Toon boss happy with 2011-2012Newcastle United couldn’t finish the season on a high at Goodison but few can deny they’ve had a successful season anyway. Pardew reflects on the season a bit and so does this author.
On the back of our 2011-2012 season Alan Pardew has been reflecting on things and considers it a good season, all-in-all. Pardew said:
“We have made a huge leap this year. Even just to compete with these top teams, and to finish above the great teams that we have, the players can be very proud. It is one of the finest seasons at this club.”
Pardew has also been indicating that he’s already looking to strengthen the squad, saying:
“We’re already thinking about two or three players, but I think you’ll find that a lot of the clubs who might want to do early business will have to wait until the European Championships are over.
“It’s going to be a bit like a roulette wheel, and I’m hoping that the players we’re looking at all have awful tournaments.(more…)
Who's best?Looking back over Newcastle United’s last two seasons since we were promoted from the Championship, one thing it’s hard to argue with is that most of the club’s major signings have been a success.
Much of the credit for this has gone to the club’s current chief scout, Graham Carr, who was brought into the club in February 2010 by previous manager and Carr’s former Tottenham colleague, Chris Hughton. Of the players included below, Carr was involved in all but three of them (James Perch, Demba Ba and Gabriel Obertan).
I have listed eight of the signings made since the club was promoted below. Of course, there have been more but I have left out more peripheral members of the squad such as temporary loanees like Stephen Ireland and Sheffki Kuqi, bairns for the future such as Mehdi Abeid, those who haven’t been able to make much of an impact one way or the other through injury such as Sylvain Marveaux and so on. All of the players listed below have made at least ten first team competitive appearences; here’s a brief résumé of their Toon histories so far. (more…)
Deal dead in the water now?Does the latest injury to Newcastle United target Erik Pieters scupper any chance of a transfer?
23 year-old PSV left back Erik Pieters has been an alleged target for Newcastle United for quite some time now. Last summer we reportedly offered PSV €7m for the player and PSV went so far as to say the offer was ‘good’ in terms of amount but they withdrew from negotiations when they couldn’t be sure of getting a replacement for him before the transfer window closed.
The idea that we might still sign him has been bubbling under ever since and back in April The Mirror reported that it was pretty much a ‘done deal’.
If you remember, Pieters suffered a foot injury back in October which kept him out of action for four months, and he suffered another foot injury last month the puts him out for the rest of the season and scuppers his chances of playing for The Netherlands in Euro 2012. The first injury was a broken metatarsal and the second injury is a hairline fracture, but I can’t find anything to say whether the injuries are related or even if they’re to the same foot.
Back in mid-April Pieters still hoped to be fit for Euro 2012 when he said:
“It is very disappointing news. I will strictly adhere to the medical team’s rehabilitation programme. The gravity of the injury will be known in three weeks. I will give 200 per cent to get back to match fitness.” (more…)
Amalfitano: Bringing "Champagne football" to Newcastle?As regular readers of this site will know, we usually bring you the hottest Toon news first.
Well, back in early March, I wildly speculated reported that Stade de Reims midfielder, Romain Amalfitano, had signed a pre contract agreement with Newcastle United. In truth, I wasn’t quite the first to report it. The Independent ran a fairly insignificant story reporting that Derek Llambias was “happy” with the club’s latest set of accounts, but tacked on to the end was this:
“The club yesterday completed the signing of the French winger Romain Amalfitano from Reims on a three-year deal.”
Which was odd. No one seemed to take a blind bit of notice of it at the time apart from yours truly, so I did some background research on it, eventually tracking back to this story from the in France sports journal, “L’Equipe”, which went as follows (according to my rough as a bear’s arse French translation):
“Scoring three times this season with Reims, who will rise, Romain Amalfitano will have caught the eye of recruiters from Newcastle, who will recruit for next season. According to our information, a three year contract has been proposed to the young attacking midfielder (22 years old). He arrived in Champagne in 2010 from Evian Thonon Gaillard F.C. and will be out of contract in June.” (more…)
Vertonghen - too expensive?Newcastle United are allegedly interested in Ajax’s Jan Vertonghen but is he a realistic target given the interest of some fairly big clubs?
According to The Chronicle the latest player of interest to Newcastle is Ajax captain Jan Vertonghen but, personally, I reckon he might be a bit pricey for us.
The 6ft 2.5in, 24 year-old, left-footed Belgian international is estimated to be worth £10m+ and the Dutch press seems to be reporting interest in him from Arsenal and Man Utd rather than us. Furthermore, one article suggests Arsenal’s interest stretches to €18m, which is nearly £15m and, I would suggest, well outside what we’re likely to pay for a player.
If there’s any truth in it though, we’d be after a fairly experienced player with 233 club games and 30 goals to his name, and 36 appearances for Belgium in which he’s scored twice.
His preferred position is as a centre-back but apparently he can play as a defensive midfielder too and pretty much anywhere on the left side. This sort of versatility does seem to be the sort of thing Alan Pardew likes and at 24 he seems to fit the profile of the sort of player we employ these days. (more…)
