Birmingham target, allegedlyBirmingham allegedly want Newcastle’s Leon Best. Dan Gosling and Hatem Ben Arfa gets in some early pre-season training. And Michael Owen seems to have upset a few people.
With all the speculation about who we might be buying, I’d quite forgotten that other teams might want some of our players other than Jose Enrique.
If you believe the Mail (no tittering), freshly relegated Birmingham are after Leon Best to replace Cameron Jerome who Alex McLeish seems resigned to losing. I actually thought Leon Best did a decent job for us last season, getting 6 goals in 12 games, and of all our current strikers he’s the one I’d most like to keep, but I guess it depends on who we bring in over the summer to enhance our goal-scoring capabilities.
How much do you think Best is worth anyway?
Both Dan Gosling and Hatem Ben Arfa have made an early return for pre-season training to ensure that they’re fully fit for next season. (more…)
Injured, as usual.Michael Owen hints that Newcastle United were a ‘poor team’ when he was playing for them.
Michael Owen, who has recently signed a deal to keep him at Man Utd for another year, has allegedly had a bit of a pop at the Toon. According to Twitty, he said:
“Just to answer some of your tweets. Prefer playing less often in a top team than every game in a poor team. Been there and didn’t enjoy it.
“Training every day at a high standard keeps you performing at a high level. I’m sure I have a lot to offer and so does the boss. Buzzing!”
Unfortunately he’s right – we were indeed a poor team when he was playing for us. Or should I say we were a poor team when he was queueing up outside the treatment room for us.
But despite his factual accuracy, I can’t help but feel there’s some bitterness from Owen about the criticism thrown in his direction from Newcastle fans when he upped sticks and left us relegated without so much as a by your leave. It just seemed like he didn’t care and that rankled. (more…)
Erding - Toon target?As Kevin Gameiro seems to be slipping from Newcastle United’s grasp, the foreign press seems to think we’ve turned our attentions to Melvut Erding.
There’s still a lot of “will he/won’t he” regarding Kevin Gameiro‘s potential transfer to Newcastle, but the noises coming from the player himself are making it look increasingly unlikely.
Further to my esteemed fellow author’s post yesterday, Gameiro has been indicating that Paris Saint-Germain are in hot pursuit of him and the Paris club’s players have been leaning on him a bit. Gameiro said:
“Mamadou Sakho [PSG defender and vice captain] talks about it much. He pushes me to sign. PSG is one of my list. This is a club with a history, a great club but it is not the only one on my list
“For me, the Parc des Princes stadium is the best in France. When the Velodrome in Marseille will be covered that may be different.”
From what I can gather a ‘big French club’ is second on his list after Valencia, which would relegate us to at least third and most likely out of the running. (more…)
£10m bid acceptedNewcastle United’s team could take on a distinctly French feel if the club’s transfer plans work out as they want.
Apparently Lorient have accepted Newcastle’s £10m offer for Kevin Gameiro and it’s now up to the player to decide if Newcastle can trump his first choice of Valencia.
A couple of things are definitely in our favour.
First of all, Mike Ashley’s policy of paying entire transfer fees in one go is said to have been one of the main reasons why Lorient accepted the offer. Valencia on the other hand would be paying in instalments, as per Spanish football’s standard operating procedure.
Second, in terms of persuading the player himself to come to Newcastle, it certainly won’t hurt that we have Yohan Cabaye and Hatem Ben Arfa in our squad to help their fellow countryman feel at home, at least linguistically.
On paper the triple-pronged French offensive of Cabaye and Ben Arfa in midfield and Gameiro up front looks exciting and hopefully the new Frenchies will be able to adapt to Premier League football fairly quickly. (more…)
Fuming after being left outRumour has it Newcastle United are after Dimitar Berbatov, although personally I think that’s a load of codswallop.
The Sun is allegedly the source of the rumour that Berbatov wants to come to Newcastle after being left out of Manchester United’s Champions League side that lost to Barcelona on the weekend.
And supposedly Alan Pardew would set fire to his gentleman’s area if it brought the striker to St James’ Park.
Manchester United paid Spurs £30.75m for Berbatov in 2009 but he will allegedly be available for a mere £7.5m now.
The Bulgarian forward has undoubted ability having scored 220 goals in 495 appearances at league level and 48 goals in 77 appearances for Bulgaria at international level.
But I think this is a load of rubbish personally.
First, Berbatov is 30, putting him over the age that’s generally considered club policy in terms of transfers these days (although I admit I’ve never heard either Ashley or Pardew state an absolute age beyond which a player is considered too old to join the Toon). (more…)
