Sochaux to complain to UEFA about Toon’s Maiga interest. Pardew pursues Pieters.

Posted on August 22nd, 2011 | 18 Comments |

Maiga and Pieters remain Newcastle United targets.
Twin targets still on?
Newcastle United still appear to be pursuing Modiba Maiga, who missed out on his weekend league game again, and Erik Pieters, who Alan Pardew allegedly went to watch on Sunday.

It seems that Newcastle think striking striker Modibo Maiga is still a plausible target despite his club – Sochaux – insisting last week that he will not be released.

When Sochaux’s coach arrived at Picot for their game on the weekend, Sochaux manager Mécha Baždarevi said in reference to Maiga:

“No, he’s not here. He will not play.”

Maiga is alleged to have gone on strike for the game again but officially he has claimed to have a ‘pain in the knee’, although not one bad enough to warrant him seeking a medical certificate.

The French press suggests that Maiga’s pain in the knee excuse won’t wash with Baždarevi and that he’s likely to be fined again. The manager’s none too happy with Newcastle United either and said:

“Newcastle continue to contact our player despite our refusal. So we will complain to UEFA. We think that these manoeuvres are not fair play. They continue to cause destabilisation.”

The French press are now reporting that the deal we’re offering is €12m (£10.5m) over five years, although I find that odd as I thought Ashley wanted to avoid staged deals and preferred to pay everything up front.

Meanwhile, with the increasing number of rumours linking us with Aly Cissokho, I was beginning to think that our pursuit of Erik Pieters had stalled a bit. However, if the Daily Mail is correct, the stall was only temporary and Alan Pardew himself has jumped out to give things a push start.

Pardew allegedly went off to watch Pieters play in PSV Eindhoven’s match against Ado Den Haag yesterday, during which he was given the man of the match award for his contribution to a 3-0 win.

Reporters asked Pieters about a potential transfer to Newcastle after the game and he said:

“I’m open to this step, it seems a great challenge. But if it fails, I am not disappointed. My agent must report to me when it is really concrete. I have not heard yet, so I wait.”

The Mail suggests that Pardew is trying to ‘revive’ a £6m deal via some mouth-to-mouth with the PSV bigwigs. If the rumours about an expensive release clause in the player’s contract are true then maybe this is what needs to be resolved before we stand any chance of getting Pieters.

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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Comment on this post

18 Responses

  3. Andreas says: “Its swedish striker Marcus Berg in that pic.”

    You’re right, it was. Now corrected. Oddly, the Mail, Journal, Chronicle and Sky Sports are all using that image as Pieters too!

  4. Normally I’m not much interested in players who leave our club but I watched the second half of the match between West Ham and Leeds and it was quite sometime into the half before the commentator mentioned Nolan.

    Like many of our games in the second half of last season Nolan was a passenger. It looks like the Hammers now have that honour but are going to pay quite a bit more for the priviledge. On the evidence of that game, albeit it’s early days, it looks like we got the better of the deal especially having now seen Cabaye play in two premiership games. Someone mentioned he might be our next Rob Lee, let’s hope so.

  6. Just a point from the weekend I’d like to share –

    “It was also encouraging to see Alan Pardew rectify what wasn’t working against Arsenal, namely the 2 men up front and lack of bodies in midfield, in switching from a 4-4-2 to a 4-1-3-2 formation. Again, there are areas which need to be worked on, but the formation better accomodates Newcastle’s vast midfield resources, and Pardew looks to have acknowledged this. The free kick situation is another area in which there has notably been thought given to by Pardew and the improvements were evident against Sunderland. The substitutions were also sensible – Mike Williamson offering height and an extra body in defence, and Dan Gosling injecting pace and freshness – helping Newcastle to see the game out. Praise has been shortcoming for Pardew, but he deserves credit for the part he played in Newcastle’s victory over Sunderland.”

    Pardew does deserve some credit like. We definitely play better football under Pardew then under Houghton.

  7. Tony @ 5

    Yes I saw that too.

    Nolan looked like a completely nackered old man. If he was a horse he would have eiher been put out to grass or put down by his new owners.

  8. just been thinking about cabaye and what he brings to the midfield seen him play the last two matches and ive seen that for one is up for a hard challenge (sunderland game) and does have a good shot on him but haven’t really seen anything else of course we are two games in the season and needs to adapt.Maybe playing in the deeper role with tiote will change and can be more on the attack as the season goes on,hopefully he can get into his full stride.

  9. Just been thinking… (oh no)

    If a team gets convicted of ‘tapping up’, doesn’t that mean the club are banned from conducting any transfer activity for a set time? I’m sure a club a few years back got banned from transfer activity?

    Could be wrong…

    What a brilliant idea though from Ashley if it’s true.

    “We tried to sign some players, but we are not allowed”

    :-)

  10. jimbob, if that’s the case,ashley will be tapping up every player under the sun,so we cannot sign anyone for two years lol.

  11. Trojan, I’m sure there was a club that got banned from it. Might have been a different reason they got banned… Yeah man you’re right, if that were the case he would have been doing it the moment he bounced through the doors in 2007. :-)

  12. Jimbob says:
    August 22, 2011 at 12:59 pm

    “Trojan, I’m sure there was a club that got banned from it.”

    Chelsea? I think they went back on it though.

  16. Chelsea were banned for tapping up kalou or malouda from Leon. There were banned for two years but did a deal with Leon and they dropped the complaint. I doubt mike would put any cash in for a pay off so if we are found guilty let’s hope we get our players in before it pours down.

  17. Yeah it was Chelsea. I thought it was West Ham for some reason. Think I was getting muddled with the Tevez, Mascharano thing.

  18. this comment is for the one called”hugh de payen”.I’m curious to how you came up with your blog name.I am a direct decendant of Hugh De Payen and of family knights of his who fought with William the conquerer in the battle of Hastings in 1066.I’m always currious when someone is compelled to use my God given family name.I am Daniel Payen,Daniel Payen.