21 - but who's our ace?Newcastle United names a 21-man squad for official notification to the Premier League.
Newcastle United have named a 21-man ‘official’ squad for the season, as required by the Premier League. Rules state that up to 17 of the squad can be anybody (although preferably a footballer), whilst the remainder – up to a maximum of 25 players in total – must match so-called ‘home-grown’ criteria. Players under the age of 21 can be played anywhere and anyhow and do not need to be included in the list passed to the Premier League.
Midfielders: Ben Arfa, Cabaye, Guthrie, Gutierrez, Marveaux, Obertan, Raylor, Smith & Tiote.
Strikers: ShAmeobi, Ba, Best & Lovenkrands.
However, we can additionally use any under-21’s (specifically, they must have been under 21 on 1st January 2011) for ‘free’, which includes the likes of: Santon, Abeid, Vuckic, Ferguson, Gosling, Ranger and Sammyobi. (more…)
Shush, just like the clubNewcastle United must now face post-transfer window life and we’ll just have to get on with it. Apparently the club are due to make some sort of announcement today to explain their transfer window failures.
Newcastle United Limited has so far remained silent about the club’s failure to recruit a much-needed striker during the transfer window. Even Alan Pardew – a man not known for being backward in the tongue-wagging department – has had nothing to say.
However, they will apparently make some sort of official statement later today.
Presumably they’ve now had sufficient time to think up an excuse, probably along the lines of “we tried our best”, “we’re not paying over the odds” and “last minute rejections by other clubs”. I think we pretty much know what it’s going to say. (more…)
The actual transfer window, allegedlyThe lack of an incoming striker for Newcastle United has left many fans disgruntled, but how does it look all told?
Newcastle’s failure to bring in a striker in this latest transfer window has caused something of a furore with many fans and I’ll come to that later, but I just wanted to summarise the transfers and see where we stand.
Goalkeepers
We’re pretty much where we were in this respect, but with the addition of Rob Elliot. Forster wasn’t here last season and Pardew obviously took a look at him in the summer, decided that he could do without him and thusly allowed him to return to Celtic, which was what Forster wanted anyway.
I have no idea what Rob Elliot is like and neither do I know where he fits into the goalkeeping pecking order, although I assume it’s behind Krul and Harper.
I think we’re pretty much unchanged in this area, although I suspect we’ll find that Krul is now first choice ahead of Harper.
Defenders
It’s almost like a straight swap with Jose Enrique leaving and Davide Santon arriving. I think Enrique was a good player and his link up work with Gutierrez along the left flank was excellent and – by reputation at least – Santon should be an effective replacement. Whether this particular player swap works out better or worse for us remains to be seen. (more…)
Cisse tops the rumour-millTransfer deadline day leaves Newcastle United in desperate need of at least a striker and Papiss Demba Cisse currently leads the rumours in that respect.
It’s transfer deadline day and hopefully we’ll have something to look forward to by way of a new striker. Whether we’re after anything more than that remains to be seen but, either way, try not to wet your pants in all the excitement.
Just to recap as to where we are as of 08:00 on the 2011 summer transfer deadline day:
First-Team Players Out : Kuqi, Ireland, Campbell, Nolan, Routledge, Enrique, Barton and of course Carroll back in January (and Forster if you want to count that).
Most likely optionErik Pieters’ alleged move to Newcastle United appears to be dead in the water, interest in Aly Cissokho is cooling, so Davide Santon seems the most likely to be our new left-back.
It seems press reports that Erik Pieters is ‘close’ to joining Newcastle are wide of the mark if the Dutch press is anything to go by.
Various Dutch newspapers are reporting that Pieters will stay at PSV after talks with Newcastle broke down last week.
It’s seems that a disagreement about transfer conditions was at the heart of the problem, although some of the press are suggesting that, because the talks were dragging on, PSV withdrew anyway because they would not be able to find anyone to replace Pieters at this late stage in the transfer window.
Pieters’ agent, Piet van der Pol, said: “PSV will not sell Peter.” (more…)
