Shikabala: Toon target?Newcastle United are supposedly interested in an Egyptian midfielder whilst Sam Allardyce wants our captain at West Ham.
Tomorrow might be a better day for transfer gossip as that’s when the French transfer window creaks open and allows a plethora of Gallic talent to enter the market. Given where our scouts seem to have been concentrating their investigations, the opening of the aforementioned window should be of particular interest to Newcastle.
In the meantime, it seems that West Ham are preparing a £3m bid for Kevin Nolan. Nolan apparently refused a two year extension to his Newcastle contract, preferring instead to get a five year extension, and is thus described as ‘unsettled’. Quite whether that means he’s actually looking to transfer is unclear. Alan Pardew is allegedly ‘battling’ to keep the player at Newcastle, although I have no idea how.
Rumour has it that Big Sam might also be interested in taking Alan Smith – who has recently been told he can leave Newcastle – to West Ham. (more…)
Only left due to KinnearA source close to Charles N’Zogbia indicates that the player really wants to return to Newcastle United and only ever left because of Joe Kinnear.
According to The Star, Charles N’Zogbia is most certainly Newcastle-bound, which would seem to suit the voters on this particular blog. As our vote stands as I write this, 80% of readers want The Zog back at the Zoon, although only 33% would pay Wigan’s ‘special’, inflated £12m price for non-Champions League contenders.
The newspaper has sallied forth and hunted down a ‘source close to The Zog’, who had this to say:
“Charles never really wanted to leave. It was Kinnear he fell out with, not Newcastle.
“He has kept in touch with several of his former team-mates and told them he would love to go back.” (more…)
Foxy: 1994/1995Former Newcastle United player Ruel Fox hands out plaudits to Alan Pardew.
Ruel Fox – our former midfielder from ‘The Entertainers’ years – appears to be a fan of Alan Pardew’s management style.
Fox scored 12 goals in 58 games for us in 94/95 before moving on to Spurs and then West Brom, and he is now a Personal Trainer in Ipswich.
Talking about our achievements last season, Fox said:
“It was a decent season. I was at the West Brom game and it sort of summed the season up – some very good stuff and some not so good stuff, but on the whole I think Newcastle will be happy with the season. The main aim for most clubs when they’ve been promoted is to stay up, and they did that with something to spare.
“After the last couple of seasons, what they needed was just to get a steady ship. Everyone knows how they went down, then came straight back up again under Chrissy Hughton, and even though there was some disruption when the club decided he wasn’t the man to take them forward, they still got some good results towards the end of the season.
“But that season is now finished and it’s down to work for the next one.” (more…)
Record transfer?Mike Ashley will have to break his own transfer record if he wants to bring N’Zogbia to Newcastle United.
Whilst Wigan will let Charles N’Zogbia go to a Champions League club for £9m, they will only let him go to another Premier League club – including us – for £12m.
Apparently this is because Wigan believe that any non-Champions League club will be a direct competitor against them to beat the drop next season, which does tend to suggest that Wigan aren’t particularly optimistic about their chances in 2011/2012.
If Ashley did rob his piggy bank to pay for N’Zogbia it would be a new record for him, beating the £10.3m he paid Deportivo for Fabricio Coloccini in August 2008, and it would also be double what we sold him to Wigan for (although we did get Ryan Taylor in with the deal).
The Journal suggests that N’Zogbia would be offered a £55,000/week contract (£2.86m/year) which would probably be at the higher end of the sorts of wages Ashley is prepared to pay players. (more…)
Bid made for NaylorIt appears that Newcastle United have submitted a formal bid for Swansea left-back Neil Taylor.
Newcastle submitted a £1m bid for Neil Taylor yesterday afternoon, following rumours over the weekend that we were closing in on the 22 year-old.
The Swansea City Chairman, Huw Jenkins, said:
“We have received a proposal from Newcastle regarding Neil but the proposal has not been accepted or rejected at this stage.
“We have received a number of enquiries from different clubs for Neil’s services and, like all bids we receive for any of our players, we will be talking it over with him when he returns from a break next week.
“Neil is a player we brought to the club this season from the Conference with Wrexham with a view to him progressing and developing with us over a number of years.
“The last thing on our mind was to sell anyone over the summer.” (more…)
