Ayoze Perez in his new Leicester colours. It’s worrying times if you are a Newcastle United fan. Not only has Mike Ashley been unable to keep Rafa Benitez at the club, with the Spaniard agreeing to become Dalian Yifang’s new manager, but Ayoze Perez has left, signing for Leicester City for no less than £30 million.
But will the second big departure of the summer result in several other key players vacating St James Park? Sean Longstaff has been linked continuously with Manchester United. It has been widely reported that Longstaff’s representatives have met with Manchester United to discuss a possible move this summer. (more…)
Perez after his first Toon hat-trick. Like Brexit has distracted most people in the UK from other political issues, so talk of a certain takeover has dominated the minds of we Toon fans in recent weeks, including the stories in this ‘blog. However, in this piece I mean to put that right by concentrating on the notable improvement in form of Ayoze Perez in the latter part of last season, and why this might be.
To get straight to the point, until last season, Perez hardly ever played right wing in a Newcastle United shirt, he was primarily a second striker, occasionally filling in as a centre forward or left winger as needs must in a threadbare Ashley squad.
However, since around December of 2018, Rafa Benitez switched him to a new position on the right of a cosy threesome nestling behind Salomon Rondon and whilst his assist stats haven’t really changed, his goal stats have been transformed from mediocrity to world class levels. (more…)
Cabella – perhaps the player who fans have highest expectations of.Newcastle have been fairly active in this summer’s transfer window, signing six new players so far.
This is just a brief overview of each of them.
Remy Cabella
There’s some argument about how much we paid Montpellier for the attacking midfielder. Newcastle claims it was £7m and Montpellier claims it was closer to £11.5m (Transfermarkt has it at £8.8m).
Louis Nicollin – the Montpellier chairman – has been less than complementary about Cabella’s move to Newcastle. When we tried to sign Cabella earlier in the year, Nicollin said Cabella would be “bored sh*tless” in Newcastle and then, when we finally got him, Nicollin said:
“He wanted to go. I wasn’t happy, but I told him, ‘Congratulations’. In England, there is Arsenal, Manchester City, Manchester United, which are above Newcastle, but Newcastle is a club with a lot of French. He likes them, so great.(more…)