Toon ups Pieters bid to £7m while Bendtner remains target striker. Allegedly.
Posted on August 15th, 2011 | 13 Comments |
Good morning. The Toon headlines are still pretty much dominated by the Joey Barton/Gervinho ‘Slappergate’ incident, which is beginning to make my Earl Grey taste a little sour and putting Tarquin, my butler, off his stride with the brushing of my tweeds in preparation for the day’s hobnobbing.
The Daily Mail comes to the rescue though, with allegations that we’ve upped our bid to £7m for much-needed left-back Erik Pieters. Presumably the hope is that the extra readies will act as a financial kick up the backside to both the player and his club and expedite transfer proceedings towards some sort of agreement ahead of next weekend’s game against the unwashed.
The weekend’s People seemed to think we have other options for a left-back too and are tracking both Wayne Bridge and Aly Cissokho alongside Pieters.
The Mail (again) insists that Nicklas Bendtner is still our current target front player, although I still have my doubts as to whether we’d be able to top Stoke’s £7.5m bid, let alone match Arsenal’s £11m valuation of the player. Arsenal are likely to be able to hold out a while too given that they’re due for a £30m+ windfall for Fabregas’s sale to Barcelona and around £20m for Nasri’s sale to Manchester City.
I suppose it’s always possible that Ashley will fork out maybe £8m or £9m and £50k-£60k/week for Bendtner, but I’d be very surprised.
Derek Llambias took time out from his hobby of leaping out of trees onto passing mice to reassure supporters that additional player acquisitions are on the way. In last weekend’s programme notes he said:
“We are fully aware of the need to add further players to our squad and we will be working hard to try and bring the right kind of players in before the transfer window shuts in 18 days.
“They are top-quality players who will hopefully make a big impression here, and added to the quality that we already have at the club, we are all very excited about the coming months.”
So, reading between the lines, it sounds like they have identified their targets and are – in the words of Sheriff Roscoe P Coltrane – in hot pursuit.
Personally, I’m still leaning towards the idea that our target striker isn’t Bendtner and is some player who hasn’t yet (or recently) been speculated to be a target of the club.
Meanwhile, Alan Pardew dismissed speculation about his future as the betting tumbled from 10-1 to 3-1 in favour of him being sacked:
“There are people who think we will struggle and one or two pundits are predicting we will be relegated and I can see the logic in that because it is a new team,” said Pardew.
“The proof is going to be in 38 games time.”
That’s assuming you last that long Alan!
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.
cissokho would be amazing…ahh if only fat ashley wasn’t our owner.