Adam Maher: Precocious talent.After the news (broken on this site, incidentally) that Newcastle United have already signed a pre contract agreement with Romain Amalfitano. The latest name which has been coming up in recent reports about Newcastle United’s scouting activity is that of precocious 18 year old AZ Alkmaar midfielder, Adam Maher.
One thing which is certain is that the club have been scouting him quite closely, and if they were planning a “daring raid / swoop” on the player, the fee could be probably be in the area of around £3 – 5 million for this very promising youngster, who is the youngest player to score for any Dutch club in the Europa League (apparently). The bad news is that the club may face some fairly stiff competition from several other suitors, though this is hardly surprising with excellent young players like Maher.
Despite his young age, the Dutch-Morroccan teenager has been a regular in the AZ Alkmaar first team (who are currently topping the Dutch Eredivisie). He is a product of their youth academy, having been on the club’s books since the tender age of eleven.
Another mischief making making story in the execrable Daily Fail has been reporting that Newcastle have been looking at Maher as a replacement for Cheick Tiote. Though the players are both central midfielders with Maher also playing on the right, they are both different animals with Maher being more of the attacking and playmaking variety, and he certainly isn’t goal shy (see below).
Anyway, here are his stats for AZ Alkmaar so far (from ESPN).(more…)
Same master plan for world domination.In the wake of Newcastle United’s 2-2 draw with Tottenham Hotspur this afternoon, Managing Director, Derek Llambias, has released another club statement.
The statement once sgsin highlights the clubs finances, summer transfers, youth development, managing / coaching staff, training facilities and supporters. Basically, I’m still struggling to dissect the differences between this statement, and the recent Q&A with the Evening Chronicle a few months back.
Either way, it’s good to have some communication from boardroom to fans, and below I have included the whole statement for your viewing pleasure. I hasten to add also that the statement, unsurprisingly, has a little bit of information about our new under-soil heating.
Enjoy…
Introduction
Now that the summer transfer window has closed and the new Premier League season is underway, the board of Newcastle United Football Club wish to present this review of our progress and set out our aims for the 2011/12 campaign and beyond. (more…)
John Carver: Spilling the beans on talent quest.In a break from the usual reflections by our silver supremo, Alan Pardew, his assistant, John Carver has given an interesting and fairly extensive glimpse into Newcastle United’s quest for more talent during the current international break.
Whilst awaiting a call from agent Pardew on where his next scouting mission will take him (apparently), Carver spilled the beans on the kind of things the club will be looking at in it’s current current talent quest for players who may have the NUFC ‘X-Factor’.
He revealed:
“We’ve made a decision on the players we grade highly, we will put together the data on them,” said Carver. “We’ve got a couple of analysts beneath the backroom team who put that together.
“If he’s a centre-forward we’ll look at his movement, his scoring, his fitness stats. Then we’ll look at his value in the current market depending on age. We’re quite thorough and we compare them to players in the Premier League.(more…)
