 mill a tops,he will not offer any more than that.in the world of mike ashley,he wants everything for nothing.

  36. Krul/Foster

    Simpson Colo (c) J EVANS (£6m) Enrique

    Tiote Cabaye

    N’ZOGBIA (£9m) Ben Arfa Marveaux

    STURRIDGE (£12m)

    Krul/Foster
    taylor
    williamson
    ferguson
    jonas
    gosling
    ba

    OUT
    perch (£2m)
    barton (£4m)
    Smith (free)
    best (£4m)
    lovenkrands (£1m)
    guthrie (£3m)

    Top 6????

  39. Terry at 8 he deserves a lot better than playing for your shambles of a team, enjoy championship football again next season.

  40. Dream on Newcastle!!!
    Not a hope of signing him for 1.5 million.

    You’re all deluded for giving this rumour any thought at all.

    Lmao

  41. jay,are we fans negotiating this deal,get real you tosser.
    when did the fans handle transfers?the delusion is all yours.

  42. that freekick at the end is worth 1.5million alone! get him swapped with Routledge