Toon interest in 4 strikers and a defender?

Posted on November 8th, 2011 | 27 Comments |

Newcastle United allegedly interested in Luuk de Jong.
Luuk de Jong on Toon's Christmas list to Santa?
The international break heralds a mini ‘silly season’ as Newcastle United are reported to be interested in no less than 5 new players.

With January fast approaching and no Premier League football for two weeks, it’s inevitable that the names of potential targets will be bandied about.

Our impressive start to the season and the recent spate of injuries to our squad may both, in their own way, raise questions about where we need to strengthen things in January if we’re to continue to push hard this season.

Mike Ashley may also be somewhat re-enthused by the way things have gone and perhaps support Alan Pardew by allowing him to buy a few more players than he would have done if we had not started so well. But who are those players likely to be? The press have a list of potential contenders for us.

The first such player is Modibo Maiga, Sochaux bad-boy and Toon transfer target from the last window. According to some press reports, the deal is all but done and a four and a half year contract awaits the player as soon as trading can commence next year.

Next we have Luuk de Jong, a Dutch 21 year-old striker currently playing for FC Twente where he has scored 9 times in his 15 appearances for the Dutch side this season and once in his first International for Holland back in September against Finland. De Jong is allegedly worth £10m and press reports suggest our scouts have been tracking him for some time, as have Liverpool’s.

Blackburn’s winger/striker Junior Hoilett comes in at number 3 in this week’s chart as his club’s inability to pin him down to a new contract supposedly has Spurs, Stoke and us all sniffing around.

Huddersfield Town striker Jordan Rhodes is the next on the list. Rhodes is just 21 and already has a tally of 46 goals in 97 league games for Huddersfield. Apparently Manchester United, Stoke and Bolton are also interested in the player.

Finally (for the moment) we’re also back in the running for Birmingham City’s Liam Ridgewell although apparently we’ll face stiff competition from The Baggies for the £2m-rated defender’s signature.

So there we have it. No doubt there will be others too and your guess is as good as mine as to which – if any – of those players really are targets for our January spree. I tend to think Maiga is and I’d be surprised if Ridgewell was because at 27 he seems a little old for our typical recruitment profile but I have no idea about the others.

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

27 Responses

  1. Thats great, we’re being linked to everyman & their dog again, shows we must be doing summit right thats for sure.. lol

    My only concern is, yes we need to bring in players to strengthen the squad for the end of season push & to cover the ACoN but where are we supposedly getting the extra dosh from to cover the wages every month, as I remember reading that we’re at around 65% of revenue with our current squad & club could sustain that without help & if thats the way Ashley wants to roll, then we’re gonna have to get rid of some players to cover bring in others from my understanding of the financies.. :(

    So who will be leaving in Jan to paveway for the new faces??? Smith, Harper, Ranger, Lovenkrands, Perch etc etc…. It’s a lot easier saying than actually doing it, as the club has found our with the likes of Smith who even tho on a free transfer is still pocketing his 60k/wk wages & playing the odd game for the reserves… no one is willing to buy these out of favour players & pay their wages, so we’re stuck with them untill such times as another club wants them, which is a lont time coming imo… :(

  2. Great!!! being linked with players is NOT signing players look at the summer fiasco however I do believe that Modibo Maiga is a starter but I think I would prefer Luuk de Jong but he is gona cost £10mil+ and Cashley will only go for the cheap one’s. I await to be corrected HA!!!!

  3. Hugh “comes in at number 3 in this week’s chart” admit it, you are the reincarnation of Jim’ll Fix It Saville!

    Please Fix it for me Jim and get me 1 FB, 1 CB and 1 CF – (no midfielders thank you)
    and sell some raffle tickets for Perch (you did say silly season) Ranger (booby prize)& Smith (don’t name him, just say mystery prize)
    and donate the 30p to charity.

  4. Looking at the bleak front pages again this morning it look like Greece & Italy are about to go belly up – I suppose it’s not PC to ask if that means lots of bargain players from the mediterainian countries will be available this jan window?

  5. Supermac says: “Hugh “comes in at number 3 in this week’s chart” admit it, you are the reincarnation of Jim’ll Fix It Saville!”

    I’d prefer to be more of a Whispering Bob Harris I think.

  6. Can not see NUFC signing any new players in January.
    Might possibly go for Maiga next summer.
    The more likely striker we will sign isn’t on the media radar yet.

  7. “Arse” and “Fenwicks Window” are words that spring to mind when reading stories of possible NUFC transfer targets.

    “No capital outlay” are also words that we are familiar with.

  8. Pieters is injured & out for a couple of months – so on our past record he must be a cast-iron cert signing!
    I will make his debut round about easter (next season that is).

