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…)
£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…)
