Pardew ‘determined’ to land French midfielder?
Posted on March 1st, 2012 | 22 Comments |
Rumours are circulating one again about our interest in Dijon midfielder Benjamin Corgnet. I’m not entirely sure why they’ve started up again at this stage of the season but the consensus in the press is that he’s likely to move to Newcastle in the summer.
We did make a bid for him in January, about which Dijon Coach Patrice Carteron said:
“He stays. We had a direct approach from Newcastle but Benjamin is of the same opinion as us, and wants to continue to complete a full season in Ligue 1.
“At the end of the season, of course, he will be allowed to leave. It is a good thing for him to be able to stabilise at the highest level. Newcastle’s offer was very high.”
Very high eh? I wonder what sort of offer that was. According to ‘transfermarkt’ he’s valued at approximately £3.1m, although I’m still not sure where transfermarkt gets its valuations from because the French press have been talking in terms of €8m-10m.
As far as I can establish, 24 year-old Corgnet prefers a defensive midfield role but his 8 goals in 23 Ligue 1 appearances for Dijon this season shows that he can find the net too.
Arsenal, Liverpool and Aston Villa have also been linked with Corgnet but perhaps the biggest threat comes from Lyon. In mid-February Corgnet said of Lyon:
“Lyon is the city where I grew up, where all my family and all my friends are. Over the past ten years, they had a very enviable record and even though there is less talk of them today it is one of the nicest teams in the championship. They adopted a new strategy with Remi Garde. It is a strategy that pays. I heard that there was some stuff with Lyon, but I have not been approached directly.”
French radio station RMC Sports has apparently since reported that Alan Pardew is supposedly “determined to sign the player”, although I drew a blank when trying to find any recording or transcript of the RMC Sports’ feature. Not that it would have helped if I did: my grade 4 CSE struggles with written French as it is but, combined with my ropey ears (or ‘ignorance’, as my wife calls it), my verbal French is appalling.
Usual warnings about gossip apply. It sounds like we certainly did bid for him in January, but where it goes from here is anyone’s guess.
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.
just another load of bollox story.