  10. following my post @4 – there are some big Italian clubs struggling, Inter Milan for example is 4th bottom of Seria A. The PL is the only league with 5-6 buying clubs – I can see many bargains (possibly big surprises) arriving where secure higher wages are on offer.

  11. Supermac says:

    November 8, 2011 at 10:51 am

    “Looking at the bleak front pages again this morning it look like Greece & Italy are about to go belly up – I suppose it’s not PC to ask if that means lots of bargain players from the mediterainian countries will be available this jan window?”

    Supermac, if Italy goes tits up, then there’s a decent chance that we’ll all go tits up.

  13. If Italy goes bust, Spain will follow and we’ll all be up the creek, UK has something like 70 Billion exposure although not as bad as France who have somewhere around 410 Billion !

  14. Supermac / fourfourone,

    I suppose that if everything does go tits up and we end up like Mackems, scavenging a meagre existence out of bins and such, we’ll all be doing it in Lonsdale tracksuits. So Mike Ashley will probably continue to thrive, just as he has done during the recession so far.

  15. Its a fact of history – in recessions/depressions the mass interests such as movies & sport flourish. The big mega rich movie stars lit up the dreary 20s & 30s and football grounds were packed (well into the 50s) as masses of fans sought relief from otherwise bleak lives!

    Some people get very rich in times like these, and I have a feeling that the PL is heady for a boom period.

  17. i really think. we should go for hulk at porto. The lad is immense. offload smudger and his wages and stump up some kitty for a real quality powerful no 9. Hulk & Ba up front would be battering rams in the premier league.

  18. dubtoon says:
    November 8, 2011 at 4:18 pm (Edit)

    “i really think. we should go for hulk at porto. The lad is immense.”

    If you believe in the priciple of “nominative determinism”, then it’s hardly surprising that a lad called “Hulk” has turned out to be “immense” dubtoon. :-)

  19. summerof69 says:
    November 8, 2011 at 3:48 pm

    “Any one seen this ? Possibly the worst article i have ever read and i used to read the sun.”

    Aye Summer, there were some glaring and risible innaccuracies in there, but at least they only wrote that Mike Ashley was “from closer to London than the North East” rather than going the whole hog and suggesting that he was was the son of of a jellied eel vendor and was born in the heart of Cheapside.

  20. If I remember rightly it was mentioned a few weeks ago that nufc would break even by the end of this season.
    Player sales were not taken into account with this accounting and there for we should still have some of the Andy Carroll cash left to purchase least two more players.

    I don’t think we will have much more than 15-20 million left as the cash has been used for training ground modifications and future player wages. But I do think there will be enough cash for two players at least. But I certainly won’t hold my breath for anymore than 3. In two seasons we could be making a huge profit, with tv cash and league position cash giving us a decent chance to make some headway in the league.
    I think its time we got behind ashley and start to show a little patience let’s not rock this surging steam boat and let’s get behind everyone at our club.
    Lets start the newyear with a clean slate all round and let’s hope we can get something out of our next three games.
    We are Newcastle united let us take all 9 points. Because we know we can.

    COME ONNNNN.
    NEWCASTLE UNITED WILL NEVER BE DEFEATED.
    NEWCASTLE UNITED WILL NEVER BE DEFEATED.
    HOWAY THE LADS.
    BRING ON MAN CITY AND LET’S SHOW THEM HOW TO PLAY PROPER FOOTBALL NOT OIL SLICK RICHES FOOTBALL.

  22. summerof69 says:
    November 8, 2011 at 3:48 pm

    “Any one seen this ? Possibly the worst article i have ever read and i used to read the sun.”

    “The crowd is cheering because the team’s position is higher than many expected, and higher than most have experienced in their lives. More than that, they are witnessing players from Argentina, from Africa, from European lands they scarcely knew existed, playing in their famed black and white stripes.”

    I may be wrong, but I seem to recall us being in the same position under Bobby Robson only a few years back, and Keegan, and even Dalglish before that. As for the “European lands they scarcely knew existed”, do they mean France? :lol:

    Aye you’re right there Summer, that one does take a bit of beating!

  24. Aye worky. I didn’t know Newcastle was in county Durham either. oh well you learn something new every day. And Mike Ashley is an absolute **** for not building that 200,000 seater stadium that the club needs to reach it’s full capacity. God, i hate that man.

  27. jc toon says:

    November 8, 2011 at 10:57 pm

    “How would Brek Shea or Clint Dempesey fit in with the current squad?”

    I’m guessing your from “the other side of the pond” with that question?

    Don’t really know much about Brek Shea except that he’s a big lad and he’s played on the wing for the US national side a few times?

    Of course, I have seen Dempsey quite a few times. He’s a good versatile attacking player who could fit into alot of teams. However as far as Newcastle goes, I suppose the big question is how to fit another versatile attacking player we already have, Hatem Ben Arfa (along with a few others too), into the side before thinking about someone like Dempsey.