Ben Arfa on strike.Hatem Ben Arfa has vowed never to return to Marseille, and is prepared to not play football all season to try and force Marseille into letting him join Newcastle.
It’s another twist in the strory that has given us all a good laugh over the summer, and as more details become public, it would appear it isn’t our club who are messing about.
The agent of the player, and now Ben Arfa himself have both said that Marseille set out the terms for Newcastle to take the player on a loan-to-buy deal. Newcastle then met all of those terms, to the point where the Marseille chairman said at the back end of last week that a deal was nearly done, but then they decided to shift the goalposts and block the move from happening. (more…)
Ben Arfa - Tooning in next week?Just a quick update on the Ben Arfa saga as it appears to have taken yet another twist, so never let it be said we don’t keep you up to date with things.
The latest piece of information comes from the Marseille president, Jean-Claude Dassier, who claims that Hatem Ben Arfa will be a Newcastle player sometime in the next week.
Now I have no idea what if there is any truth behind this or not, but apparently Dassier said in an interview to French television channel Canal+ this morning that Ben Arfa has rejected the offers to play at Hoffenheim or Benfica in favour of a move to England, and that he should be at Newcastle by Tuesday or Wednesday. There is no mention of whether the deal would be on a loan basis or on a permanent basis, and if you wish to check the original French language article out for yourself you can do so here, or you can just take my word for it of course. (more…)
Sign him up.At this rate, the rumour linking Hatem Ben Arfa will soon become as tedius as the rumour that had Kris Boyd linked with us for such a long time.
Nothing ever came of that rumour, probably because there was nothing in it to start with, but at least there does seem to be something behind the Ben Arfa rumour.
As it stands Newcastle have a cash bid, believed to be in the region of £4 million, rejected. They have also offered a loan-to-buy option to Marseille, where we would take the player now for a smaller fee with the option of signing the 23-year old on a permanent deal at the end of the season, which would suit Newcastle United down to the ground, but not Marseille. So now we appear to be stuck. (more…)
David N'Gog - The latest Toon rumour.It’s a funny old game isn’t it? It is, absolutely, but it isn’t quite as funny as seeing what rumours get cobbled together by the press on an almost daily basis.
The latest in the long long line of highly unlikely rumours drops today as it has been revealed that Liverpool striker David N’Gog has been interesting Newcastle, and we have apparently been in touch with the bindippers over the possibility of a loan deal, according to The Daily Mirror.
Those last three words should clarify the situation as surely by now everybody knows what to expect from them. Let’s just say that accurate reporting doesn’t seem to be high on their agenda. Mind you, they aren’t the only news outlet who are guilty of it, far from it in fact! (more…)
Gattuso - Toon target? Nee chance!In amongst the realistic speculation there have been some pearlers over the course of the summer, and that doesn’t look like it is going to end soon as silly season really does begin to swing into action.
Earlier I wrote about Sol Campbell, which seems like a pefectly reasonable acquisition and wouldn’t be out of place. But some of the other names mentioned this Sunday just make me laugh. One of those names is AC Milan’s Gennaro Gattuso and the other is Real Madrid’s Mahamadou Diarra. You just have to laugh don’t you?
In a funny way I preferred it when it was apparent that we didn’t have any money as all of the wild paper speculation disappeared. Now it seems the press mongs are back out in force, fuelled by our recent £1.2 million pund spending spree on James Perch and possible capture of free agent Dan Gosling, who incidentally could be announced next Friday as that would be the end of Everton’s 14-day appeal period. (more…)
