Fortunately a change in medication meant I slept through a lot of yesterday but it was a bit of a shock to the system to wake up and find that our Captain’s off and a Mount Etna of fan opinion has ensued as a result.
There were rumblings in the French press yesterday – before the Nolan news broke – about Newcastle’s potential interest in Blaise Matuidi, a 24 year-old Angolan-French midfielder who currently plays for Saint-Étienne.
Matuidi is apparently a defensive midfielder and ‘deep-lying playmaker’ who has played all his football in France, first for Troyes and then for Saint-Étienne, scoring 7 goals in 209 appearances. He also has three senior caps for France. (more…)
Swiss midfield target?Newcastle United are allegedly pursuing yet another two midfielders in an attempt to build the largest midfield in history. Birmingham’s Craig Gardner and Bayer Leverkusen’s Tranquillo Barnetta are today’s offerings.
Of course, not all transfer speculation is true. In fact most of it isn’t. But if you ever needed an extra hint that some of it might not be true then you need to look no further than Newcastle’s alleged attempts to sign every midfielder in world football. And there’s a couple more to come in this article.
Craig Gardner has been mentioned in connection with Newcastle a few times recently and it seems we’re in a race with the Mackems to sign him having supposedly matched their £5m bid for the player.
The 24 year-old Birmingham player’s first choice of position is central midfield, although he can play on the right of midfield and as a right-back too, which might at least provide some cover for Danny Simpson. Gardner has scored 17 goals in 132 appearances which have all been for Midlands clubs, first for Aston Villa and then for Birmingham from 2010 onwards.
Last season was a fairly decent one for Gardner in which he bagged 10 goals in 37 appearances, making him the relegated club’s top scorer. (more…)
Pardew confirms interest in bothCould Demba Ba and Mevlüt Erdinç be Newcastle United’s first choice strike force next season?
As previously speculated, it does indeed seem that Alan Pardew has considerable interest in Mevlüt Erdinç.
Speaking to The Journal, Pardew said:
“Erdinç has always been on our radar. He’s a very good player and that is all I will say at the moment.
“We had a bit of a disappointment with Kevin Gameiro as he has decided to go elsewhere. We made a fantastic offer to the club and to him but these things happen.
“We tried very hard on that one, but we always knew there would be setbacks along the way and we have always had other people in mind, deals we have been trying to keep to ourselves for obvious reasons.
“We are working extremely hard to make those deals happen and I’m pretty happy with how things have gone so far. We should have another signing finished in the next few days, and we will able to confirm that one as well.” (more…)
Scott Brown: latest Toon TargetNewcastle United may be planning a raid on Celtic for both Emilio Izaguirre and Scott Brown. Izaguirre in particular looks necessary with Jose Enrique blanking Alan Pardew over his contract.
Allegedly, Newcastle are interested in Celtic captain Scott Brown. The 25 year-old midfielder started out at Hibernian and in 2007 he was transferred to Celtic for £4.4m where he’s been ever since.
Brown has scored 35 goals in 297 appearances and is now supposedly worth around about £6m, which Newcastle are said to be prepared to pay.
Quite where we’re going to put all these midfielders is another matter, unless we go for some sort of 0-10-0 formation.
Steve Stone has apparently been scouting the Scottish club for us and in particular left-back Emilio Izaguirre, which is a position that we may need to fill rather urgently given that Jose Enrique seems to be ignoring Alan Pardew’s attempts to get contract talks underway.
The Honduran left-back has apparently been on Pardew’s wish list for quite some time and it’s thought that Fraser Forster, who Celtic are very keen on taking permanently after his loan spell there last season, could be used as a deal clincher. (more…)
Carr, Ashley and PardewJust how much say does Alan Pardew have in the transfers and contract negotiations at Newcastle United?
I think we all suspect that Mike Ashley has the final say on transfers these days. Some folk have even suggested that Graham Carr is almost taking a Director of Football role and that he and Ashley are basically identifying transfer targets between them.
So what of Alan Pardew in all this? Well at the very least I’d expect him to have some input about where he feels the team needs strengthening and I’d also expect him to have a considerable say about whether or not a player should be signed. He does, after all, have to work with that player on a day-to-day basis.
Yet I can’t help but feel he’s being left in the dark about a lot of transfer and contractual matters. First there was his “Andy Carroll is not going to be sold under any circumstances” statement, which of course turned out to be completely wrong. Then there was his promise about making it a priority to get players such as Barton, Nolan and Enrique on new contracts and, whilst the latter may simply wish to go elsewhere in the end, Barton and Nolan both want to stay yet Pardew has so far been unable to keep his promise regarding these players. (more…)
