Pardew – “I don’t envisage too many coming in”
Posted on July 11th, 2012 | 84 Comments |
Speaking at his first press conference for the forthcoming pre-season programme, instead, Pardew preferred to put the emphasis on younger players such as Mehdi Abeid and Haris Vuckic breaking through for more first team action in the absence of departees such as Peter Lovenkrands, Danny Guthrie, Leon Best and several others. The Grey Gaffer said:
“I don’t envisage too many coming in.
“We have a lot of young players here who haven’t played much football.
“People like Mehdi Abeid and Haris Vuckic.
However, he was heartened that the club were still looking at players who could take the club forward, adding:
“But we are out there looking at players who will take us forward.
“We have various options still and nobody has left.”
Which was quite a strange thing to say as several first team players actually HAVE left the club, as pointed out above, albeit that the club have made two younger signings for the reserves in the form of Romain Amalfitano from Reims, and Gael Bigirimana from Coventry City.
On the seeming coolness on new signings, could this all be be a grand bluff to teams who have players coveted by the NUFC hierarchy to make it look as if we can take them or leave or leave them?
Since writing the piece above, I have heard another interview for BBC Radio Newcastle, so I thought that I should add an extract from this below, where Pardew speaks on the same topic.
This time he remarked on current targets that he was looking to bring in two, maybe three new signings. On these he remarked:
“We’re not close, but we’re making progress.
“I think certainly over the next 14 days that maybe one will come in, we’re looking to bring in two, maybe three.”
Continuing on the other theme, that of keeping existing players, he then added:
“The most important thing is keeping hold of our good players, our great players.”
“We’ve got a very good team here, and we have aspirations to improve next year.
“It isn’t easy, but so far we’ve done well, most people have been away and we’ve had a few enquiries.
“But people now realise if they want to take anyone away they have to pay way over the odds.”
Signed photos competition update
Although a few people have entered our latest competition to win a signed 16″ x 12″ photo of Papiss Cisse, along with a second prize of a signed 12″ x 8″ photo of Hatem Ben after scoring his wondergoal against Bolton, only ONE person has got every answer correct so far, so if you were thinking of entering but haven’t yet, it might be worth having a go as you would stand a VERY good chance of winning if you managed to get all of the answers right. You’ve been telt!
Poll
Phew!
“Gotta go forward if ya’ wanna go back”- Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder).
:)