Door open, says Lyon coachAlan Pardew intends to use yesterday’s victory over the mackems as a springboard to entice more action from the Newcastle United board in terms of transfers.
Yesterday’s result was extremely satisfying – as any win over the hapless mackems is – but I think we’d all like to see a new left-back and a new striker in before the transfer window closes.
Pardew is obviously thinking along the same lines, which I must mention to my psychiatrist in case agreeing with Alan Pardew is indicative of something worrying. Pardew said:
“A victory like today helps me with Derek and Mike to go upstairs and say, ‘Come on, let’s try to get them in this week’.
“We want to get the right players and we want to get the best value we can, and we are trying to do that.
“The group I have got is sound. They are aware to balance us up, we perhaps need a left-back in the building and we need a striker in, and that’s what we are going to try to do.” (more…)
Upbeat about transfers.Newcastle United appear to be struggling to land a new striker and a new left-back, but Alan Pardew has not given up hope. The Newcastle manager admits we’re not stronger than we were last year but thinks we will be by the end of the transfer window.
The prospect of signing Modibo Maiga seems to be fading with every day and it seems that Sochaux’s Chairman Alexandre Lacombe is going to force Maiga to see out his contract until 2014.
“There are those who speak and those who do,” said Lacombe, although quite what he meant by that is anybody’s guess, but the French press are suggesting that the door is now firmly shut in terms of Maiga transferring to Newcastle.
The window however isn’t, and Alan Pardew thinks we may still be able to nip in that way and land our man. The usually mute manager had this to say:
“He is a player we want to bring to the club. That is where that is. Negotiations are still ongoing.” (more…)
Somehow I doubt itNewcastle United are allegedly considering a move to take Wayne Bridge on loan if they fail in their attempts to sign Erik Pieters.
This is one from the Daily Mail. They claim we’d consider paying £80k/week to bring Wayne Bridge to Newcastle on a season long loan if we don’t manage to sign Erik Pieters.
Personally, I think that’s poppycock and the Mail doesn’t even attempt to justify its claims in any way whatsoever. It merely states that we will ‘consider a fresh move’ for the player if all else fails.
I rather suspect such ‘consideration’ will amount to about 2 minutes of side-splitting laughter from board room at St James’ Park. Manchester City are apparently not keen to pay any of Bridge’s wages if he goes out on loan and there are even rumours that they want £2m up front merely for the privilege of loaning a player from them.
I really can’t see any of this appealing to Ashley’s methods of running a football club. And rightly so in this case. We need to ‘build’ a team for the seasons ahead rather than just plug holes in it for the short term. (more…)
Toon want it wrapped up before derbyNewcastle United have allegedly increased their bid for Erik Pieters and still have Nicklas Bendtner in their sights, and Derek Llambias confirms the need to add further players to the squad.
Good morning. The Toon headlines are still pretty much dominated by the Joey Barton/Gervinho ‘Slappergate’ incident, which is beginning to make my Earl Grey taste a little sour and putting Tarquin, my butler, off his stride with the brushing of my tweeds in preparation for the day’s hobnobbing.
The Daily Mail comes to the rescue though, with allegations that we’ve upped our bid to £7m for much-needed left-back Erik Pieters. Presumably the hope is that the extra readies will act as a financial kick up the backside to both the player and his club and expedite transfer proceedings towards some sort of agreement ahead of next weekend’s game against the unwashed.
The weekend’s People seemed to think we have other options for a left-back too and are tracking both Wayne Bridge and Aly Cissokho alongside Pieters. (more…)
Exit door loomsWith Enrique looking more and more destined to leave Newcastle United as each day passes and with Neil Taylor signing a new deal at Swansea, the left-back situation is now a priority for the club.
Newcastle are now pretty much resigned to the fact that they’ll have to hunt for a new left-back before the summer’s out. It seems fairly odds-on now that Jose Enrique will leave and last week Alan Pardew said:
“The noises coming out of Jose’s camp are that he wants to get a new club playing Champions League football.
“We cannot offer him that at the moment, so that seems to be his focus. Hopefully that will change. It is a moving feast. We have got to be ready because if he goes, it is going to leave a big hole in the team and we need to fill it quickly. But he does travel to the United States with us.
“It is not ideal for us, as you can imagine. It is difficult. We have offered him a massive contract for this football club and he does not seem to want to sign it, so it is a very difficult position.
“We have had no concrete offers, but we are going to try and have contingency plans in place so that if we do lose X, then Y comes in.
“We are going to have to give ourselves some sort of chance, so that the deadline-day struggle we had after selling Andy Carroll does not happen again. We not want to be in the same position as last time.” (more…)
